Business Commons^™

Decision Making Regarding Employee Access To Training And Development In Medium-Sized Enterprises, Alan Coetzer, Janice Redmond, Jalleh Sharafizad

Research outputs 2011

Employees in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) form part of a ‘disadvantaged’ group within the workforce that receives less access to formal training and development than employees in large firms. The manager’s decisional role is critical when considering employee access to training and development. Unfortunately, there is scant research into factors affecting managers’ decisions regarding employee access to a requested development opportunity in SMEs. To address this research gap, semi-structured interviews incorporating critical incidents were conducted with a purposive sample of 12 managers of medium-sized enterprises based in Perth. We report key findings of the interviews and assess the effectiveness …

Small Business Owners: Too Busy To Train?, Elizabeth Walker, Janice Redmond, Beverley Webster, Megan Le Clus

Research outputs pre 2011

Purpose – The reason often cited for the poor relationship between small businesses and their uptake of vocational education and training is that small business owner-managers claim that they are too busy to engage in training or any type of learning activity and that most training is of little value to them. The aim of the research is to examine the relationship between these factors.

Design/methodology/approach – Using qualitative research methods the study collected data of the knowledge, attitudes and needs of small business owner-managers, both before and after participation in a training program.

Findings – This study has indicated …