The name is absent

Flexibility and security: an asymmetrical relationship?

embedded within this national developmental path, institutions and culture, the more likely it is to
coordinate its corporate strategy to the interests of other actors in the national society, particularly to
balance the firm’s ‘economic’ interest with societal interests such as cohesion and equality (European
Commission, 2005). Moreover, in these two countries, even SMEs (on average larger than in the
Southern European countries) are willing to address the challenges of intensified competition and
technological change by pursuing organisational changes and becoming “learning organisations”.
Although Denmark’s industrial structure is dominated by SMEs, about half of the organisations
analysed in a 2001 survey had carried out organisational changes, whilst 2 out of 3 employees in Den-
mark and the Netherlands were found (in a 2000 EU comparative study) to be employed by “learning
organisations”, well above the EU average of 39% (mentioned in Bredgaard et al., 2005).

6.1.2. Welfare regimes

As we have seen in section 3.3., the 4 countries under consideration fall into different welfare
regimes that affect their level of social protection (see Box below). Denmark and the Netherlands,
although belonging to a different welfare regime, are regarded as models of how labour markets
can perform successfully without compromising social protection. ⁴⁰ In Denmark, in particular, the
authorities had realized early that a high level of social security is the pre-condition for a flexible
labour market and that any cuts in welfare spending would eventually lead to a reduction in labour
market flexibility. By contrast, Spain and Greece, both typical examples of the Southern European
welfare model, are an illustration of poor labour market performance and residual social protection
systems.

40 Although, as Visser (2005) points out, the high disablement rate (12% of the labour force in 2000) remains a sour spot
in the Dutch welfare state.

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