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

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.