ABSTRACT
Small business, as a whole, is often characterized by the relative uniqueness of its firms. This chapter focuses on concepts developed by the strategic management field from testing in large corporations to initiate the examination of practices in the small business. Human resource priorities reflect the general characteristics of employee behavior sought by the business owner in order to compete; in the most simplistic of terms, what the owner needs to get out of his workers. A more refined assessment of human resource practices in the small business can be obtained by combining gender and the competitive business strategy. One of the significant differences between the genders within the low cost area is with regard to the emphasis placed upon job flexibility by male business owners. Women entrepreneurs cite a need for independence as a motivation to start a business which may make them more likely to desire personal accountability for their own actions.
