Numerical Flexibility Research Articles

Folgen der Finanzkrise: Wie robust ist der deutsche Arbeitsmarkt? / Consequences of the financial crisis: How robust is the German labour market?

Abstract In Folge der Finanzkrise ging die deutsche Wirtschaftsleistung im Jahre 2009 in einem bisher nicht da gewesenen Umfang zurück. Die Finanzkrise stoppte den bis in den Herbst 2008 andauernden Aufschwung am Arbeitsmarkt und führte im Nachgang zu Arbeitsplatzverlusten und einem Anstieg der Arbeitslosigkeit. Trotzdem zeigt sich der hiesige Arbeitsmarkt insgesamt ziemlich robust und ist wieder im Aufwärtstrend. Zu verdanken ist dies einer von Arbeitgebern, Arbeitnehmern und öffentlicher Hand praktizierten Beschäftigungsstabilisierung, die auf einem hohen Maß an internnumerischer Flexibilität und einem rationalen Verhalten aller Beteiligten beruht. Als Konsequenz ist jedoch - trotz der unverkennbaren wirtschaftlichen Erholung - eine Phase mit zunächst schwachem Beschäftigungswachstum zu erwarten, die den Arbeitsmarktzugang für wettbewerbsschwächere Personen erschweren wird.

Delivering Flexibility: Contrasting Patterns in the French and the UK Food Processing Industry

AbstractThis article provides a comparative analysis of changes in numerical and functional labour flexibility in the French and the UK food processing industry. Based upon case study data, it explores the interaction between competitive pressures and institutional and regulatory structures and their impact on workplace practices. The findings indicate that, faced with a similar competitive environment, firms in both countries have sought to increase labour flexibility. However, the predominant forms of flexibility vary across the two countries, partly reflecting the characteristics of national labour market institutions. Numerical flexibility dominates in the UK, with high levels of paid overtime and temporary agency work. In contrast, French workplaces rely more on internal functional flexibility while also achieving numerical flexibility through seasonal variations in work schedules and a wide range of short‐term employment contracts.

Firms' Innovation Activity and Numerical Flexibility

This study investigates the relationship between manufacturing firms' innovation activity (measured by product innovation, process innovation, and R&D activities) and their numerical flexibility (proxied by the rate of fixed-term contracts). Estimates using data from Spain's Survey on Firms' Strategies (EESE) for the years 2000–2002 reveal a non-monotonic relationship: a firm's probability of innovating and carrying out R&D increased as the rate of use of temporary and other non-core workers increased, but only up to a threshold, beyond which this probability decreased.

Employer preferences, collective agreements and the Australian resources sector: a paradox of limited commodification?

ABSTRACTThere is a commonly held view that firms in high‐wage/skill‐intensive sectors will tend to provide wages and working conditions that are above market‐clearing levels. This article empirically examines this claim by analysing the content of all collective agreements concluded in the resource sector in Australia after the enactment in 2006 of the Workplace Relations Amendment (Workchoices) Act. This legislation gave employers unprecedented ability to place downwards pressure on employee entitlements. In the resource sector, however, the quantitative results indicate that firms maintained, in the main, substantive standards but used extensively key regulatory provisions to gain an unprecedented level of control over both functional and numerical flexibility.

Flexibility practices, wages and productivity: evidence from Norway

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to test whether the use of numerical and functional flexibility practices in firms affect their performance.Design/methodology/approachA combined employer/employee Norwegian data set is used to estimate production function like equations. The data stem from a questionnaire among Norwegian work organizations conducted in 2003 and are supplemented by register data from Statistics Norway about the organizations and their employees.FindingsNumerical flexibility measures are negatively associated with wages and productivity per employee, although the association is stronger with wages than with productivity. This supports the idea that numerical flexibility fits with a low‐cost strategy. It is also found that a negative association between functional flexibility and wages and productivity per employee, with the association once again stronger with wages than with productivity, contrary to the hypothesis. The idea that high‐commitment human resource (HR) management has positive effects on wages and productivity was confirmed by other indicators of HR management.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper is limited by a cross‐sectional design and its relatively simple indicators of numerical and functional flexibility, which only show whether certain practices are used, rather than the intensity of their use.Originality/valueThis is one of the first studies that tests the effects of both numerical and functional flexible work practices on wages and productivity in a regulated labour market.

