Corporate flexicurity strategies - convergencies and divergencies in France and Denmark
Report by Katrine Søndergaard
This dissertation presents and discusses the concept and content of flexicurity at the level of the firm. The assumption is that mainstream flexicurity literature lacks a comprehensible understanding of the effect structural and cultural institutions have on concrete flexicurity bargaining processes. Building on a comparative case study of a French and a Danish firm, the dissertation analyses strategies of flexicurity at firm level in a comparative institutional perspective, stressing the impact of national cognitive institutions on local flexicurity strategies.
Discussing and revising the concept of flexicurity, the dissertation argues that not only liberal labour market regulation and complementary institutions of social security, but also certain cultural and structural characteristics of industrial relations systems in general, and of collective bargaining in particular, contribute to flexicurity at labour markets. It suggests a new analytical perspective deducing two analytical dimensions of the flexicurity concept: a regulatory dimension, i.e. complementary forms of flexibility and security in labour market regulation; and a structural-cultural dimension pointing to characteristics of industrial relations system contributing to balancing flexibility and security at labour markets.
Though flexicurity strategies being negotiated at the French firm, the analysis shows that traditional French unionism and a deeply rooted resistance against flexibility, is an impediment to the development of balanced flexicurity arrangements and positive sum solutions at the firm. Internal dispute and lack of confidence in the firm management, make union representatives less open to pursue and develop new sorts of balanced flexicurity agreements.