[The Impact of Flexible Working on the Performance of Organisation]

By

Acknowledgement

I would take this opportunity to thank my research supervisor, family and friends for their support and guidance without which this research would not have been possible (Abdalla, 2006, 97).

DECLARATION

I, [type your full first names and surname here], declare that the contents of this dissertation/thesis represent my own unaided work, and that the dissertation/thesis has not previously been submitted for academic examination towards any qualification. Furthermore, it represents my own opinions and not necessarily those of the University (Abdalla, 2006,, 97).

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Abstract

The study discusses the impact of flexible working on the performance of organisation. For this

Co-workers have been examined in the context of how they may influence the uptake of flexible working policies. The existence of a policy does not necessarily mean that it will be accepted as legitimate and followed as laid down, nor will it necessarily bring about a culture change towards work and family. Since work is embedded in a social context, both individual preferences and their willingness to act on them may be influenced by those they work with. It is well established that co -workers can influence each others' behaviour through group norms and therefore the way in which coworkers perceive flexible working may influence the take up of flexible working arrangements.

Chapter One: Introduction

Rationale

Recent years have seen an increase in the number of employers in developed countries who have introduced flexible working policies, designed to offer employees options to alter their working patterns (Kersley, Alpin, Forth, Bryson, Bewley, Dix and Oxenbridge 2005; Riedman, Bielenski, Szczurowska, and Wagner 2006). These developments have stimulated research interest and there is now a considerable literature on the outcomes of flexible working (see for example Baruch 2000; Igabaria and Guimaraes 1999; Kelliher and Anderson 2008; M ann and Holdsworth 2003 ;). Although the evidence is mixed, studies have shown that adopting a flexible working pattern can have a number of positive outcomes for individuals, in relation to, for example, stress (Raghuram and Wiesenfeld 2004 ); family relationships (Lee, MacDermid, Williams, Bu ck and Leiba -O'Sullivan 2002); personal flexibility (Hartman, Stoner and Arora 1992) and satisfaction (Baruch 2000).

Purpose

The purpose of this report is to discuss a number of studies which have also been concerned with the business case for flexible working, examining the impact on organisational performance. There is evidence that flexible working can impact positively on attraction and retention of employees (Aryee, Luk and Stone 1998; Branine 2003; Rau and Hyland 2002), staff involvement and consequently increased productivity (Osterman 1995). However, both meta-analyses and large scale studies comparing th e performance of organisations which offer flexible working options and those who do not, have largely failed to find a performance effect (Bloom and Van Reenen 2006; Wood and De Menezes 2007 ).

Scope

The studies which have examined the outcomes for individuals have very largely focused on the impact on the flexible worker themselves (Golden 2007; Van Dyne, Kossek and Lobel 2007). However, it seems unlikely that the flexible workers ...