The Flexible Company Innovation, Work Organisation and Human Ressource Management

This paper analyses 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 organisational innovation to a larger extent than the less flexible firms and consequently are more inclined to employ new work organisation principles based on the delegation of authority, intrafirm horisontal and vertical integration, and the development of human resources. Similarly, the more flexible firms exhibit a larger inclination to extend their extraorganisational 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. This paper was originally prepared for the International Conference on Changing workplace strategies: achieving better outcomes for enterprises, workers and society, organised by OECD in cooperation with Human Resource Development Canada at Chateau Laurier, Ottawa, 2-3 December 1996. We acknowledge the assistance of Birgitta Jacobsen, who made the data available.