In the last decades, work flexibility emerged as a key requirement firms must meet to face volatile markets and highly differentiated product demand. This article compares two alternative approaches to strengthen work flexibility: internal flexibility, that is, practices that focus on the employees’ ability to perform a variety of highly qualified tasks in a context of stable employment relationships; and external flexibility, that is, practices that align employment and labor costs to demand fluctuations using a buffer of nonstandard employees involved in routine tasks. We empirically verify whether both practices are able to boost sales growth using a linked employer-employee panel of manufacturing firms from the Emilia-Romagna region (Italy). While internal flexibility positively affects firm growth, external flexibility is at best not significant, and in some empirical specifications, it appears to hamper firm growth. Such a negative effect, however, decreases when we limit the analysis to industries with high demand volatility and cost-based competition. The related managerial and policy implications are discussed.

中文翻译：

---

工作灵活性和企业成长：来自艾米利亚-罗马涅地区 LEED 数据的证据

在过去的几十年里，工作灵活性成为公司面对动荡的市场和高度差异化的产品需求所必须满足的关键要求。本文比较了两种增强工作灵活性的替代方法：内部灵活性，即注重员工在稳定的雇佣关系背景下执行各种高素质任务的能力的做法；和外部灵活性，即使用参与日常任务的非标准员工缓冲调整就业和劳动力成本以适应需求波动的做法。我们通过使用来自艾米利亚-罗马涅地区（意大利）的制造公司的雇主-雇员联系小组，凭经验验证这两种做法是否能够促进销售增长。虽然内部灵活性对公司增长产生积极影响，外部灵活性充其量是不显着的，并且在一些经验规范中，它似乎阻碍了公司的增长。然而，当我们将分析限制在需求波动大和基于成本的竞争的行业时，这种负面影响就会减少。讨论了相关的管理和政策影响。