Flexible Work Practices Research Articles

Primary Flexibility — the Flexible Firm and its Determinants

The aim of this paper will be to identify the factors determining the use of ‘non‐standard employment contracts’ or what we term ‘primary flexibility’. While ‘standard employment contracts’ relate to full‐time, permanent jobs, non‐standard employment contracts concern part‐time or temporary labour and combinations of the two. In the literature non‐standard employment contracts have been lumped together with other flexible working practices, (e.g. overtime or shiftwork), under the umbrella of ‘flexibility’ or the concept of the ‘flexible firm’, which may employ one or a number of labour supply adjustment mechanisms in response to product market demand volatility. ‘Working practices’ are arrangements appertaining to the organisation of the workforce within the pre‐established basic contractual boundaries of the job, (i.e. whether it is full or part‐time, permanent or temporary). Clearly, such an amalgam of non‐standard forms of employment and flexible working practices, an organisation's use of which carries the tag ‘flexible firm’, can be misleading. The flexible firm is held by some to be the antithesis of the internal labour market (ILM) form of employment structure, in which labour is a quasi‐fixed factor of production. However, flexible working practices obviously can, and do, operate within both ILM structures and non‐standard forms of employment. The concept of the flexible firm, therefore, requires tighter definition. We would define the flexible firm as one which embodies non‐standard employment contracts for the majority of its workers, or primary flexibility. (‘Primary’ because flexibility is built into the job contract rather than superimposed). The flexible firm, thus defined, is indeed the antithesis of an ILM structure. Flexible working practices or ‘secondary flexibility’, as noted above, may operate within a flexible firm or an ILM employment structure.

Flexible Working Practices in European Engineering

Peter Needham, Director of Studies at Ashridge Management College and Nigel Donaldson of the EEF describe the Study Tour organised by Ashridge and the Engineering Employees Federation (EEF) in March 1988 and draw out some of the lessons learned. The objective was to offer an opportunity to managers from EEF member companies to study at first hand how European Engineering companies were approaching flexible working practices.

Flexibility in employment: developments in the hospitality industry

The debate which has been developed in recent years around the trends towards introducing more flexible working practices into organisations has spawned a literature which is largely centred on the manufacturing industries. Since the labour force in the service sector tends to be generally less organised and management have greater control over industrial relations matters, it has been assumed that the flexibility debate has little relevance for this area. This article examines one area of the service sector, public sector catering, which does not conform to this model and reports on the recent developments in flexibility which have taken place here.

New Technologies, Flexible Work Practices, and Regional Sociospatial Differentiation: Some Observations from the United Kingdom

Changes in production in the 1980s from Fordist to post-Fordist or flexible accumulation strategies are analyzed. After a discussion of the rise of the ‘flexible firm’, empirical evidence is drawn from the United Kingdom, and possible sociospatial scenarios that may arise from these changes are discussed.

Industry

Billingham‐based company Tioxide UK Ltd, specialising in the production of titanium pigments, has won The Daily Telegraph/IPM personnel management achievement award, now in its second year. Tioxide UK's entry involved the introduction of “Staff Status” to the company personnel policy, facilitating improved productivity and production through flexible working practices and common terms and conditions of employment for staff.