ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the role of training in smaller firms and provides a review of the extant literature to highlight a number of salient issues relating to the take up of training initiatives, the barriers and motivations that exist, the role and importance of informal and formal practices, the influence of size, sector and structure, and the implications of these issues for policy. Training activity within smaller firms will almost certainly be influenced by the owner-manager; writers have indicated that there are differences in the performance of smaller firms that relate to the characteristics of the owner. The chapter reviews the literature that has investigated the barriers to training in smaller firms and the motivations that exist for those firms that do undertake training. Westhead and Storey indicate that the ‘small firm experiences considerably greater external uncertainty than a large firm, primarily because of its lack of power in the market place’.
