International Council for Small Business 47th World Conference San Juan, Puerto Rico June 16-19, 2002

icsb 2002-078

The concept of flexibility and its occasional misuse Tuula Bergqvist Abstract The focus of this paper is to raise awareness of the complexity of the concept of flexibility and its occasional misuse. Flexibility as it most often is studied, is defined as the point of departure in capitalism. Even the smallest firms are measured by these criterions. By using the methodological standpoint of critical realism and the structural life mode analysis I have studied the rationality behind adjusting to changes in small firms with focus on adjusting employment levels to variation in workload. By doing this I have answered the question of a possible misuse of the concept of flexibility. My conclusion is that the concept of flexibility, defined with a starting point in the capitalist principles of the economic market, is occasionally misused in literature. Taking the point of departure in capitalism it is assumed that all firms strive to live by the rules of a capitalist market and to adjust to its principles. My structural perspective shows that not all small firms are driven by these motives powers. The rationality to run a firm when the owner lives the so-called independent life mode, derive first of all from independency. This rationality influences adjusting to changes in these firms and it also influences relations between an entrepreneur and an employee. An entrepreneur’s trust expressing the independent life mode-specific work values and ethics, is fundamentally different from an employees trust if the employee is living the worker life mode. Thus trust can be a hindrance for adjusting the employment levels to variation in workload.

Introduction

The past decade has been featured by intensive debates about the changing characteristics of the labor market. Changing characteristics meaning that the development on the labor market has gone from a traditional and rigid market to a better and more flexible market. Despite a noticeable confusion regarding the degree to which the labor market has become more flexible or which parts of the labor market have become so, there seems to prevail consensus over an understanding that most of organizations strive to become more flexible to be able to meet the demands of the rapidly changing market. It seems to me that a common phenomenon within the research of flexibility is to study large organizations and leave out the smaller ones (among others: Atkinson & Meager 1986, NUTEK 1996, 1999). The size of the firms left out can vary a lot. It is quite usual to leave out firms with less than 50 employees and not unusual to leave out firms up to several hundred employees. A common assumption within the research field seems to be that smaller firms due to their size are less bureaucratic and thus more flexible – they are flexible by nature (among others: Atkinson & Meager 1986, NUTEK 1996, 1999). However there seems to be a lack of empirical research backing up this assumption (Karlsson & Eriksson 2000). Nevertheless, when flexibility is concerned the small firms are often mentioned as offering numerical flexibility to the large ones via subcontracting relations (Atkinson 1984, Atkinson & Storey 1994, Blau 1993, Karlsson & Eriksson 2000). Numerical flexibility referring to adjusting employment levels to variations in workload (Atkinson 1984). Here I want to point out the complexity of the concept of flexibility. From a general point of view the concept of flexibility refers to the ability to adjust to changes. An attempt of being more specific shows a whole array of different kinds of flexibility depending on whose ability to adjust and to what kind of changes we are concerned about. Due to this flexibility from one perspective can be something quite different from another perspective (van den Berg, Furåker & Johansson 1997). The possible differences can easily be understood trough the example that small firms are often included in the flexibility strategies of large organizations. Seeing this from the perspective of the large organization the small firms are part of the means for adjusting to the market, offering numerical flexibility to them. Seeing this from the perspective of a small firm the large organization is the market that it is adjusting to. Thus a logical conclusion should be that flexibility for these organizations/firms must involve quite different aspects. In this case, flexibility for the large organization is using (partly anyhow) peripheral labor-force, but for the small firm the answer is not that simple. Now, to answer a question of what flexibility strategies are used in small firms is not the focus in this paper. The focus is to raise awareness of the complexity of the concept of flexibility and its occasional misuse. 1

