Where do You Draw the Line? Functional Flexibility, Training & Skill in Britain & France

Abstract

This article argues that the concept of functional flexibility fails to make a clear distinction between a deliberate strategy to enhance skills and training, in contrast to where task enlargement has developed in an ad hoc manner, as a result of restructuring. By drawing on detailed research conducted in the retail banking sector in Britain and France it is argued that the flexibility debates need to be more clearly situated in the specific social and economic context of a given society.