CHAPTER 31

Human Resource Management in Small and Medium Enterprises

CHAPTER OBJECTIVES

After reading this chapter, you should be able to:

1. Understand the importance of small and medium enterprises (SMEs)
2. Compare the human resource management (HRM) practices of small- and large-scale organizations
3. Elucidate the importance of HRM in SMEs
4. Describe the HRM functions of SMEs
5. Enumerate the challenges facing HRM in SMEs

Sakthi Masala Private Limited in Tamil Nadu is engaged in the production of spice and masala powders, pickles, papadum, ghee, and sunflower oil. This company believes in concept selling on “Easy Cooking” rather than marketing food products. It aims at overall leadership in the market though empowered employees, sustained efforts, and continually improving product quality. This company emphasis that only fair business practices will keep one ahead of their competitors. Over the last two decades, Sakthi Masala has been actively recruiting disabled people for their establishment and today one-third of the employees in the company are differently abled. All the differently abled employees are also given periodic therapy and counselling. The company runs a free hospital and also offers education assistance to the children of its employees. Sakthi Masala, first and foremost, cares for its people and then for its business and profit. It bagged many awards and recognitions from the State and Central Governments and other bodies for their contribution to the inclusive recruitment and industrial relations practices. Sakthi Masala was presented with the fifth TERI—Corporate Social Responsibility Award for its relentless efforts in uplifting the differently abled people by offering them employment opportunities. Recruitment and other HR practices of Sakthi Masala have provided a perfect setting for discussion on the HRM practices in small- and medium-sized enterprises.

Introduction

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) play an important role in the economic growth of the nations due to their inherent ability to generate employments. It is a preferred model of economic development for developing countries like India due to its high contribution to domestic production, significant export potentials, and low import requirements and low investment requirements. Across the world, the knowledge-based economy like India is characterized by an increasing share of SMEs.¹ For instance, in India, small and medium enterprises develop Indian economy by contributing 45% of the industrial output, 40% of exports, and provide employment to 42 millions. It also creates one million jobs every year and produces more than 8,000 quality products for the Indian and international markets.²

Besides, the SMEs account for nearly 80% of total business enterprises in India as there are 26 million micro, small, and medium business enterprises in the country today. Moreover, these SMEs contribute nearly 33% to total manufacturing output and 39% to Indian exports.³ Compared with large enterprises, SMEs are generally more labour-intensive in nature and less technology-driven. Today, these SMEs have greater scope for expansion and diversification across the sectors.

To survive, prosper, and grow, entrepreneurs and managers of SMEs need a number of skills, one of which is managing people and adopting HR practices that support high performance.⁴ However, it was believed that HRM practices are vital only for large business firms. It was also a fact that small firms generally pay less attention to HRM than their large counterparts do.⁵ Now, there is a realization among HR experts and practitioners that HRM is equally important for small business firms too. The entrepreneurs also began to realize that HRM practices can benefit small businesses especially in the context of globalization of business, shortage of skilled labour force, and fierce competition. They also understand that the presence of a liaison (in the form of HR Managers) between employers and employees can create excellent professional relationship within the firm.

Human Resource Management Practices in Large-scale and Small-scale Enterprises—A Comparison

The HRM is essential for effectively managing people in all forms and size of organizations. It strives to keep people motivated and help them perform better in their work. Regardless of size, human resources are vital assets in all organizations. Whether large or small, firms hire employees to run its operations and thus directly or indirectly perform HRM activities. Although the basic HRM activities are performed by all firms, small firms may have to alter their HR practices to suit their requirements and budgetary constraints. An effective HRM can help the SMEs hire, retain, and motivate skilled people needed for faster business growth and expansion. In brief, HRM enables the small business firms to become and remain competitive.⁶

A few studies on HRM have found the HR practices of small and large firms to be similar.⁷ In reality, significant differences are observed in the HRM practices of small and large firms. We shall now see the differences in HR practices of firms based on their size and scale of operation (Table 31.1).