Flexibility as it most often is studied, is defined as the point of departure in capitalism. It is tacitly understood that all firms are striving to “live” by the rules and principles of a capitalist market. Even the smallest firms are measured by these criterions. The research question I want to raise here is if it can be considered misleading to talk about flexibility in small firms, the concept being derived in the principles of capitalism. As I see it, the motive powers for activities in many small firms cannot always be understood according to these principles. The rationality in many of these firms derives from totally different interests in adjusting to changes than is included in the concept of flexibility. Seeing this from my theoretical point of departure1 the ability of adjusting to changes is dependent on structural conditions that we are acting under and the structural position interests that we are making our decisions from. The Swedish society as well as any other society holds various sets of structures that condition people’s everyday lives and provides them with reasons to choose different projects. (Projects referring to different goals set up by people and the means to fulfill them.) Some of these structures are called life modes. Life modes provide people with radically different everyday conditions and means for existence. People living different life modes have different perceptions of what is to be considered as “the good life” and what is required for its fulfillment. Work, family, leisure, freedom and so on have different meanings to people living different life modes. Life modes are reproduced or transformed through people’s actions and it is in people’s actions they are expressed. Thus, I claim that if we want to understand phenomenon called flexibility in small firms, we have to find out which social structures constitute the everyday life of an entrepreneur. Not until we understand the rationality deriving from the structural conditioning and the position interests that go with running a small firm, we are able to understand and explain events that are effects of human actions conditioned by these structures. Thus my aim in this paper is to explain the rationality behind adjusting to changes in small firms by using the structural life mode analysis (Jakobsen & Karlsson 1993, Jakobsen 1999). Focus will be on adjusting employment levels to variation in workload as it often is studied in the context of flexibility. By doing this, my aim is also to answer the question of a possible misuse of the concept of flexibility. This paper is about theoretical reasoning of an empirical phenomenon. Its point of departure is taken in a short story of an entrepreneur named William.2 The story is based on a

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My theoretical base will be more closely explained later in this paper.

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Note that all names in the story are fictitious to protect the identity of the people involved.

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qualitative interview with him in the context of my research of the everyday life of entrepreneurs. The story follows his life for quite a long period of time. It is focused on events that I reason out theoretically in the parts that follow. It should be noted that the story is an illustration of how everyday life and concrete events can turn out for single individuals. My aim is not to generalize but to increase the understanding of differences in everyday life and give possible explanations to why some events occur. After I have told the story I will explain the theoretical base of the life mode analysis and then focus on one of the life modes – the independent life mode – and how the rationality behind adjusting to changes in small firms can be understood. My reasoning results in a discussion of the use of the concept of flexibility. Now let us make acquaintance with William.

An entrepreneur named William William is an entrepreneur within building and painting trade and has been running his firm since the middle of 1980’s. Both his wife and son are involved in operating the firm. The firm provides construction services like floor layering, wallpapering, painting, damage repairs and marketing of products and materials. The main responsibility for everything lies with William; he signs papers, calculates on work-projects, plans stock-keeping and purchase of materials and he works full time with repairing and assembling in the work-projects. Before he became an entrepreneur he had several employments as a carpenter. One could say that he ended up with the kind of work he is doing today just by accident. He was offered a job as a floor-layer and he took it. The employment years as a floor-layer offered a great deal of independency. He was allowed to take care of everything by himself. He planned the jobs and saw to it that he had all the tools he needed. Working hours could vary quite a lot and mostly it was piecework which resulted in many and long lasting workdays. His work also involved a lot of traveling sometimes over considerable distances from one building site to another. According to William the jobs were great. He made a lot of money and the piece rate character of the work made it possible for him to settle his own income. Time left over from work was always booked up. The whole family was keen on sports and took part as well as competed in skiing, orienteering and running. Weeknights and weekends when William wasn’t working seethed with activities and somehow he even got time over to build his own house.

