ABSTRACT

The business life has witnessed radical changes since the last quarter of the 20th century. Economical changes, technological progress, industrial restructuring and globalized competition have risen as important factors that affect labour market, job quality and work activities in the new millennium; and they have caused today’s organizations to take the necessary steps towards flexibility. Inflexible regulations related to work conditions have resulted in the requirement for organizations to keep up with the globalized competition. Accordingly, the concept of labour flexibility is closely related to competitiveness. In this study in which the relationships between labour flexibility and competitiveness is analyzed, the tourism establishments are chosen as the target group, as these enterprises have longly adopted flexibility, A survey is conducted on the managers and personnel of 61 tourism enterprises located in Kocaeli. The data is tested by means of structural equation modelling (SEM). The findings show that flexibility in tourism establishments contributes to the competitiveness in terms of quality. These results reveal the importance of flexibility in terms of competitiveness for tourism enterprises.