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Flexibility is a quality that is deemed essential for nursing as the healthcare environment escalates into greater complexity. The word "flexibility" appears in nursing literature addressing the need to prepare for the next millennium, yet the concept of flexibility is rarely defined. Other disciplines, such as engineering, have struggled for years and continue to struggle to achieve conceptual clarity with regard to flexibility. A concept analysis using Rodgers' evolutionary method was undertaken to understand the meaning of flexibility.
Key words: Concept analysis, nontraditional education, flexibility
The concept of flexibility has been examined from multiple perspectives and disciplines, and is therefore fairly well described and understood. A positive value appears to be attached to flexibility that crosses a variety of domains. Certainly, in the contemporary work setting, organizations have espoused flexibility as a core value, one that is needed for the viability of the organization and the emergence of leadership (Hall, Workman, & Marchioro, 1998). In educational settings, flexible curricula are those that allow more choice and are seen as being more responsive to the changing needs of students (Ayer & Smith, 1998; Clark, 1997). In psychological circles, flexibility is valued over rigidity (Freckelton, 1996; Hall et al.; Krull & Dill, 1996; Martin & Rubin, 1995; Peterson & Nemeth, 1996). From a nursing perspective, flexibility is a quality that has many positive effects on health and forms the basis for many nursing interventions related to positioning, movement, and activity of clients. From an engineering perspective, flexibility as a quality is essential if manufacturing systems are to be efficient, productive, and market driven (Barad & Sipper, 1988; Gupta & Goyal, 1989; Sethi & Sethi, 1990). Despite the positive significance of flexibility across the disciplines, however, there continues to be evidence in the literature that the concept is both multidimensional and complex, and remains poorly conceptualized (Gupta & Goyal).
The purpose of this paper is to examine the concept of flexibility from Rodgers' evolutionary view (Rodgers & Knafl, 1993). The evolutionary view lends itself naturally to the analysis of concepts with the aim of identifying clusters of attributes that may change and are not necessarily limited to fixed and rigid interpretations (Rodgers & Knafl). Further, it would seem that flexibility, by its very nature, possesses a fluidity...