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In the end of 1970’s he took over a stand (kiosk) after his mother. About the same time the family moved to a new housing district. The stand offered an opportunity for Williams wife Wendy – who had been home taking care of their youngest daughter during a couple of years – to get a job and an income. Somebody though needed to take care of the daughter, now that Wendy had her job, so William planned only to work part-time to solve the situation. He was quite tired of traveling and longed for a possibility to have control over his own time. However he did not manage to come to an agreement with his employer and that brought him to decide to start his own business. This was not the first time he had considered becoming an entrepreneur but his earlier ideas had not resulted in any concrete actions. But now when his plans could not be carried out it seemed to be the right time to do something about it. The work situation was flourishing. He had been in touch with a lot of people within the trade during his years of employment and this helped him a lot. He did not need to take any loan or make big investments. The money he got in the firm to start with was invested in buying a stock of materials. Wendy took care of the stand that was doing economically great and guaranteed providing for the family. William didn’t have to worry about money. As time went by William got more and more to do. He could no longer help Wendy on the occasions she was in need of him. But that was not all. He even got into trouble with keeping up with all administration in the firm. This lack of time resulted in that William gave up all the sports activities he had been engaged in, to make weeknights and weekends available for the firm. However despite his efforts the situation eventually became precarious for everybody concerned. So a decision was made to sell the stand and to employ Wendy in the firm to take part in the administration. Their son Wallace started to work for the firm too. The firm was growing so William found them premises not only for stock keeping but also for office space and a little store. The times were profitable. William and Wallace were kept busy getting all work projects finished in time. William’s thoughts of employing staff grow stronger. However he hesitated quite a while: I have such heavy demands on people. Maybe it’s not too hard to find floor-layers but it’s hard to find the right people. We are dealing with finishing and surfacing so it’s visible everything we do. No mistakes are allowed. Everything got to be done well all the time. That’s what we are making a living of and attracting customers with. The work projects were most often at different building sites and usually parts of a larger construction site, so William had daily contact with a large number of people. It was during 4

one of these projects that he met George. William was working at a private site, on a house built by George. George had built the house nearly all by himself and he was very interested in building-jobs. George was also in need of a permanent employment and William was, in fact, in need of more manpower. So William decided to employ George. He felt comfortable working with George who seemed to be an able workman and seemed to have the same kind of values as he himself treasured. Everything functioned well for quite a while. George learned the trade and as time went by he was able to independently take care of work-projects. It became possible for the firm to have three work-projects running at the same time – of course depending on the projects being one-man jobs. The situation however changed after a couple of years. George stayed at home more and more often. He was often ill or stayed at home to take care of sick children. The bookings on jobs and contacts with people on building sites functioned poorly. William’s firm got into troubles due to lack of manpower in finishing their work-projects. William describes the situation as follows: There were quite a lot of disturbances. We were bound with bookings and contacts with people to get in where we were supposed to be. And suddenly the guy (George) isn’t coming to work. Somebody has to do the job, the work has to be done. If you don’t finish the work in time you get a bad reputation. William’s disappointment is clearly noticeable. He means that as an entrepreneur he has learned to think differently compared to when he was employed. One has to be committed in the work. One has to learn to be flexible and learn to adjust to upcoming situations. As it is today, William doesn’t really want to work during weekends, but occasionally – depending on the type of job – he needs to work both weeknights and weekends. He did give up all sports activities due to lack of time and he has not had a vacation in years nor did he stay at home while being sick. At the time for the interview, although he had been having a pain in his back for quite a while, he was not going to stay at home to let his back get better. I haven’t been taking it any easier so my back has gotten worse. My back is not getting the time it would need to get better. It’s just the way it is. Everybody is telling me to ease off, but it’s not that simple. We have the kind of jobs now that has to be taken care of constantly. It’s the same way every week. We have to keep on working Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Every week, the job has to get done to make it possible for 5

