ABSTRACT
This chapter examines some of the factors which have influenced the development of flexible working in recent times, including developments in social policy at national and regional levels. It provides an overview of extant research examining the factors that have been found to influence both the provision and uptake of flexible working arrangements. In several countries the availability of flexible working arrangements to employees is, at least in part, influenced by the existence of legislation and governmental policy at national and/or regional level, giving employees certain rights to change their working arrangements. For example, in the UK and Australia employees have the legal ‘right to request’ flexible working arrangements, as do federal government employees in the USA. A number of studies have attempted to examine the factors which influence whether flexible working arrangements are made available to employees and whether employees take advantage of them.
