ABSTRACT
Small firms constitute the bulk of enterprises in all economies in the world, making a major contribution to private sector output and employment (Storey 1994). It has been noted that the growth of small firms since the 1980s is an international trend in which large firms shed jobs while smaller ones create them (Stokes 1998). For many commentators and policy makers, small businesses are well placed to play important economic, social and political roles in employment creation, resource utilization and income generation (Nelson 1987). They are dynamic, efficient, competitive, and perhaps most importantly, a source of new jobs. Others highlight the fact that small businesses are a major source of exploitation and a ‘sweatshop’ (Rainnie 1989; Scase 1995). Private small firms are often associated with relatively poor quality of work and employment, which are often the reasons for their existence and growth in the first place. Still others draw our attention to the heterogeneity in this sector with personalized informality being the key feature (Ram 1994; Matley 1999; Wilkinson 1999). More importantly, it is now recognized that informality and familial ideologies often evident in small firms can mask the highly exploitative nature of work (Holliday 1995) and that the informality of small businesses cannot ‘smooth away the power relations that shape the management process’ (Ram et al. 2001: 846). Instead, the nature of employment relations in small businesses hinges on the dynamic balance between conflicts and harmony as well as control and consent shaped by a web of social and economic relationships in which small firms are embedded (Ram et al. 2001; Barrett and Rainnie 2002).