workmen coming after us to do their job. We are engaged with bathrooms now. We do the coating and floor layering and then workmen come to tile the walls. What happened to George then? He stayed with William another year. When the times changed and the projects became less profitable, William decided to fire him. There were not that many jobs available. The situation was not bad it was up and down and the prices were not as good as they had been earlier. It wasn’t at all the same as in the beginning. Wallace, and me we discussed the situation and we decided to carry on by the two of us. If we would get too little to do, it would be easy for us to take a day or two of work. If we would get too much to do, we could refuse projects. William has never been out of work. After a period of decline in his workload in the beginning of the 1990’s, he and Wallace have had more work than they really have been able to handle. He has been forced to refuse projects offered to him due to their workload. He reasons it being easier to say no to projects than to employ extra labor. He means that he just needs to put in a more efficient “overdrive” to get the jobs done. Sometimes he is forced to explain to customers that he cannot help them for the time being. The customers either have to wait or get somebody else to do the job. William is soon to be 60 years old and would very much like to get some time over for himself. However, he’s not willing to consider the alternative of employment. Now I do think totally different. Surely one would be freer being employed but it is really not that way, it’s different. Now I have to get engaged all the time but it kind of pushes on by it self. But there’s never time for anything! There’s always something to do like paperwork when you get home and then, well, only the weekends left and they pass by so fast. Surely I could use some more time. It becomes quite clear reading this story that William is not interested in employing extra labor-force. This is highly irrational seen from the perspective of a capitalist market economy. How can there be any rationality in his actions? How can we explain that William does not want to employ outside labor-force even though he has got far too much to do and is longing for more time for himself? To answer these questions we are going to take a look at the structural life mode analysis and the means for explanations it offers. 6

Life modes, positions interests and opportunity costs The concept of life mode is used in varies ways in literature. It was for the first time introduced in Denmark by the ethnologist Thomas Højrup (1983). The multicultural approach of the life mode analysis and its claims on having strong explanatory powers has ever since inspired a great many researchers from a wide range of disciplines. However a consequence of this multidisciplinary approach to life mode analysis has been the development of several, not combinable perspectives. The life mode analysis in question in this paper is based on a further development of the theory in Sweden by Liselotte Jakobsen and Jan Ch Karlsson (1993, Jakobsen 1999) and is grounded on a critical realist theory of science (Sayer 1992, Archer 1995, Danermark et al. 2002). Life mode analysis is based on the assumption that people, within the same country or population, live qualitatively different cultures, life modes. People living different life modes have different perceptions of what is to be considered as “the good life” and what is required for its fulfillment. Work, leisure, freedom, family and so on have different meanings for people living different life modes. “A life mode as the concept is used here, is a social structure, through which people produce work and love, the production aimed at obtaining partly the means for life and partly human life as such” (Jakobsen & Karlsson 1993:18, my translation). A fundamental point of departure for this way of understanding everyday life is that social structures condition people’s actions. However, structures do not determine these actions. People always have choices. Furthermore it is important to make a difference between people and life modes. People live life modes (or a mixed form of them), but they are not life modes. People reproduce or transform life modes trough their actions even though this is not always the aim of the action. Life modes exist and are expressed through people’s actions. Life modes as social structures consist of sets of social relations and mechanisms3. There is an internal relation between a certain society and its life modes just as each life mode exists and gets its particular form in the interplay with other life modes. Life modes are constitutive for society as such, not gratuitous or random. They cannot be removed unless the society as

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Social mechanisms as causal powers that can make things happen in the world.

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we know it ceases to exist. Life modes are connected with material social necessity and as such they constitute basic mechanisms behind people’s everyday actions. Life mode analysis rests on an assumption of the existence of a twofold material base: organization of the socioeconomic sphere and organization of the sociosexual sphere. One could say that these two material bases organize the production of means for existence and production of life as such. These structures of production have their own qualities, powers and mechanisms and hold different structural positions. Further, these positions are called work forms for the former and love forms for the latter structure. Together, these work and love forms are the basis for a number of qualitatively different life modes; some of which are structurally male and some structurally female. The interacting of the work sphere (the socioeconomic production) with the sphere of love (the sociosexual production) forms causal structures in the everyday life of people.4 Each life mode has its own specific practice established through a fusion of a work form and a love form. A life mode practice is a material social structure, a positioning among society’s material structures, and constitutes of internal relations that hold material resources that can be physical as well as human. “The life mode-specific practices structure everyday life in different relations of goals and means concerning the obtaining of a good everyday life” (Jakobsen 1999:70, my translation). These relations of goals and means give rise to life modespecific position interests that generate a specific ideology – a life mode-specific world of concepts that is related to the specific practice of the life mode in question. A life mode ideology is a cultural structure, a positioning among society’s cultural structures, that exists in the world of ideas and exists in internal logical relations between different theories, ideas, values and so on. Based on the ideology people are able to perceive their everyday life as a rational, meaningful and coherent totality. The ideology provides people with conceptions of how to act and arrange the good life and of what the requirements are to fulfill it. People living a specific life mode interpret and perceive people living other life modes according to their own, life mode-specific ideology. It is quite usual that when two or more life modes meet, the meeting has a tendency to become problematic. People living separate life modes tend to choose different projects and they tend to get in difficulties understanding each other. Due to the socio-centrism between life modes – people’s incapability to see beyond their own life mode – it tends to get complicated for people to understand life in other

4

Due to the focus of this paper I am not going to reason further regarding the love forms.

