The full title of the project is 'Business and Welfare – Companies' preferences
and their collective action in the European Union' (BAWEU) – agreement
number VS/2020/0141 – financed by European Commission's DG employment.
The project covers Denmark, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Slovakia.
The project is coordinated by the Italian research team (University of Milan).
The project has two specific research goals:
1. To better understand how homogenous or differentiated business' preferences
toward welfare policies are changing in a post-industrial and global economy
2. To better understand how the role of employers' associations is evolving in
expressing and representing employers' preferences
The research goals of the project lead to four main research questions:
• In the debate and in the welfare reforms, at what level of action are
companies placed? How much does the business–unions–governments
model still exist? How much are they willing to support a 'socialization of
risk' and for what reasons?
• How much do companies support the need for collective action? In relation
to social policies, are multinationals becoming rule makers in terms of
individual action or in some cases (which ones?) do they also prefer to act
collectively?
• In relation to welfare policy preferences, are there differences between
manufacturing and the service sector and within these sectors?
• What is the role played at the EU level as a forum for companies to foster
their social policy preferences and to discuss with institutions and trade
unions? In this respect, how does the interaction among different national
business associations work at the EU level (e.g. Business Europe)?