TY - JOUR

T1 - Organisational Flexibility

T2 - Core Business, Interdependence and the Timing of Energy Demand

AU - Blue, Stanley

AU - Shove, Elizabeth

AU - Kurnicki, Karol

PY - 2025/1/1

Y1 - 2025/1/1

N2 - Discussions of flexibility in organisations generally focus on labour relations, corporate agility, and long-term survival. In much of this writing, flexibility is conceptualised as a feature of organisations and their environments, of organisational strategy and form, and an outcome of characteristics that can be defined and measured. By contrast, we argue that capacities to adapt depend on interpretations of ‘core business’ which is defined by institutional connections established both outside organisations and reproduced within them. This account is informed by social practice theory, the literature on strategy-as-practice, process studies of organisations, and by empirical research conducted in three secondary schools and three hospitals in Northern England. Interviews with thirty-three managers and employees help us to show how the scope for adaptation is constituted and reproduced in the ways that many organisations connect, and in related rhythms and patterns of social life. There are many contexts in which this insight will be important. We focus on the significance of this analysis for the need to modify the timing of energy demand in a lower carbon future. As we show, the relative ability of specific organisations to adapt depends on a broader nexus of interlinking social practices, temporal arrangements, and cross-cutting commitments.

AB - Discussions of flexibility in organisations generally focus on labour relations, corporate agility, and long-term survival. In much of this writing, flexibility is conceptualised as a feature of organisations and their environments, of organisational strategy and form, and an outcome of characteristics that can be defined and measured. By contrast, we argue that capacities to adapt depend on interpretations of ‘core business’ which is defined by institutional connections established both outside organisations and reproduced within them. This account is informed by social practice theory, the literature on strategy-as-practice, process studies of organisations, and by empirical research conducted in three secondary schools and three hospitals in Northern England. Interviews with thirty-three managers and employees help us to show how the scope for adaptation is constituted and reproduced in the ways that many organisations connect, and in related rhythms and patterns of social life. There are many contexts in which this insight will be important. We focus on the significance of this analysis for the need to modify the timing of energy demand in a lower carbon future. As we show, the relative ability of specific organisations to adapt depends on a broader nexus of interlinking social practices, temporal arrangements, and cross-cutting commitments.

KW - core business

KW - energy demand

KW - flexibility

KW - interdependence

KW - practice

KW - process

U2 - 10.1515/joso-2023-0033

DO - 10.1515/joso-2023-0033

M3 - Journal article

VL - 3

SP - 77

EP - 101

JO - Journal of Organizational Sociology

JF - Journal of Organizational Sociology

SN - 2752-2997

IS - 1

ER -