ABSTRACT
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are often deemed critical to the economy of many countries. The reasons for this are twofold: first, there are so many smaller firms that they make up a large proportion of employment; second, because the way people are managed is regarded as central to the competitive standing of firms and industries (Boxall and Purcell, 2003). Such a recognition has provoked debate about the role of human resource management (HRM) as a means to enhance organizational effectiveness (Den Hartog and Verburg, 2004). What is problematic, however, is that much of the literature that espouses the virtues of HRM is almost exclusively derived from larger firms (Dundon and Wilkinson, 2004).