 

Importance of HRM in SMEs

Entrepreneurs of small business firms usually have budgetary and time constraints that may limit their HRM efforts. However to grow, businesses need to implement some form of human resource planning from job recruitment to employee maintenance. In any business, employees’ commitment, loyalty, and performance are crucial to goal fulfilment and operational success. This holds good even for small- and medium-sized business. Surely, the success of an organization, today or tomorrow, is being seen more and more dependent on the effectiveness of human resource management.⁸

Studies have shown that HRM strategy has positive effect on the increase in business success of small business firms.⁹ HRM strategy in small businesses typically involve training/development of employees, decision-making involvement, goal communication, and supporting personal initiative.¹⁰ In fact, small firms can benefit immensely from effective HRM. Now, SMEs can gain from HRM practices by the following ways:

1. HRM can help small businesses in choosing competent persons by developing and administrating appropriate hiring process. By hiring and developing skilled employees, HRM can greatly improve the growth prospects of small business concerns. By streamlining their recruitment process, small businesses can minimize the risks of selecting wrong people that may result in high recruitment cost, high attrition rate, and frequent hiring.
2. HRM can assist the small businesses by conducting cost-effective training programmes at regular intervals to enhance the skills and knowledge of employees. HRM can assess the organizational training needs before deciding the nature and timing of employee training programme. HRM can also focus on cross-functional training to enable employees of small firms to perform multiple tasks or functions.
3. Small businesses often face compensation-related problems due to budget constraints and inconsistent compensation policies and practices. HRM can help small businesses in the vital task of pay fixation by suggesting economical ways to award the best performers. By suggesting proper compensation packages, HRM can help organizations improve their economic performances, sales, and employee productivity. In this regard, HRM can conduct researches to identify or develop the compensation packages that suit the requirements and conditions of the small firms.
4. HRM can ensure that the small businesses comply with all labour laws and regulations of governments that govern the relationship between entrepreneurs and their employees. For instance, small firms need to comply with labour laws such as Factories Act, 1948, Shops and Establishments Acts, etc.
5. HRM can help the small business firms in effectively communicating its policies and practices with employees. Due to lack of time, entrepreneurs may not be communicating regularly and properly with the employees. This may lead to communication gaps, misunderstanding, tension, and conflict in employer and employee relationship. On behalf of the employers, HRM can regularly communicate with the employees.
6. HRM can assist the entrepreneurs in developing formal performance appraisal system for evaluating employee performance. Due to high cost and ignorance of its benefits, entrepreneurs tend to prefer informal and even faulty appraisal process over formal process for employee performance evaluation. Pay and promotion decisions based on such faulty evaluation process may create negative impact on employee motivation and morale.

HRM Functions in SMEs

HRM functions explained in text books are mostly applicable to large firms.¹¹ These HRM functions are not always applicable, practicable, and feasible in small business firms.

We shall now see the HR practices that ensure the effective utilization of human resources available with SMEs (Figure 31.1). These HR practices aim at achieving desired level of employees’ skill and knowledge, motivation, and behaviour that are essential for small business success.

According to Ng and Maki, the HRM functions can be classified into three major categories from small-firm perspective.¹² These are as follows:

1. The identifying function that involves human resource planning and job evaluation
2. The obtaining function that includes the recruitment and selection of employees
3. The retaining function that involves payroll processing, administration of HR records, health and safety compliance, and public relations

Recruitment and Selection

The recruitment and selection process is the most commonly used HRM practice in SMEs. The process used by SMEs for recruitment is normally less formal and structured than the large firms. Although several formal recruitment methods such as advertising, employment agency, and job sites are available, SMEs often prefer the informal technique of “word of mouth” for choosing right people. This is because the financial expenses incurred by SMEs for the “word of mouth” technique is almost nil. The other less expensive recruitment methods of SMEs are walk-ins and referrals. Due to the absence of frequent and large-scale recruitment and inadequate resources, SMEs usually prefer simple, informal, and less expensive recruitment techniques.

The intense competition for skilled and knowledgeable workers in the labour market has forced many entrepreneurs and managers of SMEs to rethink on their recruitment approach and style.¹³ Now, they realize the need for professional recruitment skills and the ability to develop better understanding of the attitude of employees. Consequently, they began to adopt more formal and sophisticated techniques for recruiting high-quality staff. SMEs now use the Internet more effectively for recruitment (known as web recruiting). This is because the web recruiting helps the firms in not only reducing recruitment cost but also reaching out to large number of potential candidates.

