Chapter One Introduction

1.1 Background Information
Upon the留學生dissertation網 background of economic globalization, the enterprises have to operate in an increasingly complex environment and have to face more intense competition that is not only the domestic market but also from the global market. In the past, the competition between enterprises is mainly focused on the traditional 4Ps such as product, price, promotion and place. But with rapid development and the intense competition in the market, these aspects have become gradually similar to the enterprises in the same industries. So the emphasis of the competition between enterprises has changed from the traditional 4Ps to other key aspects of the enterprise such as internal management .

Internal management has been an important issue to the development of the enterprise and it has been one of the key factors to influence the success of the enterprise in the market, because it is very important to improve the efficiency of the enterprise through effectively managing various kinds of resources of the enterprise (Mathis and Jackson, 2006). Generally an enterprise has many different resources such as raw materials, technologies, brand, channels and human resource and so on, and these resources have the important effect on the operation and performance of the enterprise.

According to Storey (2007), humans are an organization’s greatest assets, and everyday business functions of an enterprise such as managing cash flow, making business transactions, communicating through all forms of media and dealing with customers could not be completed without humans. So the management of human resources plays an increasingly important role in the enterprises. Human resource management (HRM) is responsible for how people are treated in the organization, and it is not only responsible for bringing people into the organization but also responsible for helping them perform their work, compensating them for their labors and solve problems for them (Storey, 2007). Generally HRM includes five main functions of recruitment and selection, training and development, motivation and performance appraisals, compensation and benefits, and employee and labor relations (Mathis and Jackson, 2006).

The development of HRM practices in China is behind the development of them in the western developed countries, and most of Chinese enterprises haven’t paid enough attention to the issue of human resource management (Pieper, 2000). But with more and more Chinese enterprises joining into the competition of the global market, they begin to realize the importance of human resource management. Many Chinese enterprises learn from international literature of HRM and try to apply international HRM theories and models in their operation and management in China. But this many face many problems because of the different environments and cultures in China so that it is important to find out the suitable HRM models and strategies to the development of Chinese enterprises (Pieper, 2000).#p#分頁標題#e#

In the past, people generally pay attention to the operation or performance of large enterprises such as multinationals especially under the background of economic globalization. But in recent years, the development of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) has attracted more attention from the society and much research has been done to investigate the aspects relating to the development or performance of SMEs because of the increasingly important role of small and medium-sized enterprises in economic development (Fernandez and Nieto, 2005).

Although in most countries, large enterprises generally play an important role in economic development, SMEs have been an essential component in the national economy of many countries. Compared with the large enterprises, SMEs have many advantages such as flexible operation, easy to adapt the change of the environment, and innovations; but they also have some disadvantages relative to large enterprises in resources and capabilities, management, talents, governmental support and technologies (Luczka, 2004). With the rapid development of SMEs, governments in many countries have gradually realized the importance of developing SMEs and adopted some measures to encourage the development of SMEs because governments know that SME is a phase of development of the enterprise and the emergence of the large enterprises is based on the development of SMEs (Laforet and Tann, 2006).

Similar 留學生dissertationto the status in many other countries, national economy of China is also dominated by some large state-owned enterprises. These large state-owned enterprises play an important position in the different industries of China and are supported by the government of China, while the development of SMEs has to face many difficulties compared with these large state-owned enterprises in China. But with the implementation of market economy and reform of state-owned enterprises, China’s government has greatly reduced the intervention on the behavior of enterprise. Upon this background, private enterprises are encouraged to develop. This greatly drives the development of small and medium-sized enterprises in China and SMEs are playing an increasingly important role in many industries of China (San and Zhu, 2003).

With the support and encouragement of the government, SMEs have achieved rapid development and growth in China and they have played an increasingly important role not only national economy of China but also in the society of China. But SMEs in China also face many problems during the process of their development such as strategic management, internal management and human resource management. With more and more Chinese enterprises including SMEs beginning to go international and Chinese market becoming more open to foreign enterprises, there have been higher requirements of the development of SMEs in China. These issues of strategic management, internal management and human resource management have been the important factors to limit the development of SMEs in China.#p#分頁標題#e#

Although human resource management is not a new issue to most of enterprises in China, most of Chinese enterprises, especially SMEs, haven’t realized the important role of human resource management in their development and attached enough importance to this issue in their enterprises. In order to achieve the rapid growth, most of SMEs in China pay attention to production, sales and marketing, ad neglect the issues relating to management. In their opinions, the competition between enterprises is mainly focused on product, price and marketing, and human resource management is not an important issues to influence the competition between enterprises. But in fact, human resource management has been important for enterprises in the western developed countries, so it is meaningful for the author in this research to investigate issues relating to human resource management of SMEs in China.

1.2 Intern Company and Problems
I work in the human resource management department of Ken Bang Business Investigation Company during the period of internship. Founded in 1998 , the headquarter of Ken Bang is located in Beijing City of China and the company has many branches in main big cities of China such as Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen etc. The main business of Ken Bang is to provide business investigation in many different fields. The business services provided by the company include investigation of business credit, investigate of enterprise credit, the prospects analysis of market investment, the control and management of enterprise crisis, investigation and agency of intellectual property rights, marketing products and services of database, market investigation and investigation and take evidence and so on. The organizational structure of the company includes business departments including the different kinds of business departments and logistics departments of financial department, human resource management and computer and data centre.

