Digital economy, industrial relations and entrepreneurship: the case of Greece

The emergence of an apparently new way of contemporary societies with broad digital transformation of all industry, leads to radical changes in entrepreneurship, labour relationships, business models and even in the perception and the function of the market. Referring briefly to the history of the capitalism and its transformations for example a) The Luddism movement opposing the development of new technologies; b) The modernization of society in the 60’s; c) The post-Fordism period and d) the phenomenon of China, the digitization of commercial transactions of all kind of products and services is a “new chapter” of contemporary capitalism development. More specifically the diffusion of digital content in all sectors, the need for highly specialized digital skills and the advent of new workplaces transform labour relations, creating additional regulatory challenges that needed to be addressed. The growth in flexible working, teleworking and homeworking using ICT innovations materializes labour relations and identifies new organizational models. The sharing economy is a fertile ground for internet platforms that enable commercial transactions by utilizing internet connectivity. The recent predominance of large scale internet platforms, such as Uber, Airbnb, Spotify that destroys traditional professions and destabilizes sectors have already motivated collective action in several societies (e.g. “Proposition F” in San Francisco Referendum 2015). However in Greece all this transformation “passes” through extensive reforms, covering most policy areas, imposed by the TROIKA and the MEMORADUM during the period of crisis. In this paper we are going to examine the impact of this transformation on a society with special characteristics –as is the Greek society- with the predominance of the micro enterprises which employ less than 9 employees, the low performance in the ICT adoption, as well as the fragmented small ownership that contributed to the development and expansion of small entrepreneurship and self-employment. Our purpose is to address the following themes: • To what extent these transformations will lead to the elimination of some professions in the Greek market? • To what extent they will result in the elimination of the physical commercial stores in Greece? • To what extent they will force millions of people into unemployment? • How effective is the consumer/the end-user to incorporate all the process of the activities of the value chain? • What is the role of the Greek state concerning the policies of deregulation, market-making and re-regulation in the construction of the digital economy?