Flexible working: organisational liberation or individual strait‐jacket?

This paper addresses the practice‐derived concept of “flexible working” in order to challenge the lack of critical thinking in such facilities management (FM) research and writing. Through comparison of the field of FM with literature from other management fields, it proposes that much FM “research” is concerned with the validation of practice‐based concepts, which have been derived and implemented in small sections of specific organisations with self‐interest in their success and promotion. In so doing, it supports previous critical reflection on the lack of theoretical research in the FM field.