Employee Relations: Volume 20 Issue 5

Employment flexibility and industrial relations arrangements at organisation level: A comparison of five European countries

Patrick Gunnigle, Thomas Turner, Michael Morley

This paper addresses the impact of institutional industrial relations arrangements at organisation level on the extent and pattern of utilisation of different forms of employment…

Flexible working practices and the trade unions

Richard Croucher, Chris Brewster

This article examines the problems that the expansion and spread of flexible working patterns have created for the trade unions. Drawing evidence from across Europe, but focusing…

Flexibility in Australia: implications for employees and managers

Robin Kramar

There has been a continuing debate in Australia about the need to reform working practices so they enhance efficiency and productivity. During the last ten years there have been…

Company labour flexibility strategies in The Netherlands: an institutional perspective

Jan C. Looise, Maarten van Riemsdijk, Frans de Lange

Despite important differences in labour flexibility patterns in different countries and despite clear indications of the important role of institutional factors with respect to…

Flexibility and long shifts

Peter A. Smith, Alexander A.I. Wedderburn

Long shifts of more than 8 hours, commonly of 10 or 12 hours, are spreading widely as a way of increasing operational availability and flexibility, and offering employees bigger…

Identifying good practice in flexible working

Mary Creagh, Chris Brewster

This paper examines flexible wo rking in the workplace using case studies from four different European companies, in three countries. This detailed evidence shows that while…

Functional flexibility: merely reacting or acting strategically?

Andrea Friedrich, Rüdiger Kabst, Wolfgang Weber, Maria Rodehuth

This article raises the question of to what extent functional flexibility is an operatively designed approach with which European companies confront current short‐term changes in…