Managing Labour in Small Firms

Abstract

This book explores the manner in which the size of the organisation influences the employment relationship with a focus upon small enterprises. The majority of organisations in the UK economy are categorised as small firms, having under 50 employees, and in 2002 such firms were found to provide 43 per cent of jobs within the economy (DTI, 2002). Clearly these organisations make a critical contribution to the British economy, yet-surprisingly-until quite recently very little was known about how such firms managed their labour. Since the 1990s there has been a growing body of evidence which has explored the employment relationship in small firms and this book fulfils an important task by recognising the importance of this literature, and also by moving the debate forward. Managing Labour in Small Firms also acknowledges that size-whilst influential in shaping firm behaviour-will interact with context to create particular employment relationships. These relationships are examined in chapters covering: • HRM in the smaller organisation • The challenge of undertaking research in such firms • The impact of regulation • The influence of social embeddedness • The affect of the national minimum wage • Training and development • Pay construction • Employee representation These discussions link the key themes and concepts within employment relations, and illustrate how firm size shapes their articulation and consequent management. Written by well respected specialists in the field, this is one of the only books on the market covering this topic, and as such it will be an essential text for researchers and graduates studying business and management, human resource management and industrial relations.

Small business owners: too busy to train?

“…The training needs of small businesses have been widely researched (Billett, 2001;Gibb, 1997;Matlay, 2000;Storey, 2004;Storey and Westhead, 1997;Webster, Walker, and Brown, 2005) but significant gaps in the knowledge still exist. For example, the literature shows that despite the importance of small businesses to the economy, little attention has been given to the effectiveness of training programs for these businesses (Huang, 2001) or to the study of other training and development practices (Chandler and McEvoy, 2000;Heneman, Tansky, and Camp, 2000;Kotey and Sheridan, 2004).…”