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As demographic changes impact the workplace, governments, organizations, and workers are looking for ways to sustain optimal working lives at higher ages. Workplace flexibility has been introduced as a potential way workers can have more satisfying working lives until their retirement ages. This chapter presents a critical review of the literature on workplace flexibility across the lifespan. It discusses how flexibility has been conceptualized across different disciplines, and postulates a definition that captures the joint roles of employer and employee in negotiating workplace flexibility that contributes to both employee and organization benefits. Moreover, it reviews how flexibility has been theorized and investigated in relation to older workers. The chapter ends with a future research agenda for advancing understanding of how workplace flexibility may enhance working experiences of older workers, and in particular focuses on the critical investigation of uses of flexibility in relation to older workers.

Flexible staffing arrangements have become a permanent feature of employment in many industrial societies. This article examines how employers perceive the consequences of using flexible staffing arrangements. It presents and assesses theoretically informed hypotheses on organisational situations in which negative consequences are more likely to be perceived.

This study uses data (n = 761) from a bespoke employers survey, fielded in the Netherlands in 2019. Structural equation modelling (SEM) is used to measure and explain employers' perception of downsides to flexible staffing arrangements.

Employers report distinct downsides to the use of flexible staffing arrangements in terms of performance, management and employee well-being. Model estimates show that employers using flexible staffing arrangements to acquire specific expertise or to follow other organisations in their sector perceive more downsides.

Empirical research on employers' perception of the disadvantageous consequences of using flexible staffing arrangements is scarce. This article highlights that this practice can discourage investments in human capital and lead to a sense of insecurity among young workers. It draws attention to the relevance of distinguishing between strategic motives when trying to understand organisational behaviour regarding non-standard forms of employment.

Organizational flexible integration capability equips organizations to deal with the whole range of problems presented by dynamic environments. Adopting the language of dynamic capability research we advance four components that constitute flexible integration capability. These are a dominant logic of opportunity, a wide variety of problem solving projects, the deployment of portable integration expertise, and organizational practices support the development of portable integration expertise. Of these four portable integration expertise is a purely individual level capability. Organization level flexible integration capability is founded on the development of portable integration expertise by individuals. Organizations can facilitate portable integration expertise by structuring careers, valuing long term goals and objectives, adopting knowledge management practices and being receptive to external sources of knowledge.

The article conceptualizes the dilemma between exploration and exploitation for flexible knowledge workers. At a time when work is fragmented and society is individualized, we consider, besides the strategies of organizations, also those of workers and the ways in which they move among organizations in an attempt to ‘get by’ between increased margins of autonomy and a lack of the resources necessary to pursue their passions and to fulfil their projects. Through analysis of the life stories of flexible knowledge workers and their relationships with the organizations for which they work, the article illustrates how flexible knowledge workers handle the tension between exploration and exploitation and how organizations resist their attempts. The purpose is to interpret the pervasiveness of individualization processes that prompt individuals to think of themselves as organizations, while human resource management claim that people are their most valuable resource but treat them as disposable workers.

Using Pakistan's public sector higher education institutions as the study site, this study aims to empirically substantiate, under the theoretical underpinnings of job enrichment theory (Hackman and Oldham, 1976) and Maslow's (1943) theory of the hierarchy of needs, the impact of flexible work practices (FWPs), on employee work engagement and organizational attractiveness, with the mediating lens of work life enrichment.

Field data were collected at five higher education institutions located in the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) of Pakistan, using the convenience sampling technique and analyzed under the quantitative research paradigm.

This study substantiates with an empirical evidence that flexible work practices (FWPs) have a significant positive impact on both employee work engagement and organizational attractiveness. Markedly, the study findings reveal that the said impact is significantly stronger than that of sabbaticals. Furthermore, the study reveals that the positive relationship is mediated by work life enrichment, signaling its significance in understanding FWP's such impact on employee work engagement and organizational attractiveness.

