Search results

Although the benefits that individuals obtain from trait mindfulness and functional flexibility have been well documented in the research literature, one crucial gap is the lack of evidence clarifying whether trait mindfulness and functional flexibility might benefit all age groups. Using the moderating effect of age among salespeople, this research analyzes the effects of trait mindfulness and functional flexibility regarding sales performance based on the conservation of resource theory.

Survey data were collected from 227 salespeople across 120 companies located in Bangkok, Thailand. The data were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling.

The analysis shows that the positive effect of trait mindfulness on sales performance is more substantial for older salespeople than their younger counterparts. Although the analysis shows that functional flexibility is positively associated with sales performance, the positive relationship is only supported for younger salespeople. For older salespeople, available flexibility does not positively affect sales performance.

Based on the findings, developing trait mindfulness and functional flexibility in salespeople could be a valuable area of focus for sales organizations' human capital development policies. Although the intervention to develop trait mindfulness could be provided to all salespeople, the functional flexibility enhancement component should be delivered specifically to younger salespeople who may experience more significant gains from the training.

The results address the gap in the existing research that lacked evidence as to whether trait mindfulness and functional flexibility similarly affect the work performance of older and younger people. In particular, this study offers new insight into how age differences influence the benefit of trait mindfulness and functional flexibility across different age groups of individuals.

This paper seeks to analyse whether the firm model of employment relationships is associated with functional flexibility and organisational learning (exploratory versus exploitative). It also aims to assess the mediating effect of functional flexibility in the relationship between a specific employment mode (mutual investment) and organisational learning.

This research was conducted using a sample of Spanish companies in the food industry, from which data from HR managers and production managers in each firm were collected. Cluster analyses, MANOVA and regression analyses were applied to test the hypotheses.

The results suggest that those firms developing a mutual investment employment relationship outperform other firms in terms of functional flexibility and organisational learning (both exploitative and exploratory learning). The paper also finds a mediating effect of one dimension of functional flexibility (range‐number of activities) between mutual investment and exploitative learning.

The principal limitation of this paper is the cross‐sectional study design, because the dynamic character of learning would require a longitudinal study design. The main research implications are derived from the combination of employment relationships, variety of dimensions of flexibility and learning, and identification of a model of direct and mediating effects among variables.

The results of this paper suggest that a model of employment relationships (mutual investment) favours not only functional flexibility but also ambidextrous learning. Thus, the findings not only provide a broader understanding of the variables associated with HRM, employment relationships and/or flexibility, but also reinforce the strategic role of HRM through its contribution to the development of such a relevant organisational capability that learning represents.

The paper combined a series of variables that previous studies have rarely treated in combination: employment relationships, functional flexibility and exploitative versus exploratory learning. This paper also discusses different dimensions of functional flexibility (range‐number of activities, heterogeneity, mobility, and uniformity), demonstrating the association of some of these dimensions with exploratory or exploitative learning.

The purpose of this study is to provide an insight into how individual and work factors are related to the attitudes of functional flexibility by using the willingness and ability to be flexible as dimensions of functional flexibility.

This study is conducted through a survey of workers and administrative staff of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Pakistan. Correlation and hierarchical regression techniques were used to find out the association of the dimensions of functional flexibility with the individual and work factors. Individual factors include demographic characteristics, work perception and personality traits, whereas work factors include trust in management, task formalization and autonomy.

Individual factors (i.e. general self-efficacy and initiative) and one of the work factors (i.e. trust in management) showed a positive relation, whereas task formalization was negatively related with the willingness to be flexible. General self-efficacy of workers and administrative staff was positively correlated with the ability to be flexible dimension of functional flexibility. It was concluded from the findings that the two dimensions of functional flexibility, willingness to be flexible and ability to be flexible, of employees depend on fair treatment and freedom provided by their organization.

The current study was conducted on the employees of SMEs in Pakistan. A similar study on employees of multi-national corporations (MNCs) and service sectors may be useful for comparison.

Management should improve the attitudes of employees toward functional flexibility in SMEs in Pakistan by creating a climate of trust, using lower degree of laid down and prescribed procedures and giving them opportunities for doing new tasks. Furthermore, providing them feedback on the performance and achievement of these new tasks would also help in this regard.

The SMEs of Pakistan are in the process of transformational change. This study highlights the key factors that would be helpful to enhance the functional flexibility of employees working in the SME sector in Pakistan.

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 their environment, and whether functional flexibility is integrated into long‐term human resource strategies. The proposition is tested that organisations with a strategic human resource management in the sense of a coordinated, objective‐oriented personnel management pattern, show a higher probability of using job rotation than organisations lacking a strategic‐oriented human resource management approach.

Two of the most sought after properties in today's dynamic and competitive manufacturing environment are labour flexibility and effective teamworking. This is due in no small part to the growth of modern manufacturing philosophies which strongly advocate the need for both teamwork and flexibility. This paper aims to explore the impact of two labour flexibility strategies (functional flexibility and intra‐cell flexibility) on teamwork in a cellular manufacturing environment.

Using a revised input/process/output (IPO) team effectiveness model a questionnaire was designed and a case study undertaken at a large Australian manufacturer. The knowledge, skills, and ability (KSAs) gained from job rotation (flexibility) was quantitatively tested against team processes and team performance.

It was found that functional flexibility had an overall stronger, significant effect on the five team processes tested (communication, conflict resolution, problem solving, goals and performance, tasks and planning) than did intra‐cell flexibility. In regards to output (team performance) functional flexibility performed better in areas such as customer delivery, inventory holdings and quality, while intra‐cell flexibility performed better in the area of absenteeism. An inconclusive result was obtained for the fifth output measure, efficiency rate.

