Re-organizing Flexibility and the Employment Standards Act in Ontario*

*An earlier version of this paper was presented at the CSAA meetings, 31 May 2002 Toronto, Ontario.

Abstract

For over two decades, increasing the flexibility of firms has been viewed as a key element of improved business performance, and is often a major goal of change management programs. This paper examines what ‘increasing flexibility’ means in the context of change management, and focuses specifically on the effectiveness of legislative changes promoting it. We begin by reviewing the literature on flexibility, which leads to a more differentiated understanding of the term. We then show how flexibility in one dimension often leads to inflexibility in another. Consequently, we argue that it is better to talk about ‘reorganizing’ rather than ‘increasing’ flexibility. We then use this expanded understanding of flexibility to analyze the recent Employment Standards Act in Ontario, as a case study of one government's initiative to boost the flexibility of firms in its jurisdiction. We conclude that the Act will not uniformly increase flexibility across the province. However, if firms start to think in terms of reorganizing flexibility rather than simply increasing it, they are likely to be more successful in improving their economic performance.

*An earlier version of this paper was presented at the CSAA meetings, 31 May 2002 Toronto, Ontario.

Keywords:

• Flexibility
• change management
• legislation
• economic performance

Acknowledgement

I gratefully acknowledge the research assistance and intellectual contributions of Mark Janke, University of Waterloo, to the development of this paper.

Notes

*An earlier version of this paper was presented at the CSAA meetings, 31 May 2002 Toronto, Ontario.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Bruce Arai

Bruce Arai is the Acting Dean of the Brantford Campus of Wilfrid Laurier University, located in Brantford, Ontario. He has previously published in the area of work and organizations in The Canadian Journal of Sociology and Organization and Environment, and in the sociology of education in The Canadian Journal of Education, and Education Policy Analysis Archives.