‘’A flexible firm model optimizes the use of human resources’’
Kalleberg, 2001

* Social and economic changes in the past century have underscored the need for organizations to have greater employment flexibility. * Industrial countries and manufacturing sectors emphasize in human resource management that organizations can adapt any changes in technology, in labour markets, price competition, in capital markets internationally and nationally. * A great deal of attention has been paid in recent years to human resources management practices that are designed to provide employees with skills, information, decision-making responsibility and incentives to improve business performance. These new practises are replacing unions and collective groups of people. * Flexibility adapts the size, composition, responsiveness, and the cost of labour in order to achieve organization’s goals. * Explanation of this:
1) Organizations often hire people for shorter period with specific assignments and this is cheaper than employing permanent staff that maybe sometimes are not fully utilised
2)The size of organization and that of labour force varies from organization to organization
3)High supply of workers willing to work casually- High unemployment and more and more people are educated and the working system cannot absorb them into jobs (Bennett, 1994) * David Guest (1987) in advocating de-centralisation emphasised the role it plays in increasing flexibility within an organisation. He cited flexibility as one of the keys to responding effectively to changes in the environment, and that it is essential for organisational success. * The main forms of flexibility in modern organisation according to Blyton and Morris (1992) are four: Functional, Temporal, Numerical and Financial.

* Researchers have highlighted two strategies for flexible firm