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life modes, whether this understanding is concerned about how life is in reality or how it looks like for those who live it. As mentioned earlier, life modes can be divided in male specific and female specific life modes. This does not mean that women cannot have male specific work forms or that men cannot have female specific work forms. The structural positions in question do not change because some individuals move between them. However a person is capable to live under influence of many mechanisms (for example influence from mechanisms from work forms and love forms that do not correspond), a situation that provides an important point of departure for molding experience and action. Male and female specific life modes appear as each other’s necessary conditions of existence and that is the reason they are here listed as pairs (the former being male and the latter female specific): the worker life mode and the housewife life mode, the career life mode and the backing up woman life mode, the independent life mode and the life mode of an assisting woman (my translation for the latter), the investor life mode with a related life mode for the investors “wife” (my translation for the latter). Before we take a closer look at the independent life mode studied in this paper, I feel I need to make clear that the structural positions (life modes) people occupy – for example as an employer/entrepreneur or an employee – hold different position interests that make people beforehand inclined to choose certain kind of projects. This is caused by the opportunity costs (that do not necessarily have to be about money) regarding different, conceivable projects that are connected with these positions. Opportunity costs for the same project is different for people in different positions. Thus, people living different life modes – different structural positions – tend to have different perceptions of the meaning of “the good life”, requirements for its fulfillment and the existing possibilities. It is these differences between groups of people that life modes, as social structures, are all about. Now I am going to focus on the independent life mode and the explanations for a noncapitalist rationality it offers.

The rationality of independence In this case we are interested in William as an entrepreneur. William lives the independent life mode. This life mode includes entrepreneurs – self-employed persons – with a few or not any employees. The activities of the enterprise can vary a lot from those of a farmer to consulting within information technology and is often a family business. This life mode was very com9

mon a few generations ago. However it has been forced a side by the worker life mode during the 1900th century.5 As I already have mentioned each life mode has its own specific practice and ideology. These specific practices position human beings among the structures of society. Being a producer and owning the means of production characterizes the practice of the independent life mode. Running this kind of business has nothing to do with capitalism. The motive powers of this life mode are not about profits. They are about building up and maintaining independent enterprising, working for one self. This could clearly be seen in the starting stage of William’s enterprise when all of the money coming in the firm was invested in purchasing materials to guarantee providing for the firm. The needs of his family were provided for through the income of his wife. Later on William increased his own contribution of labor and occasionally he even reduced the private consumption. There are also those who get an employment in the purpose of being able to support and maintain their companies. Striving to maintain independence is the reason why many, despite non-profitability and other problems, still continue running their businesses. Thus the life mode-specific practices structure existence in different relations of goals and means concerning the fulfillment of a good everyday life. The daily existence for people living independent life mode is structured in a way where the own enterprise gets to be both its goal and means (work↔leisure). There exists no concept of work that could be put against other activities and be called leisure. It is independence as such – to manage their own lives by them selves – that is the goal and the good life. A comparison with the worker life mode clarifies the fundamental differences that exist between life modes. In the worker life mode daily existence is structured in a relation where work is the means for the goals in leisure (work→leisure). In other words people work to live the good life in leisure. In the story of William it can clearly be understood that the prosperity and maintenance of his enterprise were the motive powers behind his “struggle”. William is willing to work up to the limit of his physical capacity just as long as he gets to keep his own enterprise. He is continuously active from early morning to late at night. Everything he does tends to look like work, useful activities for him self and his family. No contribution from his side is too big to give if it means the best for the firm and no burden is too heavy to bear as long as the own enterprise is put in the first place. The lack of time, not getting enough time for him self, is not to be seen

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The worker life mode includes employees with traditional wage work who sell their labor on the labor market.