In case of selection, SMEs mostly adopt informal, unstructured interviews for assessing the key characteristics of the job aspirants. Similarly, the ability and aptitude tests are the commonly used employment tests in SMEs. CVs and application forms are generally considered as the easiest and most useful tools for gathering relevant information about the job applicants’ characteristics. However, there is a need for small firm owners and managers to adopt improved selection methods to be more effective. In this regard, small firms can use simple and user-friendly tests such as Wonderlic Personnel Test that measures the general mental ability and Predictive Index that measures the work-related personality traits, behaviours, and drives.¹⁴ SMEs can adopt sophisticated forms of psychometric tests and panel or sequenced interviews for selecting right persons for the vacancies. Rather than finding temporary solutions to recruitment problems, owners and managers of SMEs should adopt a formal and systematic hiring policy and practices.

Employee Training

Even though there are few positions that require no training, employees are not at all provided training in SMEs.¹⁵ Small firms are generally indifferent towards employee training because of the budget constraints and production disturbances caused by these training programmes. Business firms view training as a tactical tool for achieving strategic business objectives. However in small firms, new employees usually learn the job by trial and error method that leads to wastage of time, money, materials, and other resources. In some cases, the training needs of new employees are met by their supervisors and co-workers in an informal way. Due to continuous changes in technology, product, and business practices, training has become a critical necessity in small businesses to improve employees’ skills, knowledge, and attitude. Irrespective of the size, training is the key element for commitment, ability, job satisfaction, and morale of the employees of the firm. To overcome skill shortage, training is now emerging as an effective HR practice in SMEs. Firms can offer general and/or job-specific training to their employees depending upon the requirements.

In reality, SMEs give least importance for formal training of employees for a variety of reasons.

1. Training is usually too expensive for small firms as training cost per employee is high in these firms.¹⁶
2. Small firms usually have shorter time horizon (longevity) than the large firms.
3. Production and work schedule disturbances arise out of formal training of employees such as production loss and non-availability of replacements for trainee.
4. Prospects of trained employees quitting the job are high due to lack of adequate promotion opportunities in small firms. Understandably, the owners of SMEs fear the loss of investment made in employee training.
5. Lack of awareness among the owners and managers of SMEs about the worthiness of employee training.

If the in-house formal training programmes are expensive for SMEs, then they can arrange external skill training and occupational health and safety training programmes for their employees. In this regard, they can approach the academic institutions, local chambers of commerce, industries’ associations, and professional training agencies for training their employees. SMEs need to realize that both the employer and employee gain when employees are trained and promoted to high-level positions. Training not only satisfies the career advancement aspirations of employee but also improves their job performance. The opportunities for growth keep the morale of the employee high. Training also improves the prospects of attracting potential applicants.

Compensation and Benefits

The compensation and benefits of large and small firms are dissimilar in nature. When it comes to the payment of salary and benefits, small firms are less generous than large firms. In case of large firms, the compensation aspects of HRM function are very detail-oriented. The bigger the business, the more complicated is the compensation policy and practices.¹⁷ Irrespective of the size of the firm, compensation is one of the most sensitive areas of human resources management. Even if the employee compensation and benefits are expensive, small firms cannot ignore them as it is necessary to attract and retain competent workers. Small firms normally provide direct and indirect compensations (fringe benefits) to their employees. Of late, a few SMEs have begun to offer non-financial compensation in their work place like challenging work, recognition, flexible work hours, etc. In recent times, SMEs are accessing salary surveys available in the Internet for determining the compensation packages of their employees.

