Twenty-six scholars present findings from a wide range of national experiences, including those of Australia, Canada, Finland, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Although the bulk of the study is empirical, the conceptual approach with which the book opens pervades the entire analysis, so that important questions such as the following are raised frequently in differing contexts:
- Do organizations send mixed signals about flextime to their professional employees?
- What if anything compensates for the virtual elimination of "slack time" in the skilled labour market?
- Are flexible staffing arrangements inherently discriminatory?
- Do local managers tend to implement organizational strategic visions of good working life in a way that merely creates new compromises for their subordinates?
- How do non-permanent workers balance anxiety and freedom?
- Have flexible work arrangements affected traditional patterns of gender discrimination?
- Does "nonstandard" often mean "substandard"?