During the 1980s there were profound changes in the labour process
towards the 'flexible worker' and in the labour market towards a
'flexible workforce'. Three approaches to explain these changes provide
the focus for this book: Marxist regulation theory; the notion of
flexible specialisation associated with the 'new' institutional
economics; and the model of the flexible firm derived from managerialist
literature. In the book, the claims made by these approaches are
investigated and their implications are examined in relation to emerging
patterns of work in advanced societies.