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contradictory. In contrast it should be seen as proof of William’s loyalty to the demands of his enterprise – that the best of the enterprise is put in first place. Thus these goal and means relations generate a life mode-specific ideology related to the life mode-specific practice. This ideology provides people with conceptions of how to act and arrange the good life and of what the requirements are to fulfill it. Based on the ideology people are able to perceive their life as a rational and meaningful totality. So it is completely rational for William to continue with his hard work. His ideal of hard work and his loyalty to the firm brings him independence, control, minimized costs and guaranteed income.6 With an employee in the firm all of this would appear rather insecure. It is often problematic for a firm to grow if the owner lives independent life mode. The most central goal, independence as such, makes the developing of a firm – increasing the profits and the growth of the firm – not a part of the position interests for this life mode. To employ means risking an unwanted responsibility and dependence relation that could be a threat to independency.7 Also William had his doubts about employing extra labor for a long time. He meant that to employ somebody would mean loss of control over work tasks and he would become dependent on how skilled and well somebody else carried out the work projects. He had difficulties in relaying on others outside the family when his own independence was at stake. This was until he met George. William did not feel like risking his own independence while employing George. His interpretation of the situation was that George’s work values were very similar to his own. This is very clear if we look at the fact how William pointed out that George had built his own house. William and George were very similar according to William’s way of seeing things. William trusted George. Trust is here to be understood as an expression of William’s perceptions and expectations regarding George – as his interpretation of reality from the perspective of the independent life mode (Bergqvist 2001). William trusted George’s capability to manage work tasks in an appropriate way and to his willingness for hard work.

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Here I think it is relevant even to point out that Williams wife Wendy lives the life mode of an assisting

woman, the female specific life mode related to the independent life mode. Her everyday life is structured in a way that makes her responsible for household and children beside the work she is doing for the firm. Putting it very simple one could say that she assists (seen related to William) if, when and where there is need for it. William does not need to be concerned about anything else but the firm. 7

Wallace, his son, is to be seen as a family member, not an employee.

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This minimized the risks William earlier connected with having to employ staff and at the same time minimized the opportunity costs as William saw it. The first two years of George’s employment went by without any problems. George was an able workman and with time he learned to take care of the work projects independently. After a couple of years both he and his children became ill more and more often. His absence from work caused a great deal of problems for William and the firm risked loosing work opportunities due to delays caused by the lack of manpower. William was disappointed in George. Williams independence ideology, his loyalty to the demands of his firm and his readiness to work without limits from early morning to late at night seven, days a week if necessary, prevented him from understanding that George was not prepared to do the same. As mentioned earlier, it is quite usual that when two or more life modes meet, the meeting has a tendency to become problematic. A person like George who lives the worker life mode has a tendency to perceive the actions of the independent like William as irrational. For the ones living worker life mode it looks like that the reason to work for the independent is to be able to continue working. From the opposite perspective the ones living worker life mode – where the goal for living exists in leisure – look like inactive time wasters for the independent ones. The cause for this is the socio-centrism – the tendency of people to perceive other people according to their own life mode-specific ideologies. A conversation between persons can go on without the one party really understanding what the other party means. Even though the words used by both parties during the conversation are the same, the interpretation of them is done according to the life mode-specific ideology of each party. The result of such conversation is often a distorted picture of the situation. William could not overcome his life mode-specific “blindness” and “see” George’s life mode. (People living in worker life mode would not be prepared to give up sports activities or vacations nor would they be prepared to work while being ill.) William could not see George’s life mode as he sees it from the inside, only as it can be seen from the outside and only from the perspective of his own life mode. He did not trust George any longer. He experienced it as a betrayal when George stayed at home while being sick or while his children felt poor. Still today, several years later, he does not trust any others than family members to be suitable to work in his firm. He is not interested in employing anybody even though he and his son have more than enough work for only the two of them. Note that William is not to be considered as a slave driver without concern of the rights and well being of his employee. The story of William and George illustrates how the fundamental differences between life modes make it complicated for people to understand 12

