This paper investigates the relationship between workplace flexibility practices (WFPs) and corporate performance using data from the British Workplace Employment Relations Survey 2004.Disaggregating WFPs into numerical, functional and cost aspects, enables the analysis of their relationships to an objective measure of corporate performance, namely workplace financial turnover.Furthermore separate analyses are presented for different types of workplace: differentiated by workforce size; ownership; age; wage level and unionisation. Results show that different types of workplaces need to pay attention to the mix of WFPs they adopt. We find that certain cost WFPs (profitrelated pay, merit pay and payment-by-results) have strong positive relationships with corporate performance. However, training delivers mixed corporate performance results, while the extent of job autonomy and the proportion of part-time employees in a workplace have an inverse association with corporate performance. Given the limited existing research examining disaggregated measures of WFPs and objectively measured corporate performance, this paper offers useful insights for firms, policy makers and the overall economy.

This workplace flexibility study uses primary data on private sector Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) Introduction: Motivation for Researching Workplace Flexibility in SMEsConditions of weak demand are, by definition, problematic for firms, conflicting with organisational interests to maintain production and protect human capital assets. One potential response to recessionary pressures relates to an increase in workplace flexibility. This approach might enable firms to adapt to new market conditions whilst increasing organisational efficiency. It may also have particular resonance for small and medium-sized enterprises There is little consensus over an exact definition of workplace flexibility practices (WFPs), which is unexpected when taking into account the wide interest in their utilisation from government, policy makers and practitioners. *The authors are grateful to the Lancashire Business School, UCLan (UK) for the financial support given to this research project (Report

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Existing research on certifiable management standards (CMS) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) tends to focus on large companies and is characterised by disagreement about the role of these standards as drivers of CSR. We contribute to the literature by shifting the analytical focus to the behaviour of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that subscribe to multiple CSR related standards. We argue that, in respect of motive and commitment, SMEs are not as different from large companies as the literature suggests, as they are guided by similar institutional and economic motives. Results, based on ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 certified SMEs in Greece, demonstrate that later adopters are more susceptible to coercive and mimetic motives and are less likely to commit fully to the CMS requirements, while earlier adopters react to normative motives and considerations of internal efficiency gains and tend to carry out CMS requirements with greater diligence.

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