Performance Evaluation

Organizations develop performance evaluation system to meet various objectives like (i) identifying employee strengths and weaknesses, (ii) receiving feedback on performance, (iii) deciding on employee promotion and pay rise, and (iv) determining the need for and nature of training programme. The performance evaluation practices of small firms rarely achieve any of these objectives. The appraisal system in SMEs is usually designed to meet the specific needs of the firms and is not elaborate. In small enterprises, employees’ performance is often evaluated by their supervisors.¹⁸ In fact, the SMEs normally adopt less formalized employee performance evaluation techniques than large firms.¹⁹

SMEs generally use ad hoc techniques for evaluating employee performance and rarely provide feedback to employees. However, the formal performance evaluation practices become absolute necessity, when firms grow and reach certain size. In small firms, performance evaluation practices are often used for monitoring and control rather than development purposes.²⁰ Small firms should adopt formal system of performance evaluation for rational and unbiased judgement of employees’ efficiency, performance, and potential.

SMEs generally use key result area (KRA)-based performance evaluation for assessing its employee’s performance. In recent times, owners and managers of SMEs have begun to use computerized and online techniques for performance evaluation. Small firms can outsource their HRM practice by utilizing the services of consultant firms who do the evaluation online for the employees of SMEs.²¹

Employee Safety and Health

Health and safety of the employees is an important aspect of an organization’s successful functioning. It is an important factor in achieving required level of organizational effectiveness. It makes certain that the industrial environment is accident-free. It is, therefore, essential for all firms to provide same importance for employee safety and health as they do for other key objectives of their business activities. Proper attention to the safety and welfare of the employees can help the firms in improving employee morale, reducing absenteeism, enhancing productivity, and minimizing work-related injuries and illnesses.²²

Due to short life span and less financial stability, SMEs provide little importance for the health and safety of their employees. Moreover, the SMEs are not sure about the benefits of any investment in health and safety aspects of HRM practices. This is despite the fact that the highest level of ergonomic strains was usually reported in small companies.²³ The most common obstacles to the health- and safety-related HRM practices are financial constraints, lack of training, priority to production, and lack of time. Indian employees’ preference for high wages and security also pushed the occupational health and workplace safety issues to the backstage in most SMEs.

The Indian constitution has specific provisions like Articles 24, 39(e and f), and 42 for protecting the occupational health and safety of workers. These regulations deal with the conditions of work, provident funds, employees’ invalidity and old-age pension, maternity benefit, and safety in mines and oil fields. Even though the SMEs in India are subjected to governmental regulations concerning labour welfare, these regulations are often violated due to the weakness of the system governing labour relations.²⁴

Industrial Relations

The level of trust between the employers (entrepreneurs) and employees in business firms determines the willingness of these people to communicate effectively with each other.²⁵ The frequent and effective communication is essential for improving cooperation and productivity. Since the unions are generally weak or non-existent in Indian SMEs, the employers’ initiative to promote harmonious industrial relations remains inadequate and ineffective. The successive governments in India have taken many initiatives to develop cooperative labour relations but without much success. There are many instances of employers spoiling such initiatives for their selfish reasons.

Depending upon the nature of business, SMEs in India can affiliate with organization/association like Small Industries Development Organization (SIDO), National Small Industries Corporation Ltd. (NSIC), Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI), Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), Associated Chamber of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM), and Small Scale Industries Board (SSIB). Once affiliated, they are bound by the rules, regulation, and agreements signed by these industry associates.

In reality, most SMEs are not members of any industry association or marginally associated with them. Consequently, they are not bound by any industry-level agreements. This enables the SMEs to have the flexibility of deciding their own HRM practices and industrial relations policies. Often, these HRM policies and practices are not only arbitrary in nature but also work against the interest of the workers. Unfortunately, even after the enactment of several labour laws and sweeping economic reforms, informality continues to exist in many SMEs in India. However, the formalization tends to increase, as HRM becomes more specialized.²⁶ The innovative HR practices of a few SMEs across nations are shown in Box 31.1.

Challenges Facing HRM in SMEs

Human resources are the most valuable or key resource in any organization irrespective of the size and nature of operation. But for long, HR initiatives were focused mostly on large organizations for variety of reasons. Now, the important challenges to the introduction of HRM in SMEs are described as follows (Figure 31.2):

1. Employer resistance: In several small firms, the entrepreneurs take care of all HR-related activities. Due to low level of formal and professional education, many entrepreneurs have limited exposure to modern management principles and HRM practices. As a result, the HRM in SMEs is often informal, intuitive, and ad hoc. Due to this informality, workforce of SMEs is often inadequately managed and also remains less motivated. Furthermore, the absence of encouragement from entrepreneurs for consistent, independent, and efficient HRM practices leads to low productivity and low-quality standards in SMEs.