This company is one of SMEs in China and has experienced rapid growth in the past ten years. After experiencing the earlier rapid development, Ken Bang is facing many problems of human resource management for the further development in the future. During the period of internship, I worked in the human resource management department of this company, and I investigated and knew some issues related to human resource management of SMEs in China through the channel of Ken Bang. The topic of my project is determined based on my experiences of internship in China. My experiences of internship in Ken Bang can help me better do my project and Ken Bang can be investigated as a case study in my project.

1.3 Research Aims and Objectives
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) play an increasingly important role in economic development of modern society, and much research has been done to focus on issues relating to SMEs. In China, SMEs has become an important part in national economy of China. In the past, China’s SMEs generally pay attention to business development and marketing, and neglect the importance of other aspects such as management . In recent years, China’s SMEs begin to realize the importance of management issues such as Human resource management (HRM) in the long-term development of the enterprise. So it is meaningful to investigate the practices of human resource management in SMEs of China.#p#分頁標題#e#

The aim of the project is to investigate Human Resource Management Practices of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) in China. Based on this research aim, there are four main research objectives in this research.
1) Review the relevant literature about human resource management practices in SMEs;
2) Investigate the status quo of human resource management in China’s SMEs;
3) Find out problems involved with the implementation and development of human resource management in China’s SMEs ;
4) Present suggestions that can be recommended for China’s SMEs to solve these problems relating to their HRM practices.

1.4 Methodological Approach and Tools
In this study, the research philosophy of interpretivist is adopted because the study carries out a case study to investigate the current HRM practices of SMEs in China and it is concerned with understanding behaviour from the participants’ own subjective ideas and opinions. According to Collis and Hussey (2003), interpretivist is based on the perspective that human behaviour is not as easily measured as phenomena in the natural sciences, while positivist is founded on a belief that the study of human behaviour should be conducted in the same way s studies conducted in the natural sciences.

The inductive approach is adopted in the research, because the research will be done through investigating some key people in Intern Company and other companies to ask for their ideas and opinions. Although the inductive approach ca ne very time-consuming, it can help the research to arrive at a new way of looking at the subject (Sekeran, 2002). According to Sekeran (2002), research approach can be deductive and inductive that the deductive approach tests the definition of the subject under a clear theoretical position before collection of data while the inductive approach starts by talking to a range of people asking for their ideas and definitions of “professional”.

As to research strategy, the method of case study will be used in this research because this method offers an opportunity to study a particular subject, e.g. one organization or industry in depth. So it is helpful to analyze the HRM practices of SMEs in China and the case study results will help to analyze the key issues involved with the HRM practices such as problems and solutions of SMEs in China.

Moreover, as to tools for collecting data, data collection technique of interviews will be adopted to collect the primary data from participants in the research, because this technique is effective in collecting in-depth data according to the detailed research purposes. And on the other hand, the secondary information and data collected from public sources through the method of documentation review are also used in this research.

1.5 Structure of the Project
Besides the first chapter of introduction, other parts of the dissertation are divided into five main chapters.

The second chapter of literature review presents a critical discussion of the work of established authors who have produced major theories, concepts, ideas and framework which are linked to my research topic.#p#分頁標題#e#

The third chapter of research methodology introduces research methodologies used in the dissertation including research philosophy, research approach, research strategy, research techniques and tools, methods of data analysis, research ethics and research limitations.

The fourth chapter of results and analysis presents the findings generated from the data collected in the research, and analyzes and discusses the results of research relating to the findings of the past literature and helps to achieve research objectives of the study.

The last chapter of conclusions and recommendations reviews what the author has done in the research and summarizes the findings of the research. On the other hand, according to research limitations, this chapter also presents suggestions for further research relating to this research area.

References

Blyton, P, Lucio, M.M, McGurk, J. and Turnbull, P. (2001), Globalization and Trade Union Strategy: Industrial Restructuring and Human Resource Management in the International Civil Aviation Industry, The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 12 (3), 445-463

Collis, J. and Hussey, R. (2003), Business Research: A Practical Guide for Undergraduate and Postgraduate Students, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan

Fernandez, Z and Nieto, M 2005, ‘Internationalization Strategy of Small and Medium-Sized Family Businesses: Some Influential Factors’, Family Business Review, Vol. 18, No. 1, pp. 77-89

Helmreich, R.L, Merritt, A.C. and Wilhelm, J.A. (1999), The Evolution of Crew Resource Management Training in Commercial Aviation, International Journal of Aviation Psychology, 9 (1), 19-32

Laforet, S. and Tann, J. (2006), Innovative Characteristics of Small Manufacturing Firms, Journal of Small Businesses and Enterprise Development, 13 (3), 363-380

Luczka, T. (2004), Advantages and Disadvantages for Polish Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises on the European Union, Foundations of Control and Management Sciences, 7 (4), 11-21

Mathis, R.L. and Jackson, J.H. (2006), Human Resource Management, New York: Thomson South-Western

Pieper, R. (2000), Human http://www.400190.com/Resource Management: An International Comparison, Paris: Walter de Gruyter

San, B.C. and Zhu, K. (2003), The Development of SMEs and Foreign Direct Investment in China, International Economic Cooperation, 6 (3), 9-13

Schuler, R.S. and Jackson, S.E. (1999), Strategic Human Resource Management, London: Blackwell Publishing

Sekaran, U. (2002), Research Methods for Business: A Skill Building Approach, 4th edition, NJ: John Wiley & Sons

Storey, J. (2007), Human Resource Management: A Critical Text, New York: Thomson Delmar Learning#p#分頁標題#e#