existence in other life modes. Due to the different structural conditions and different positional interests for an entrepreneur/employer and an employee, it is possible that trust expresses separate perceptions of reality for people living separate life modes. The story shows that it can be difficult for an entrepreneur to trust an outsider due to the high opportunity costs. Independence is not to be at stake. It can also be difficult for an entrepreneur to find suitable candidates to employ when reality is interpreted from a life mode-specific perspective. An entrepreneur and an employee can have totally different expectations regarding work. Thus as an expression of an entrepreneur’s socio-centric life mode specific way to interpret reality, trust can be a hindrance for adjusting employment levels to the variation in workload. William chose to employ George because he thought that George worked according to the same interpretation of reality he himself had. By the time he found out that his expectations did not agree with actual circumstances he could no longer trust George.8 These events have still today an influence on William’s way of reasoning. As the situation is today he means that employing extra staff would mean him risking unsuccessful projects that could result in him loosing customers. Further, new customers would be difficult to get if the firm got a bad reputation. An employee would also mean more paperwork and higher costs in purchasing tools and maybe an extra car. There would be economic risks that could threaten the existence of the firm and in the long term his independence. He could not control the money flow through the firm if he had an employee’s wages to consider and he would be responsible for the legal rights – like the right to get a vacation and the right to stay at home while being sick – of the employee. A lack of manpower while an employee was sick could have devastating consequences for a firm like William’s. He means that it could double his costs if he would be forced to pay wages to somebody who didn’t work and at the same time be forced to get somebody else to do the job instead. To put it in other words, the opportunity costs to employ outside labor-force get to be unreasonably high. It can be said that life mode structures are expressed through their causal effects in being the cause for concrete events like that of an entrepreneur choosing not to employ even though the firm shows potentials for growth under a period of economic recovery. The structural rationality generated from the position interests in the independent life mode does not derive

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The lack of trust in the relation between William and George is to be considered a consequence of the

differences between the life mode specific ways of constructing reality.

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from the principles of capitalism. The rationality generated here is about adjusting life for the sake of independence. 9 The purpose of the story of William and George is to visualize the rationality generated from the position interests in the independent life mode. Thus we can raise the question if the concept of flexibility is occasionally misused and get to the final discussion that finishes this paper.

A call for a more cautious usage of the concept of flexibility My reasoning in this paper shows that the concept of flexibility, defined with a starting point in the capitalist principles of the economic market, is occasionally misused in literature. Taking the point of departure in capitalism, it is wrongly assumed that all firms strive to live by the rules of a capitalist market and to adjust to its principles. As my reasoning in this paper shows this is not the fact in all cases. Looking at it from the structural point of view we can understand that there are small firms that are not driven by the motive powers of capitalism. The rationality, the motive powers to run these firms, derive from independency. Thus I mean it can be misleading to talk about and study small firms using the same criterions for them all. The complexity of the concept of flexibility makes it hard to deny the usage of it in small firm research, though I claim, that doing so researches should be well aware of the possible differences between the firms in question and make sure they define flexibility in the point of departure in right principles. “Flexibility” or adjustability as I would rather call it, is derived from structural conditioning, the position interests and the opportunity costs that go with it running a small firm. The problem speaking about small firms is often the wide range of perceptions of how the concept of “small” is to be understood. As I earlier mentioned, in the context of flexibility, we could be talking about firms from the size of several hundred employees down to no employees at all. The point I have made here – regarding the differences in rationality within the group of so-called small firms – is really not a matter of the size of the firm but a matter of structural conditioning. Though it looks to me – based on my reasoning – that a difference

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Note that I am well aware of the economic mechanisms involved in running a small business. However they do

not need to be the only ones or the strongest mechanisms involved in the situation.