1. 2. Survival problems: As the entrepreneurs and managers of SMEs are unsure of their own survival in a highly competitive external environment, they give very little attention to the internal functioning of the firm. Since the management of employee is basically an internal function, HRM gets the least attention in SMEs.
2. 3. Reactive approach: SMEs generally adopt reactive approach to the developments in their external business environment, and in this way, they neglect the importance of planned approach to management.²⁷ HRM that involves lot of preplanning and proactive approach gets least priority among the entrepreneurs.
3. 4. Budgetary constraints: SMEs normally have budgetary and time constraints that restrict their HR-related initiatives such as recruitment, selection, training, and wage and salary fixation. Due to their inability to offer competitive benefits package, SMEs often face major challenge in attracting and retaining talented workforce in a tight labour market situations.
4. 5. Low-quality HR decisions: The costs associated with the employment of trained HR professionals on a full-time basis are high and often unaffordable for SMEs. Consequently, the HR activities often become the responsibility of line managers in SMEs. These HR activities of line managers may interfere with their other managerial tasks relating to revenue generation. Besides, the line managers may lack significant training and expertise in performing specialized HR tasks. The inadequacy of time and HR expertise of line managers may ultimately affect the quality of HR decisions in SMEs.

A survey of challenges of HR executives in SMEs conducted in 10 countries across three continents revealed five most important challenges.²⁸ These are as follows:

1. Hiring qualified people, particularly in filling key employee positions
2. Retaining qualified people
3. Developing managers and employees with high potential
4. Controlling total wage bill
5. Improving labour conditions

This survey also provides a few solutions for HR challenges of SMEs. These are as follows: (i) automation of one or more existing HR processes, (ii) delegation of more HR tasks to managers and/or employees, and (iii) engaging the services of external HR consultants. The study also suggests that the most time-consuming administrative HR tasks should first be automated.

Summary

1. To survive, prosper, and grow, entrepreneurs and managers of SMEs need a number of skills, one of which is managing people and adopting HR practices that support high performance.
2. The importance of HRM in SMEs is as follows: (i) it helps small businesses in choosing competent persons by developing and administrating appropriate hiring process, (ii) it assists the small businesses by conducting cost-effective training programmes at regular intervals, (iii) it helps small businesses in the vital task of pay fixation by suggesting economical ways to award the best performers, (iv) it ensures that the small businesses comply with all labour laws and regulations of governments, (v) it helps the small business firms in effectively communicating its policies and practices with employees, and (vi) it assists the entrepreneurs in developing formal performance appraisal system for evaluating employee performance.
3. The common HRM functions in SMEs are recruitment and selection, employee training, compensation and benefits, performance evaluation, employee safety and health, and industrial relations.
4. Challenges facing HRM in SMEs are employer resistance, survival problems, reactive approach, budgetary constraints, and low-quality HR decisions.
5. Suggestions for solving HR problems in SMEs are Automation of HR processes, delegation of more HR tasks to employees, and engaging the services of external HR consultants.

Review Questions

Essay-type questions

1. Compare and contrast the HRM practices of small- and large-scale enterprises.
2. Describe the importance of HRM in small and medium enterprises.
3. Discuss in detail the HRM functions carried out by small business enterprises.
4. Examine the challenges facing HRM in small and medium enterprises.
5. HRM is still in infancy stage in SMEs’—discuss with examples.

Skill-development Exercise

Objective – The objective of this exercise is to show you how to develop staffing plan for a small- and medium- sized enterprise.

Procedure note – The class is split into groups. Each group has (i) a CEO/ entrepreneur (ii) a logistics manager (iii) a finance manager (iv) a sales manager (v) a HR consultant, and (vi) two observers of the meetings. The role of the observers is to observe and provide feedback on different aspects of the role playing sessions.

