Transforming a small business: A learning intervention

Abstract

<strong>Orientation:</strong> This article reports on a learning intervention in a brokers company with fewer than 50 employees. A rich description of the participants’ experience is provided. Research purpose: The purpose of the study was to explore the use of an experiential learning process during an organisation development (OD) intervention in a small business by means of a case study.<p><strong>Motivation for the study:</strong> This study explored the important role of small businesses; the role of management; and, more specifically, organisation development models that were developed for large corporations; as these emphasise the need to study the purpose of organisation development interventions in small businesses.</p><p><strong>Research design, approach and method:</strong> The study reported on in this article was a qualitative case study in a small brokers company with 21 staff members. The data were analysed manually by means of qualitative content analysis.</p><p><strong>Main findings:</strong> The main finding of the research concerned how experiential learning intervention provided a space for participants to start exploring, and gradually changing the dynamics of their small business, by transforming their business into a more formal company.</p><p><strong>Practical/managerial implications:</strong> The primary implication is that experiential learning interventions that are operationalised, from a psychodynamic perspective, can be valuable when consulted by small businesses during their transformation towards becoming more formal companies.</p><p><strong>Contribution/value-add:</strong> This article contributes to the OD literature on small businesses, with fewer than 50 employees, by providing data on how the learning process, that commenced during an experiential learning intervention, assisted a small company to develop its identity towards that of a more formal company.</p><p><strong>How to cite this article:</strong><br /> Geldenhuys, D.J., & Cilliers, F. (2012). Transforming a small business: A learning intervention. <em>SA Journal of Industrial Psychology/SA Tydskrif vir Bedryfsielkunde, 38</em>(2), Art. #1028, 8 pages. http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/sajip.v38i2.1028</p&gt

Socially Conscious Ventures and Experiential Learning: Perceptions of Student Engagement

“…The revisions were implemented with the intent of providing the benefits of experiential learning, while emphasizing moral and ethical development without incurring the decrease in community involvement recently attributed to service learning, as noted by various researchers [8][9][10].…”

“…Additional concerns arise when the faculty member appears to have a vested interest in promoting a particular community partner for service learning, bringing issues of conflict of interest and student coercion [8,20]. Additionally, many students question the value of such projects for business education, insofar as the types of challenges, work, and organizational emphases found in typical service-learning endeavors often differ markedly from those in the corporate world for which business students are ostensibly preparing [21][22].…”

“…Service learning, a community-focused strand within experiential learning, has recently gained traction-largely in response to the growing number of corporate ethics scandals-as educators and administrators seek to imbue students with broader societal values and a strong moral compass. Some research suggests, however, that both students and employers view these "pure" service-learning experiences as less useful than private-sector experiential learning activities and that such philanthropic endeavors can result in lowered community involvement and empathy among participants [8][9][10]. To address pervasive ethical concerns while maintaining a focus on professionally useful experience, the authors worked with a set of five "socially conscious ventures", i.e., for-profit small businesses that prioritize economic sustainability, but nevertheless maintain an explicit and meaningful commitment to the social and/or environmental components of the "triple-bottom line.…”

HRD in SMEs: A research agenda whose time has come

“…Learning within SMEs may not be apparent due to being contextualized in everyday practical applications, with learning occurring through, rather than on, the job (Geldenhuys & Cilliers, 2012;Gold & Thorpe, 2008;Hamilton, 2011;Higgins & Aspinall, 2011;Hill, 2004;Matlay, 2005;Rigg & Trehan, 2004). Such issues have been recognized for decades; Lave and Chaiklin (1993) claimed that "learning is ubiquitous in ongoing activity though often unrecognised as such" (p. 5).…”

The curious case of human resource development in family‐small‐to‐medium sized enterprises

“…HRD in SMEs should not be assumed to be scaled down versions of HRD activities and practices in larger enterprises (Lai, Saridakis, Blackburn, & Johnstone, ). In fact, fundamental differences between SMEs and larger enterprises with respect to strategy, structure, and resource endowments (Josefy, Kuban, Ireland, & Hitt, ) suggest that HRD in SMEs is often informal in nature (Kotey & Sheridan, ), occurs largely through an employee's job (Geldenhuys & Cilliers, ; Matlay, ), and is largely driven by the ideology and goals of the owner‐managers (Coetzer, Wallo, & Kock, ; Koch & de Kok, ; Matlay, ; Saru, ). We largely agree with Gray and Short's (2018) recent call to pay greater attention to the issue of HRD in SMEs, and echo their call to recognize and better account for the significant heterogeneity among SMEs.…”