Fostering quality and well-being: remote work strategies in italian SMEs

This study explores how remote work is interpreted and practiced in Italian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), drawing on 90 semi-structured interviews across 30 organizations. Adopting an exploratory and interpretive approach, the study investigates how employees experience remote work in relation to well-being, spatial flexibility, and non-remoteable tasks. Rather than a uniform model, remote work in SMEs emerges as a situated and negotiated practice, shaped by organizational culture, life trajectories, and structural constraints. The findings identify three interrelated patterns: remote work as a fragile resource for well-being, spatial autonomy as both empowerment and pressure, and hybrid models developed through relational adaptation rather than formal strategy. The study contributes to current debates on remote work by highlighting how flexibility and autonomy in SMEs are contingent upon informal practices, interpersonal trust, and uneven domestic infrastructures. The paper concludes with implications for policy and organizational practice, calling for context-sensitive approaches to remote and hybrid work that recognize the diversity of roles, biographies, and spatial arrangements.