Situation

M/s. WL Appliances is the stockist and distributor of domestic home appliance company. They operate out of Chennai and cover most of southern India market. This firm employed 60 people including 45 salesmen. Recently, this firm entered a tie-up with Germany-based home appliances company that has several leading brands. This tie-up became a turning point for this Chennai-based firm as the manpower requirements increased by almost six times. This firm never felt the need for any staffing plan till it signed the tie-up, as recruitment earlier was just sporadic and fewer in numbers. The recent development has necessitated the preparation of basic staffing plan for systematic hiring of personnel. Since WL Appliances is basically a SME type of institution, the staffing plan need not be detailed or lengthy, just something that addresses the key issue of finding right candidate with right attitude. The plan should explain how many employees should be hired, the type of employee to be recruited, and what they will be expected to do. The plan should also specify how the employee expenses will be covered.

Steps in the exercise

Step 1: The CEO consults the HR consultant to know about the nature and type of staffing plan suitable for SMEs.

Step 2: The CEO then conducts meeting with the managers to finalize the staffing plan for the firm based on the specific requirements of the business.

Step 3: The observers analyse the discussion and provide their feedback on the performance of all the members in their role playing sessions.

Case Study

Talent Retention Woes of a SME

Akshay Sales Corporation is a partnership firm established in the year 1994 at Surat, Gujarat. The founder and the CEO of this firm is Mr Amar Patel. This firm is the distributor, wholesaler, and supplier of all types of wood working, laminate pressing, shoes PU adhesive, and SR rubber adhesive for foam and flooring and mattress. Akshay is one of the top five performers in this type of business out of about 50 SMEs in its region of operations. Being an experienced firm, it also enjoys good competitive edge over others in business. The average turnover of this partnership firm is Rs. 24 crores, whereas the strength of its workforce is 348 employees, including clerical, supervisory, and managerial categories.

Akshay is well known for achieving customer satisfaction, ensuring timely delivery, innovating new designs, and honouring commitment to buyers. However, the critical and thorny issue of this firm is the talent management and retention. The human resource management system of Akshay is very much traditional and similar to any typical Indian SME. This firm does not have a manager or officer with HR designation. Most basic HRM functions such as recruitment and salary fixation are done by the line managers either by themselves or in consultation with the CEO of the firm. In recruitment, it seeks professional competencies among the potential candidates and also offers competitive pay packages. In most cases, the promotion is given to the employees based on the assessment and recommendation of the line managers.

As regards the talent management, the major problem for Akshay is in retaining the talented people with the firm for longer duration. This problem persists despite the abundant availability of skilled people in labour market. Akshay offers financial incentives to employees at highly competitive rates as a retention device but without much success. The firm has no record of conducting any form of formal skill training for its employees. This is because the CEO of the firm Mr Amar Patel strongly believes that employee training can only worsen the problem of talent retention as the well-trained employee is more likely to leave the firm-seeking greener pastures. Consequently, this firm ruled out training as a solution to the problem of high attrition. In Akshay, the attrition-related issues remain untamed and continue to affect the plans and future growth prospects of the firm. In all likelihood, this issue may worsen in the years to come after the economy completely recovers from recession and the labour market turns tight.

Questions for discussions

1. What is your assessment of the whole situation in Akshay Sales Corporation from HR perspective?
2. According to you what specific steps are to be taken by Akshay to tackle the problem of rising attrition rate?
3. What should be long-term strategy of this firm in terms of HR policy, procedure, and practice?