The study findings provide significant implications for academia, practitioners, and policymakers, in evidence-based recommendations for higher education institutions to design and implement FWPs that are effective in enhancing employee work engagement and organizational attractiveness, and, in turn, leading to improved organizational performance.

This research study provides a novel contribution to the existing literature by exploring the combined impact of flexible work practices on employee work engagement and organizational attractiveness in the peculiar context of Pakistan's public sector higher education institutions. Additionally, the study's focus on the mediating role of work life enrichment further adds to its novelty.

This article aims to provide a theoretical unifying framework for flexible organizational forms, such as so-called adhocracies and network organizations.

In this article, organization practices that are typical of the software industry are analyzed and re-interpreted by means of foundational concepts of organization science. It is shown that one and the same logic is at work in all flexible organizations.

Coordination modes can be fruitfully employed to characterize flexible organizations. In particular, standardization is key in order to obtain flexibility, provided that a novel sort of coordination by standardization is added to those that have been conceptualized hitherto.

This article highlights one necessary condition for organizations to be flexible. Further aspects, only cursorily mentioned in this paper, need to be addressed in order to obtain a complete picture.

A theory of organizational flexibility constitutes a guide for organizational design. This article suggests the non-obvious prescription that the boundary conditions of individual behavior must be standardized in order to achieve operational flexibility.

This theoretical framework can be profitably employed in management classes.

Currently, flexible organizations are only understood in terms of lists of instances. This article shows that apparently heterogeneous case-studies share common features in fact.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview and analysis of current legislation and various schemes and practices that are available to employers and employees in relation to work life balance, family friendly work arrangements, leave entitlements and diverse modes of flexible work in Ireland. Focuses in particular on the Library and Information sector.

Introduces the concept of flexible working, followed by a review of relevant literature. Outlines what flexible work practices are, giving details of various types of flexible working, both statutory and non‐statutory (in Ireland). Then, discusses why flexible work practices have emerged and details background legislation and the issues that the introduction of flexible working raises. Draws conclusions about best practice in relation to the management of flexible work practices.

It is argued that commitment to work life balance is now firmly in the mainstream and is part of the political agenda in Ireland and the rest of the developed world. Flexibility in work practice is becoming an integral part of employment, particularly in public sector organisations, which are in effect, leading the way on this issue. Flexible work practices have many advantages for both employees and employers. They also create challenges, especially in terms of management. It is important to balance the requirements of the organisation with those of the employees. Key factors in the successful implementation of flexible working are training and communication.

The article provides a firm basis for further investigation and discussion.

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.

This paper examines the processes of organizational adaptation and competitiveness of firms in an emerging economy (Argentina). The empirical focus of this paper concerns the determinants of organizational flexibility during the period from 1989 to 1999, when a combination of economic and political change triggered a massive change in the competitive context of indigenous firms. Two companies in the pharmaceutical industry were selected, one that was flexible (Sidus) and one that was less flexible (DER.S.A.). Longitudinal data are supplied to explore the determinants of organizational flexibility in those organizations.

In the era of multiple global disruptions, firms are finding it to continue their business. MSMEs are impacted more as they have constrained resources. Organizational flexibility has emerged as an organizational and management principle that would help firms stay competitive even in volatile markets. This study aims to present a set of guidelines and insights for MSME managers to implement organizational flexibility in their organizations.

This study uses total interpretive structural modelling to study how the various factors contributing to organizational flexibility behave together. Behavioural theory is used to explain why organizations need to incorporate flexibility, and systems theory of organization is used to explain why an organization needs to have open boundaries.

Organizational flexibility is a principle that may be supported by the systems theory of organization. The study has shown that it is important for MSMEs to have supply chain collaborations to be more flexible. The study also shows pressure from competitors as the key driver that would make a firm more flexible, and that adequate support from management and technological skills are required to drive flexibility in an organization.

Single respondent bias may have occurred in this study. This can be eliminated by interviewing multiple people from the same organization. Further research around the reasoning for linkages can be explored with theory-driven grounded studies.

This study attempts to use a multi-criteria decision-making technique to present insights to managers to help them make their organizations flexible.