Strategic Flexibility for Business Excellence — The Role of Human Resource Flexibility in Select Indian Companies

The purpose of this research paper is to develop a framework for understanding the importance of flexibility in organizations and how it helps in moving towards business excellence. An attempt has been made to look at flexibility as a core component of all processes, be it operational, leadership, strategy planning and implementation or any other process. The American business performance framework for excellence, Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award (MBNQA), has been used to understand the relevance of flexibility in each of the processes. The paper also looks at the flexibility issues in the Human resource function in select Indian organizations, which have adopted different business excellence model, by analyzing the primary data from five Indian companies. The concept of flexibility and its relationship with MBNQA framework can be taken as a starting point for carrying out conclusive research on developing strategic flexibility in future for achieving competitiveness.