Can flexicurity make ethical sense? The ‘terceisation function’ as a moral lever for inter-organisational employment schemes

inter-organizational; employers alliance; reflexive pragmatism; terceisation; flexicurity; workforce pooling; mutualisation; labour pool; pragmatisme; réflexivité; inter-organisationnel; groupementd'employeurs; tercéisation; flexicurité; flexi-sécurité

Abstract :

[en] An employers’ alliance (EA) is a group of employers who team up to hire and share workers. It is presented as ‘flexicurity in action’, in other words, as a tool allowing employers and workers to find new win-win compromises at the company level. Even when motivated by the best of intentions and with all pre-conditions fulfilled, implementing such a new inter-organisational employment scheme might end in failure. We will describe such a failure with the help of a case study showing how employers considered the EA scheme as a possible solution for the informal multi-activity of their staff. We then explore some of the reasons for the failure in implementation and describe how a supporting third party function, which we call the terceisation function, could help the process to succeed and the EA to evolve towards a more equitable and sustainable flexicurity scheme.

Research Center/Unit :

Laboratoire d'Etudes sur les Nouvelles Technologies de l'Information, la Communication, l'Innovation et le Changement - LENTIC

Disciplines :

General management, entrepreneurship & organizational theory

Author, co-author :

Xhauflair, Virginie ; Université de Liège - ULiège > HEC-Ecole de Gestion de l'Université de Liège > LENTIC

Pichault, François ; Université de Liège - ULiège > HEC-Ecole de gestion : UER > Gestion des ressources humaines

Language :

English

Title :

Can flexicurity make ethical sense? The ‘terceisation function’ as a moral lever for inter-organisational employment schemes

Publication date :

2012

Journal title :

International Journal of Work Innovation

ISSN :

2043-9032

eISSN :

2043-9040

Publisher :

Indersciences, Geneve, Switzerland

Volume :

Issue :

Pages :

65–78

Peer reviewed :

Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi

Name of the research project :

"ARC-Understanding flexicurity"

Funders :

SPF Politique scientifique PAI

Available on ORBi :

since 16 January 2012

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