Training and HRD strategies in family and non‐family owned small businesses: a comparative approach

Family‐owned small businesses constitute a large proportion of the overall small business population of industrially developed and developing countries. A great deal of theoretical and practical knowledge exists on various aspects of small business growth and development, including: management, marketing, finance, production, research and development. There exists, however, a paucity of comparative research on the training and HRD strategies of small family and non‐family businesses. This article sets out to redress this imbalance in current small business research. It outlines the preliminary results of a recent study that focused on the training and HRD needs of a randomly selected sample of 6,000 small businesses in Great Britain. The data shows that there are considerable differences in owner/manager attitudes and approaches towards the training needs of family members employed in a business as compared to non‐family employees. The results suggest that these differences could have a significant influence upon the competitive strategies of family and non‐family owned small businesses in the UK. Contents......Page 1 Abstracts & keywords......Page 3 Guest editorial......Page 6 Training and HRD strategies in family and non-family owned small businesses: a comparative approach......Page 9 Engaging SME managers and employees in training: lessons from an evaluation of the ESF Objective 4 Programme in Great Britain......Page 22 Innovation and education policy in SMEs: a Czech perspective......Page 30 Do they or don’t they?......Page 40 Entrepreneurship education at university......Page 50 Defining the development needs of entrepreneurs in SMEs......Page 58 Towards a healthy high street......Page 65 Entrepreneurship education and training in Canada......Page 73 Developing managerial skills in Palestine......Page 83 The determinants of training in SMEs in Northern Ireland......Page 95 Strategic HRM for SMEs......Page 103 Issue 8/9 of this journal is dedicated toeducation and training issues in small andmedium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This is thethird in a series of special double issues thatcomprise articles related exclusively to humanresource (HR) topics in smaller units ofeconomic activity.