The Effects of Institutional and Organizational Characteristics on Work Force Flexibility: Evidence from Call Centers in Three Liberal Market Economies

This comparative study examines survey data from 464 call centers in the United States, 167 in the United Kingdom, and 387 in Canada to explore two questions: whether institutional differences shape employers' choices of ways to improve work force flexibility, both numerical and functional; and whether strategies for numerical flexibility and functional flexibility are related. The results suggest that institutional differences across these liberal market economies—specifically, in dismissal regulations and union strength—did affect how employers chose to achieve work force flexibility. For example, the use of part-time workers was more common in countries with more stringent rules regulating dismissals. Organizational characteristics also mattered, with outsourced firms being more likely than in-house firms to use part-time workers. Evidence also suggests that managers used numerical flexibility and functional flexibility strategies as substitutes: higher employee job discretion was associated with both lower dismissal rates and a lower likelihood of temporary use.

The Role of Human Resource Systems and Competitive Strategies in Hospitality Organizational Performance in Kenya

The past decade has witnessed increased scholarly interest in the effects of human resource systems on organizational performance. However, the focus has now shifted towards the nature and causes of these outcomes. Consequently, a consensus is emerging that informed understanding of the interaction between organizational strategy and human resources will be significant in accounting for these empirical outcomes. A cursory glance at the human resource practices in Kenyan hotels suggested limited evidence of the use of functional flexibility and greater reliance on numerical flexibility. In Kenya, there is no readily available record of empirical research done on choices of employment systems along criteria similar to functional and numerical flexibilities. This study is aimed at investigating the relationships between human resource systems, competitive strategies, and business performance in the Kenyan hotel industry. The research was conducted in Nairobi and Mombasa whereby the population mainly comprised managerial and non-managerial employees drawn from the hotels selected in the aforementioned cities. Purposive sampling was used to select hotels while stratified sampling was applied to obtain 160 participants to whom questionnaires were administered. Data was analyzed using chi-square goodness of fit test, Kruskal-Wallis one-way analysis of variance, and descriptive statistics. The research revealed that functionally flexible human resource systems in conjunction with differentiation strategies are associated with high organizational performance, whereas numerically flexible human resource systems and cost reduction strategies are linked with low organizational performance. Additionally, the research equally found out that independent hotels pursued numerically flexible human resource systems in conjunction with cost reduction strategies whereas chain hotels applied functionally flexible human resource systems and differentiation/focus strategies.

Flexible Employment and Inequality in Europe

Since the crisis of the Fordist ‘golden age’ with its corollaries of stable, full-time, full-life, (male) full-employment and of full-welfare entitlements, ‘flexibility’ has become a sort of ‘magic world’ to address almost all kind of welfare-and-labour market needs for re-equilibrium. As a matter of fact, flexibility is a multi-dimensional term. Following Atkinson (1984) we can briefly recall the four different types of labour market flexibility, indicating opposite goals and purposes. Numerical flexibility and functional flexibility do not need further explanation here (see Giesecke in this session). The two other forms are temporal flexibility, that is the possibility to adjust working time and working hours according to the needs of the employer or in theory also the employees, and finally wage flexibility that is a firm's possibility to adjust wage levels. Yet, these flexibility types are not seen as equally leading to insecurity; rather, some may introduce insecurity in individuals’ labour market careers, while others may play a crucial role in upskilling the workforce. While temporal flexibility has been mainly addressed in terms of part-time diffusion, the lion's share has been done by the trade-off between numerical and functional flexibility (that is, external and internal forms of flexibility). If the mainstream labour economics debate since the early 1980s has assumed numerical flexibility as proxy for labour market efficiency, the European socio-economic literature has pointed out that diversified quality production in small and medium size, highly innovative firms requires functional forms of flexibility to their skilled workforce [the reference here is to Piore and Sabel (1984) and the north-Italian district economy as well as the ‘Rhine model of capitalism’ as opposed to mass, ‘neo-Fordist’ low-quality production].

Self-managed work teams: a lean or an autonomous teamwork model?

The paper examines how similar Self-Managed Work Teams (SMWTs) are to paradigmatic industrial teams – the lean teamwork, the sociotechnical autonomous group and the traditional Fordist group – highlighting their technical/structural, governance and normative characteristics. The SMWTs from two Portuguese industrial firms are analysed using the case-study methodology. Resemblance to the lean teamwork model is more evident than with any other group model. Team members perceive high job enrichment, what resembles the autonomous work group model. However, several team members maintain narrow jobs, numerical flexibility is more evident than functional flexibility and team management comes mainly from outside, which are some of the features close to the 'old' Fordist group. Finally, cooperation behaviours and attitudes between team members are clear features in these teams, but the cognitive dimension of cooperation, similar to collective competence, is not yet noticeable.

