Abstract
As a result of the pressure to succeed in global markets and the accelerating pace of change in the business environment, organizational flexibility has become an unavoidable issue. We carried out a descriptive study covering 660 firms based in Spain with the objective of finding out how they deal with and use the different facets of organizational flexibility, in particular qualitative (functional) and quantitative (temporal) flexibility. Our results provide favourable evidence for the possibility of combining temporal and functional flexibility. We discuss these results with reference to the "core-periphery" model, which interrelates both kinds of flexibility. Based on these results, we also make three specific propositions concerning the manner in which both kinds of flexibility may be made compatible, and impacts on temporary workers and the development of the labour market in the next years.
