In the study of employment, work and organization, the issue of flexibility in the workplace has come to represent a key focus for discussion. Analyses of changes taking place at several levels, from work practices, production strategies and employee relations arrangements to broader industrial and labour market structures, and even the organizing and control principles of capitalism itself, have drawn on the notion of flexibility to summarize both a series of developments and a key managerial objective behind those developments.

The notion of flexibility denotes pliability, adaptability and a responsiveness to change. In principle, flexibility relates equally to the structure and processes of organizations. To date, however, most attention has been concentrated on aspects of workforce flexibility (and at the macro level, labour market flexibility). In turn this reflects a greater attention paid to flexibility on both sides of the Atlantic by industrial relations and labour market specialists than by those with an organizational behaviour perspective. In practice, however, many of the changes introduced to extend workforce flexibility go hand in hand with other changes designed to bring about greater organizational responsiveness, such as decentralization and the utilization of more adaptive technologies.

Several factors are widely associated with giving added significance to organizational flexibility - in particular, greater market uncertainty and changes in technology and production processes. In considering the future of flexibility, it is evident that various difficulties and unanswered questions remain. If management is serious about goals such as building greater employee commitment and sustaining high quality output, it must look at reciprocity over flexibility. In the past the flexibility agenda has tended to be defined by management, but in the longer term flexibility is only likely to be sustained if management takes account of employee interests as well as its own objectives.

Paul Blyton