Flexible Organizations and the New Working Life

What are we actually talking about when we talk of flexibility in organizational settings? Do flexible forms of organization lead to varied, challenging and autonomous work or do they have a negative impact on working conditions? These questions are confronted by a group of specialist authors including Stephen Ackroyd, Harriet Bradley, Jan Ch. Karlsson, Philippe Mossé and Michael Rose, who discuss the concept of flexibility in relation to employment practices, organizational structure, cultural peculiarities and network arrangements in France, Italy, Norway, Sweden and the UK. While the question of workplace flexibility has been much debated in recent years, the main issues discussed have been the practice of non-standard forms of employment such as part-time work. This book is distinctive in dealing with flexibility related to organizational arrangements, organizational culture and network arrangements, and in assessing the combined effects of different arrangements in terms of manpower, structure, culture and networks on flexibility. Preface; Introduction, Helge Ramsdal and Egil J. Skorstad; The ambiguity of flexibility, Egil J. Skorstad; The impact of flexibility on employee morale and involvement: large-sample findings for UK workplaces, Michael Rose; Whose flexibility? British employees' responses to flexible capitalism, Harriet Bradley; A package of flexibility?, Birgitta Eriksson and Jan Ch. Karlsson; Protected, firm-specific, and scarce: explanations of non-standard forms of employment, R. Oystein Strom; Combining flexibility and workers' motivation: lessons from a study on Italian and French hospitals, Philippe R. Mosse; Striving for flexibility, attaining resistance: culture clashes in the Swedish rail industry, Henrietta Huzell; The re-organization of manufacturing and the emergence of a flexible economy in the UK, Stephen Ackroyd; The quest for flexibility and governmental regulations of working life: the case of the 2005 Norwegian worker protection and working environment act, Helge Ramsdal; What's special about the Nordic countries? On flexibility, globalisation and working life, Tor Claussen; Concluding remarks. The complex dynamism of the flexible organization, Egil J. Skorstad; Index.