The study was conducted at a single organisation, which limits the generalisation of the outcomes, therefore broader research on the area is recommended.

The study provides evidence that the individual benefits of both functional flexibility and teamworking may be enhanced while being practised concurrently. With labour flexibility and teamwork being key factors in most modern organisations, the practical implications are much wider than the field of manufacturing.

Individually, the literature offers much on teamworking and flexibility but studies exploring the combined effects of these two important elements are rare, especially in the field of manufacturing. The present paper fills some of the gaps

The purpose of this paper is to empirically test whether various flexible work arrangements produce different effects on alternative measures of job satisfaction in Europe. To test the existence of heterogeneity in the impact of flexibility on job satisfaction, the paper verifies whether this relation varies with workers' characteristics.

Empirical evidence is based on a representative sample of European employees taken from a specific wave of the Eurobarometer survey. An ordered probit estimator is used to get the relevant estimates and endogeneity problems have been addressed by exploiting the richness of the data‐set in terms of information on workers' attitude toward work and life (used as proxies of unobserved time‐invariant factors, which are the primary source of endogeneity).

A positive link was found between functional flexibility and job satisfaction and either no effect or a negative impact of quantitative flexibility. The positive impact of functional flexibility is greater when considering satisfaction for intrinsic aspects of the job. Estimates by workers' characteristics highlight interesting differences by age, skill and country of residence.

The major limitation is the cross‐sectional nature of the data, but there was no awareness of any panel data containing information on all the relevant variables of this analysis.

With respect to the existing literature, the paper simultaneously considers different types of flexibility and estimates their effect on different facets of job satisfaction, also considering the impact of flexibility on job satisfaction by workers' characteristics. This evidence may be useful to firms in designing more tailored flexibility packages.

This study is an empirical investigation into the effect of skill flexibility on work attitudes and performance and into managerial attitudes toward skill flexibility. Secondary schools in Israel were used as a case in point, and skill flexibility of teachers was operationalized, distinguishing between role flexibility (the combination of teaching and other school roles) and functional flexibility (the combination of several teaching areas). It was found that both role and functional flexibility were associated with improved teachers’ work performance. Role flexibility was also linked to high organizational commitment and low powerlessness. The findings of the study are supported by interviews with principals, who were generally appreciative of skill‐flexible teachers, but raised practical difficulties related to organizational support of skill flexibility.

In situations where a volatile product market meets an unstable labour market, as is often found in customer contact service operations such as the hospitality industry, there is a need for the constant manipulation of labour supply to match labour demand. Functional workforce flexibility, where multiskilled staff are able to move from jobs in one department to jobs in another, presents an opportunity for solving part of the problem. Presents an approach to calculating the need for functional flexibility dependent on the identified discrepancies in labour demand and supply. Having identified the size of the need, a strategy needs to be developed for fulfilling that need. In implementing this strategy, two approaches are identified: planned whole job substitution and boundary loosening. While the planned approach offers the rational course for maintaining quality and productivity levels, there is evidence that an evolving approach may help to stabilize a highly volatile situation by breaking down barriers from within.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between transformational and transactional leadership, and labour flexibility within small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). Using a sample comprising 755 employees, rating 121 supervisors within 50 Dutch small and medium‐sized companies, the authors examined the relationship between transformational and transactional leadership on the one hand, and temporal and functional flexibility on the other. Further, to test whether the expected associations could be perceived as a social exchange between supervisor and employees, this study investigated the mediating role of affective organisational commitment.

Because data were nested, the authors used multilevel analysis for hypothesis testing.

Both dimensions of transformational leadership, visionary leadership and coaching, were positively related to temporal flexibility; also two dimensions of transactional leadership, contingent reward and active management by exception, were also positively associated with temporal flexibility. All of these associations were mediated by affective organisational commitment, indicating social exchange relationships. As opposed to expectations, passive management by exception, representing poor transactional leadership, was positively related to temporal and functional flexibility. Affective commitment did not mediate these relationships.

SMEs are therefore advised to improve visionary leadership, coaching skills, contingent reward, and active management by exception.

The paper shows that, remarkably, labour flexibility can be increased by both effective and poor leadership. On the one hand, effective leadership seems to promote temporal flexibility by creating employees’ commitment to the organisation. Poor leadership, on the other hand, does not call for people's affective commitment and thus seems to be forcing employees into demonstrating flexible behaviours, as a way of compensating for bad management.

The desirability of having a more flexible workforce is emphasised across many health systems yet this goal is as ambiguous as it is ubiquitous. In the absence of empirical studies in healthcare that have defined flexibility as an outcome, the purpose of this paper is to draw on classic management and sociological theory to reduce this ambiguity.

The paper uses the Weberian tool of “ideal types”. Key workforce reforms are held against Atkinson’s model of functional flexibility which aims to increase responsiveness and adaptability through multiskilling, autonomy and teams; and Taylorism which seeks stability and reduced costs through specialisation, fragmentation and management control.

Appeals to an amorphous goal of increasing workforce flexibility make an assumption that any reform will increase flexibility. However, this paper finds that the work of healthcare professionals already displays most of the essential features of functional flexibility but many widespread reforms are shifting healthcare work in a Taylorist direction. This contradiction is symptomatic of a failure to confront inevitable trade-offs in reform: between the benefits of specialisation and the costs of fragmentation; and between management control and professional autonomy.

The paper questions the conventional conception of “the problem” of workforce reform as primarily one of professional control over tasks. Holding reforms against the ideal types of Taylorism and functional flexibility is a simple, effective way the costs and benefits of workforce reform can be revealed.