Managerial strategies and work flexibility

• Grant number: 05/02658-7
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: January 01, 2006
• End date: March 31, 2007
• Field of knowledge: Engineering - Production Engineering
• Principal Investigator: Alessandra Rachid
• Grantee: Alessandra Rachid
• Host Institution: Centro de Ciências Exatas e de Tecnologia (CCET). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The objective of this research project is to identify and to analyze strategies to get work flexibility in a firm in the white goods industry, continuing previous researches in this industry. The reorganization of firms since the 90's has been conducted for the search of flexibility. The different strategies to obtain the flexibility of work can be classified in two kinds, those which try to enhance workers' functions and responsibility internally to their activities, so called internal or functional flexibility, and those which involve the use of alternative forms of employment, so called external or numeric flexibility. The internal flexibility involves the enlargement of the functions executed by the workers, which become responsible for production support activities, like quality control, maintenance, work groups in which each worker has more responsibility. The external flexibility relates to the decline of the full time permanent employment, and its substitution by alternatives forms of employment, like subcontracting or outsourcing, temporaries or eventual jobs, of part-timers and the annualized hours, known in Brazil as hours bank. In order to obtain information, semi-structured interviews will be conducted envolving managers, workers and union members from this industry about the functions executed by workers, and about the managerial initiatives related to these issues... (AU)