The Flexible Company: Innovation, Work Organization and Human Resource Management

Abstract

This paper analyzes the DISKO survey data on 1,900 firms within the Danish private business sector in terms of an index which classifies the surveyed firms according to smaller and higher degrees of flexibility. The classification reveals a number of important differences between more or less flexible firms. The more flexible firms tend to combine technical and organizational innovation to a larger extent than the less flexible firms and consequently are more inclined to employ new work organization principles based on the delegation of authority, intra-firm horizontal and vertical integration, and the development of human resources. Similarly, the more flexible firms exhibit a larger inclination to extend their extraorganizational cooperative relationships. Finally, there is a strong positive correlation between increasing degrees of flexibility and increasing firm size, measured in terms of full-time employees.

JEL Classification: D83, L2, M10, O30