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should be made somewhere. Despite the lack of research on flexibility in the smallest firms, there are studies made within the field of small firm research, that back up this assumption. For example Atkinson and Meager (1994) have studied the development of managerial structures in parallel with the process of employment growth in small firms. Their study shows that ownership is divorced from full managerial control in businesses much smaller than 200 employees. They also mean that there can be expected strong managerial resistance to employment growth particularly in firms with fewer than twenty staff. They also give an example of differences in recruitment between large and small firms. In a large firm, recruitment is generally acknowledged to begin with a declaration of a vacancy and end with an identification of a suitable candidate. In a very small firm this sequence is often reversed, with an existence of a suitable recruit acting as the precondition for a vacancy to be created. This is just what happened in the case of William and George. Seeing this from my perspective one could assume that there is a limit to when independence no longer can function as a generator for rationality. Though it is a matter of future research to determine where a difference between small firms should be made or if it is to be made at all. However, these examples offer additional reinforcement to my claim of a more cautious usage of the concept of flexibility. The reasoning in this paper is concentrated on life mode structures. This does not mean that I consider these structures to be the only ones nor the most determining factors for the events dealt with here. Not all entrepreneurs live independent life mode and among those who do, there are several that have not nor are going to act the same way as William. We can never anticipate concrete events beforehand and they are changeable over time. But I do consider my structural perspective to be fruitful within the research field of small firms. In my research I have found that the rationality of the independent life mode, does not only influence adjusting to changes in these firms, it can also for example influence relations between an entrepreneur and an employee. An entrepreneur’s trust expressing the independent life modespecific work values and ethics, is fundamentally different from an employees trust if the employee is living the worker life mode. Due to people’s incapability to see beyond their own life mode they tend to have problems understanding people living other life modes. So trust, as an expression of this socio-centrism, the life mode-specific way of constructing reality can be a hindrance in a relationship between an entrepreneur and an employee (Bergqvist 2001). Thus I do consider life mode structures as fundamental for social life and as such to be fruitful for analyzing social life in general and entrepreneurship in particular.

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References Archer, Margaret (1995): Realist Social Theory: the Morphogenetic Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Atkinson, John (1984): Flexibility, Uncertainty and Manpower Management (Institute of Manpower Studies, rapport nr 89). Brighton: IMS Atkinson, John & Nigel Meager (1986): Changing Working Patterns: How Companies Achieve Flexibility to Meet New Needs. London: NEDO Atkinson, John & David Storey (1994): Employment, The Small Firm and The Labour Market. London: Routledge Atkinson, John & Nigel Meager (1994): “Running to stand still” I Atkinson & Storey (red.): Employment, The Small Firm and The Labour Market. London: Routledge Bergqvist, Tuula (2001): ”Tillit – ett hinder för expansion i små företag?” i Gunnar Aronsson & Jan Ch Karlsson (red.): Tillitens ansikten. Lund: Studentlitteratur Blau, Judith R. (1993): Social Contracts and Economic Markets. New York: Plenum Press Danermark, Berth, Mats Ekström, Liselotte Jakobsen & Jan Ch. Karlsson (2002): Explaining Society. Critical Realism in the social Siences. London: Routhledge. Højrup, Thomas (1989 [1983]): Det glemte folk. Livsformer og centraldirigering. Köpenhamn: Statens Byggeforskningsinstitut Jakobsen, Liselotte & Jan Ch Karlsson (1993): Arbete och kärlek. En utveckling av livsformsanalys. Lund: Arkiv Jakobsen, Liselotte (1999): Livsform, kön och risk. En utveckling och tillämpning av realistisk livsformsanalys. Lund: Arkiv Karlsson, Jan Ch & Birgitta Eriksson (2000): Flexibla arbetsplatser och arbetsvillkor. Lund: Arkiv NUTEK (1996): Towards Flexible organisations. Stockholm: NUTEK NUTEK (1999): Flexibility Matters. Stockholm: NUTEK Sayer, Andrew (1992): Metod in Social Science. A realist Approach. London: Routhledge. van den Berg, Axel, Bengt Furåker & Leif Johansson (1997): Labour Market Regimes and Patterns of Flexibility. Lund: Arkiv About the Author: Author: Tuula Bergqvist Company or Institution: Department of Working Life Science University of Karlstad Doctoral Student in Working Life Science Country: Sweden E-mail [email protected]

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