Notes

1. D. B. Audretsch and A. R. Thurik, “Capitalism and Democracy in the 21st century: From the Managed to the Entrepreneurial Economy”, Journal of Evolutionary Economics, 10, no. 1, (2000), p. 18–34.
2. http://www.smechamberofindia.com/rol_of_sme_sector.aspx.
3. Garry Dessler and Biju Varkkey, Human Resource Management, (New Delhi: Pearson Education, 2011), p. 660.
4. Cary L. Cooper and Ronald J. Burke, Human Resource Management in Small Business: Achieving Peak Performance, (Glos, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing Limited, 2011), p. 11.
5. Jan de Kok, Human Resource Management within Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises, Available at http://www.researchgate.net/publication/5012668 Human Resource Management within Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises, p. 53.
6. Cary L. Cooper and Ronald J. Burke, Human Resource Management in Small Business: Achieving Peak Performance, (Glos, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing Limited, 2011), p. 121.
7. D. Y. Golhar and S. P. Deshpande, “Human Resource Management Practices of Large and Small Canadian Manufacturing Firms”. Journal of Small Business Management, 35, no. 3 (1997): 9–30.
8. R. R. Sims, Organizational Success through Effective Human Resources Management, (Quorum Books: Westport, 2002) p. 1.
9. A. Rauch and M. Frese, Psychological Approaches to Entrepreneurial Success: A General Model and an Overview of Findings. In C. L. Cooper and I. T. Robertson (Eds.), International Review of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, (Chichester Sussex: Wiley & Sons, 2000), 15, Cap 3, pp. 100–135.
10. Andreas Rauch and Michael Frese, Effects of Human Resources Strategies on Success of Small-Scale Businesses: A Longitudinal Study available at http://fusionmx.babson.edu/entrep/fer/XXVIII/XXVIIIA/XXVIIIA.htm.
11. J. Hornsby and D. Kuratko, “Human Resource Management in Small Business: Critical Issues for the 1990s”, Journal of Small Business Management, 28 (3), (1990): 9–18.
12. I. Ng and D. Maki, “Human Resource Management in the Canadian Manufacturing Sector”, International Journal of Human Resource Management, 4, (4) (1993): 897–916.
13. J. MacMahon and E. Murphy, “Managerial Effectiveness in Small Enterprises: Implication for HRD”, Journal of European Industrial Training, 23, no. 1, 25–35.
14. Garry Dessler and Biju Varkkey, Human Resource Management, (New Delhi: Pearson education, 2011), p. 664.
15. Rosemary Hill and Jim Stewart, “Human Resource Development in Small Organizations”, Journal of European Industrial Training, 24, no. 2/3/4 (2000): 105–117.
16. P. Westhead and D. J. Storey, “Management Training and Small Firm Performance: Why Is the Link So Weak?”, International Small Business Journal, 14, no. 4 (1996), p. 13–24.
17. John Aylen, Starting and Running a Small Business For Canadians For Dummies All-in-One, (USA: John Wiley & Sons, 2012), p. 436–444.
18. Clement, Management of Nursing Services and Education, (Elsevier Health Sciences, 2011), p. 302.
19. S. E. Jackson, R. S. Schuler and J. C. Rivero, “Organizational Characteristics as Predictors of Personnel Practices”, Personnel Psychology, 42 (1989): 727–786.
20. Gilbert J and Jones G, “Managing Human Resources in New Zealand Small Business”, Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources, 38, no. 2 (2000): 55–68.
21. Garry Dessler and Biju Varkkey, Human Resource Management (New Delhi: Pearson education, 2011), p. 665.
22. http://business.gov.in/legal_aspects/occupational.php .
23. Cary L. Cooper and Ronald J. Burke, Human Resource Management in Small Business: Achieving Peak Performance, (Glos, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing Limited, 2011), p. 183.
24. Bidyut Chakrabarty, Corporate Social Responsibility in India (Oxon: Routledge, 2011), p. 98.
25. Tayo Fashoyin, Emily Sims and Arturo L. Tolentino, Labour-Management Cooperation in SMEs: Forms and Factors, (Geneva: International Labour Office, 2006), p. 18.
26. Tao Fashoyin, Emily Sims and Arturo L. Tolentino, Labour-Management Cooperation in SMEs: Forms and Factors, (Geneva: International Labour Office, 2006), p. 101.
27. K. Kamoche, “Managing Human Resources in Africa: Strategic, Organizational, and Epistemological Issues”, International Business Review, 6, no. 5 (1997), 535–568.
28. HR Challenges and Solutions for SMEs available at: http://www.en.adp.ch/assets/vfs///Family-31/pdf/hrchallenges and solutions-e.pdf.