Temporary Employment and Strategic Staffing in the Manufacturing Sector

While prior research has identified different ways of using temporary workers to achieve numerical flexibility, quantitative analysis of temporary employment has been limited to a few key empirical indicators of demand variability that may confound important differences. Our analysis provides evidence that many manufacturers use temporary workers to achieve what we call planned and systematic numerical flexibility rather than simply in a reactive manner to deal with unexpected problems. Although temporary work may provide many benefits for employers, a key function appears to be the provision of numerical flexibility not to buffer core workers but to externalize certain jobs.

Workplace flexibility and innovation

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyse the moderator effect of inter‐organizational cooperation in the relationship between workplace flexibility and innovation performance.Design/methodology/approachPostal survey to a sample of manufacturing and service firms. Hierarchical regression.FindingsIt was found that innovation performance is positively associated to internal functional flexibility, and negatively to external numerical flexibility and outsourcing. Inter‐organizational cooperation moderates the relationships between functional flexibility, external numerical flexibility and outsourcing with innovation performance.Research limitations/implicationsThe study's single country setting could limit the generalizability of the findings. Longitudinal as opposed to cross‐sectional data are needed for studying the causal assumptions reported here.Practical implicationsThe results of this study suggest that high‐cooperation firms may compensate the negative impact of external flexibility and perform better than low‐cooperation firms. External knowledge and cooperation can be complementary. Managers should take into account that the benefits from external workplace (e.g. access to new knowledge) may be enhanced in the context of inter‐organizational cooperation.Originality/valueTo the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that tests whether inter‐organizational cooperation moderates the relationship between external numerical flexibility and innovation performance. The paper also investigates and applies internal and external flexibility in a single study which allows to compare how each of them impacts innovation performance.

Seniority-Based Pay and Labour Market Adjustment (Remuneration a L'Anciennete Et Ajustement Du Marche Du Travail)

The labour market's ability to adjust to the current demographic shock is a central concern for labour market policies. An aging population could affect the economy's ability to adjust, not only to the aging population shock itself, but also to those associated with the business cycle, international trade and technological changes (Kuhn, 2003). This study contributes to discussions about the ways in which organizations adjust to such an increasingly turbulent environment. Among others, seniority-based pay has been identified as a factor that could potentially hinder an organization's ability to adjust to the market, within the context of an aging workforce. This study focuses on the use of non-standard jobs (or numerical flexibility) and variable compensation as strategies to avoid seniority-based pay. Using unique data that match employers and employees at the micro level, we investigated the link between the demographic composition of workplaces and the adoption of either or both > strategies. Consequently, we conclude that there is no link between workplace demographics and the adoption of variable compensation. However, a high proportion of older workers (45 years and older) in the workplace is positively related to the use of numerical flexibility. Moreover, a complementarity in the use of both strategies emerged from our study. The implications of these results on policies are numerous. If organizations continue experiencing difficulties in resorting to flexible compensation, they will likely continue to adjust by relying on numerical flexibility. While this type of flexibility allows older workers to ease into retirement gradually, women to cope with both working and caring for children or aging parents, and youths to combine work and studies, it can also have detrimental effects. Over time, this flexibilization strategy can lead to an underinvestment in training, a lack of savings for retirement and an increase in wage inequalities. The main challenge of the generation of public policies lies in the identification of an effective comprise between incentives and activation programs that would allow a balance between economic imperatives (flexibility) and social aspirations (security).

Flexibility through HRM in management consulting firms

PurposeThis paper aims to examine how functional and numerical flexibility can be successfully combined without workforce segmentation or flexible employment contracts, by implementing a highly integrated human resource management (HRM) system.Design/methodology/approachSix case studies were conducted between January 2002 and June 2003 in Portuguese affiliates of multinational management consulting firms using a grounded theory approach.FindingsEvidence from the case studies showed that some of these companies were able to explore both functional and numerical flexibility in a combined and interdependent way, by operating a tightly run and highly coordinated set of HRM practices geared towards the development of internal labour markets.Research limitations/implicationsThe study uses a sample of large multinational companies in a single sector, which limits the scope of these findings.Practical implicationsIt is suggested that a strategy combining numerical and functional flexibility through an integrated set of HRM policies and practices will be more effective than segmenting the workforce or choosing between those two sources of flexibility.Originality/valueThe paper presents a new breadth for the role of HRM in achieving flexibility. Theoretically, it challenges the established notion that commitment‐based HRM serves only functional flexibility and that numerical flexibility can only be achieved through precarious employment.

