PARADOX BY THE DASHBOARD LIGHT: RECONCILING FLEXIBILITY AND SECURITY IN THE LOGISTICS INDUSTRY
Martijn van Velzen, Assistant Professor of Human Resource Management, School of Management and Governance, University of Twente, The Netherlands

Abstract
The deliberate balancing of flexibility and security, or 'flexicurity', has predominantly featured on agenda's of (supra)national policy makers, suggesting a belief that flexicurity strategies can be drafted and implemented top-down. This article focuses on role of the company in crafting flexicurity; the individual organization as the ‘locus flexicuritas’. Qualitative evidence is presented of the conditions under which balances between flexibility and security are struck at the workplace level. The analysis builds on qualitative material from the logistics industry in Denmark and the Netherlands. Company and industry data, as well as legal and policy documents, supplemented the material collected in the interviews. The findings show that the presence and nature of flexicurity strategies depend on HRM styles of individual companies and the ability and willingness of management to allow for flexicurity outcomes as the result of company-level bargaining.
Keywords: flexicurity, working-time flexibility, temporary agency work, logistics industry