ABSTRACT
The term “flexibility” is nowadays used to refer to an ensemble of properties which must be possessed as much by the forms of economic regulation as by the enterprises themselves. These properties correspond to several types of empirical phenomena: the development of uncertain markets where a variable demand manifests itself in an unpredictable manner over time; the growing differentiation of products following a closer analysis of the needs of demanders; the tendency toward quality competition (and no longer only price or cost competition); the growing dynamism of small organizations confronted by the bureaucratic rigidity of large ones; and the call for the polyvalence, autonomy, and initiative of workers in production associated with the deployment of flexible, computer-assisted technologies, etc. In sum, while economic thought, orthodox or heterodox, is largely based on the predictability and homogeneity of behavior, flexibility confronts us with an economic universe which increasingly takes on, for its participants, a character of heterogeneity and uncertainty.