Telework adoption, change management, and firm performance

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyse the contribution of human resource (HR) commitment practices to firm performance through the adoption of workplace practices that require the organisational climate created by HR commitment practices.Design/methodology/approachThe approach is a survey of 156 Spanish firms and statistical test of research hypotheses through structural equation modelling.FindingsThe results indicate that the extent that employees have access to HR commitment practices and HR social benefits is positively related to the intensity of telework adoption. Firm performance is positively associated to the intensity of telework adoption, functional flexibility and internal numerical flexibility, and negatively related to external numerical flexibility. HR commitment practices impact directly and indirectly on different measures of firm performance.Research limitations/implicationsCross‐sectional, survey‐based data that cannot infer causality. Longitudinal and qualitative designs are needed to get a better understanding of the relationships. A follow‐up study of employees perception of several variables analysed in this study (e.g. access to HR commitment practices and employee benefits) could reveal possible contradictions between what policies managers claim there exist, and what policies employees perceive to exist.Practical implicationsThe adoption of HR commitment practices can facilitate the organisational change required by the adoption of telework.Originality/valueThe findings provide evidence that HR commitment practices are indirectly related to firm performance through their effects on the use of flexibility practices like telework that require organisational climates containing high levels of trust.

The co‐evolution of functional and numerical flexibility: do technology and networking matter?

This study explores the relationship between functional and numerical flexibility and the moderating effects of information and communication technology use and networking by investigating the relative predictive power of two approaches: contingency and configuration. The direction of the relationship between the two modes of flexibility depends on the type of flexible staffing arrangement used. Contractors and temporaries are shown to serve different aims and to have different opportunities for evolution.

Restructuring Organisations While Striving for Flexicurity: A European Perspective

This paper deals with the topic of company restructuring from a European flexicurity perspective. We first describe the European discourses on flexicurity and company restructuring. This shows that the emphasis lies especially on employment security and income security, which in the case of restructuring is combined with external numerical flexibility. The EU, however, also calls for anticipation and positive management of restructuring, which necessitates early intervention, for instance by training employees or facilitating their transitions to other companies. The EU codifies its ideas concerning employment policy among others in employment guidelines. These are based on the labour market challenges of Member States and are thus also a reaction to their past employment policy efforts. Our data analysis shows that there were very different flexicurity efforts at the national level amounting to different challenges for balancing flexibility and security in case of company restructuring. Such differences are important, because they determine the context in which companies restructure. Given the available national facilities such as a good social security system or a well functioning labour market, employees can find securities outside the company borders. These securities may be strengthened if companies actively cooperate with stakeholders at the regional or sector level, such as social partners, local governments, or organisations that facilitate the transitions between jobs. Moreover, these actors can seek other possibilities to combine flexibility and security.

Teleworking and workplace flexibility: a study of impact on firm performance

Purpose– The purpose of this article is to explore the relationship between teleworking adoption, workplace flexibility, and firm performance.Design/methodology/approach– Empirical survey of a representative sample of 479 small‐ and medium‐sized firms. Data gathered through interviews with company managers using a structured questionnaire. A t‐test used to analyse the mean differences of flexibility dimensions between companies, and a regression analysis used to study the impact of teleworking and other flexible workplace practices on firm performance.Findings– Firm performance is positively related to the use of teleworking, flexitime, contingent work and spatial decentralisation. Teleworking firms use more flexitime, have more employees involved in job design and planning, are more intensively managed by results, and use more variable compensation. The relationship of teleworking and external workplace flexibility is not so conclusive. Measures of external flexibility like subcontracting or contingent work are not associated with teleworking but spatial decentralisation is positively associated.Research limitations/implications– A limitation of this research is the measurement of flexibility at the firm level and the use of cross‐sectional data. To the extent that organisations may obtain functional and numerical flexibility by means of their relations to other organisations in networks, the most appropriate unit of analysis may be the network which it has implications for future longitudinal studies.Practical implications– Flexibility is a source of competitive advantage. Enhancing flexibility may be costly in the short run, but it gets easier over time. Firms become more flexible because their managers emphasise the importance of flexibility and because they practice being flexible. A self‐reinforcing process then begins. The relationships between the different forms of flexibility are important to understand the interaction between the dynamic control capacity of management and the responsiveness of the organisation.Originality/value– The article analyses the relationship between teleworking adoption and other flexibility dimensions.

