Labor Motivation in Small Teams: Employee-Employer Interaction in Russian Microenterprises

Labor motivation in small teams of Russian micro-enterprises represents one of the least studied problems in modern economic sociology. The specific nature of socio-labor relations in the context of micro-business, where informal practices systematically prevail over formal institutions, necessitates a fundamental revision of classical theoretical approaches. As the study demonstrates, a hybrid motivational system becomes the key mechanism in this environment. It is built on compensating for the systemic deficit of formal guarantees, such as stable pay or social benefits, through personalized attention from the manager, flexible working conditions, and the integration of the employee into the quasi-family relations of the team. However, existing motivation theories, initially developed for analyzing large corporate structures, prove incapable of adequately accounting for the specifics of personalized relationships that form in small teams. The aim of the article is to analyze the theoretical and methodological foundations of researching labor motivation in micro-enterprises and to develop an alternative conceptual model that allows for the investigation of compensatory motivation mechanisms under conditions of the total dominance of informal practices.