Do Countries Matter? Explaining the Variation in the Use of Numerical Flexibility Arrangements Across European Companies Using a Multi-Level Model

Do countries matter, especially compared to other aspects that affect the flexibility behaviours of companies? Many studies on the labour market assume that there are country differences, cross-national variances, and that it is a crucial factor in explaining the actual practices of the labour market by individuals and companies. The supposition is that although there are variations across countries, the behaviour of actors within the country is rather homogenous. Thus, due to country level characteristics, the actors within the country are seen to act similarly. This is due to the fact that individuals and individual companies are restricted within the country due to their institutional frame, cultural and social boundaries. However, this does not necessarily mean that actors are completely restricted within these boundaries. This becomes more evident when we are dealing with labour market flexibility options, for this can be developed (in companies or perhaps by individuals) as a coping mechanism to overcome the restrictions of society. This paper asks the questions, do countries matter, and to what extent it does matter and how it matters. It addresses this issue by first comparing the variance of each level under examination, that is, the country, sector and company level, through the use of a multi-level random effects model. The examination of the variance of each level will allow us to see to which extent countries matter. Also this model allows us to see how factors that explain the flexibility behaviours of companies show different effects across countries to answer the question how countries matter in an exploratory manner. The issue of flexibility is addressed uniquely in this paper in two aspects. Unlike many of the previous studies on this issue, this paper uses a broader definition of flexibility, thus, it perceives labour market flexibility as a method used for the needs of workers as well as those of employers or companies. In other words, as companies facilitate their adaptation to business cycles through labour market flexibility, workers adapt to life cycles through it. Based on this definition, flexibility practices used within companies can be measured two dimensionally, on one side its overall level and another to whom it is (more) geared towards. Also, unlike studies that focus on one or few specific arrangements, this paper does not examine various flexibility options as separate entities. It examines the practices as a whole, i.e. the use and the combination of various arrangements in achieving numerical flexibility. The data used here is the European Survey of Working-Time and Work-life Balance (ESWT) from the European Foundation of the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions. This survey covers 21000 establishments in 21 EU member states for the years 2004/2005. The outcomes of this study show that being within a certain country is indeed an important factor in explaining the differences between companies in taking up flexibility options. However, the variance between companies within a country is much larger, especially when considering the flexibility options that are geared towards the needs of employers. Compared to country and company levels there are small differences between sectors within countries. Of the company level characteristics, size of the company, worker composition, industrial relation aspects, and variations in work loads were important determinants of the flexibility practices within companies. Also it seems that the effects of explanatory variables are different across the European countries. For flexibility options that are used for company's production needs being within certain sectors have different implications across countries. For flexibility options that are used for worker's work-life balance needs, industrial relations aspects of the company, thus the existence of working time agreements and employee representatives have different implications across countries. There seems to be a division with the EU 15 and the new accession countries in these effects where the relationship as well as the strength of the effect changes. There are some evidence that companies may use work-life balance options as incentives to recruit and maintain their skilled work force, as we can see the countries where labour force demand is strong the effect of proportion of skilled workers in the provision of flexibility options for workers is stronger, and visa versa. Also collective agreements on working time may help the use of various flexibility option for both worker's needs as well as company's needs, especially in countries where flexibility options are not widely and frequently used.

Generalized characteristic interface conditions for high-order multi-block computation

In practical fluid computation with structured grids around complex geometries, singular points with metric discontinuity can frequently be found. Generally, the grid singularities may cause numerical oscillations when some high-order finite difference scheme is applied. Recently, an excellent theory has been proposed which solves the above singular problem by block decomposition along the singular surface and by imposition of the characteristic interface conditions (CIC) on the block interface. However, the original theory has constraints on the mathematical treatment of the block interface, and therefore prevents numerical flexibility from a practical point of view. In this article, in order to extend the functions of the original CIC, we propose the generalized characteristic interface conditions (GCIC). Proper numerical test analysis is conducted to validate the performance of the GCIC, and as a practical application, multi-block computation is performed with the GCIC applied to complex geometry.

Modernisation or casualisation? Numerical flexibility in public services

‘Flexibility’ is a key feature of the government's modernisation agenda. The government does not define the kind of flexibility it aims to promote in its modernisation agenda; but data indicates that numerical flexibility, in the form of temporary work, is already a characteristic of public-sector employment, particularly in local government. This paper reports on research data that highlights the way numerical flexibility undermines other key aspects of public-service delivery and the modernisation agenda, such as equal opportunities and recruitment and retention. It argues that the poorer terms and conditions of temporary workers provide additional support for trade union claims of the existence of a ‘two-tier workforce’ in local government.