Since 1997, there has been a notable growth in the degree and complexity of employment regulation. Such regulation has arisen from the intention of contemporary Labour governments to promote greater ‘fairness at work’, and their adoption of European employment directives. It has been established that meeting compliance is a greater burden for smaller firms. Hence the author aims to consider compliance with employment regulations by smaller firms, and this issue is explored through an empirical study of labour management in smaller firms based upon responses from 44 firm owners or managers and 71 of their employees.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AtkinsM HLoweJ F, 1997, “Sizing up the small firm: UK and Australian experience”International Small Business Journal15(3) 42–55
2.
AtkinsonJStoreyD, 1994Employment, the Small Firm and the Labour Market (Routledge, London)
3.
BaconNAckersPStoreyJCoatesD, 1997, “It's a small world: Managing human resources in small businesses”Journal of Human Resource Management7(1) 82–100
4.
BarrettRRainnieA, 2002, “What's so special about small firms? Developing an integrated approach to analysing small firms industrial relations”Work, Employment and Society16415–431
5.
BeynonH, 1973Working for Ford (Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, Middx)
6.
BlackburnRHartM, 2001, “Ignorance is bliss, knowledge is blight? Employment rights and small firms”, paper presented to the 24th ISBA National Small Firms Conference, Leicester, November; copy available from Professor Blackburn, Small Business Research Centre, Kingston University, Kingston upon Thames, Surrey
7.
CarterSJones-EvansD (Eds), 2000Enterprise and Small Business (Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ)
8.
CullyMWoodlandSO'ReillyADixG, 1999Britain at Work (Routledge, London)
9.
CurranJBlackburnR, 2001Researching the Small Enterprise (Sage, London)
10.
Daily Telegraph2000, “No hiding place from the law as parents win their rights”, 15 May, page 29
11.
DTI, 2000Employment Legislation, Individual Rights of Employees: A Guide for Employers and Employees PL 716, Department of Trade and Industry, Victoria Street, London SW1H OET
12.
DundonTGrugulisI, 1999, “Looking out of the black-hole—non union relations in an SME”Employee Relations21251–266
13.
EdwardsP, 2001, “‘Industrial relations’: from apparently anachronic to analeptic and anaclastic condition”, paper presented to the conference “Industrial Relations: An Anachronism?”, University of Tubingen, June; copy available from the author, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick, Coventry
14.
Employment Relations Act, 1999Public General Acts—Elizabeth II chapter 26 (The Stationery Office, London)
15.
Financial Times2001, “Unravelling red tape; businesses are caught in a regulatory bind” 29 January, page 18
16.
FSB, 2000, “FSB delivers damning ‘red tape dossier’ to government”, Federation of Small Businesses http://www.fsb.org
17.
GearyJ, 2002, “New forms of work organisation: Still limited, still controlled but still welcome?”, in Industrial Relations, Theory and Practice Ed. EdwardsP (Blackwell, Oxford) pp 338–367
18.
GossD, 1991Small Business and Society (Routledge, London)
19.
HollidayR, 1995Investigating Small Firms (Routledge, London)
20.
HoqueKNoonM, 2002, “Equal opportunities policy in the UK: evaluating the empty shell hypothesis”, WP 72, Leicester Business School, De Montfort University, Leicester
21.
Leicester Learning and Skills Council, 2001Leicester and Leicestershire Business SurveyLeicester Learning and Skills Council, Meridian Business Park, Leicester LE19 1UU
22.
McCarthyW1994, “Of hats and cattle; or the limits of micro-survey research in industrial relations”Industrial Relations Journal25315–322
23.
MarlowS, 2002, “Regulating labour management in smaller firms”Human Resource Management Journal12(2) 25–43
24.
MouleC, 1998, “The regulation of work in small firms”Work, Employment and Society12635–654
25.
NicholsT, 1977Living with Capitalism: Class Relations and the Modern Factory (Routledge and Kegan Paul, London)
26.
NoonMBlytonP, 2002The Realities of Work (Palgrave, Basingstoke, Hants)
RamMEdwardsPOilmanMArrowsmithJ, 2001a, “The dynamics of informality: Employment relations in small firms and the effects of regulatory change”Work, Employment and Society15845–861
30.
RamMMarlowSPattonD, 2001b, “Social embeddedness and the employment relationship in Asian restaurants”Entrepreneurship and Regional Development Journal13229–245
31.
ScaseR, 1995, “Employment relations in small firms”, in Industrial Relations, Theory and Practice in Britain Ed. EdwardsP (Blackwell, Oxford) pp 569–598
32.
ShawJPerronsD, 1995Making Gender Work (Open University Press, Milton Keynes, Bucks)
33.
SmithCChildJRowlinsonM, 1990Reshaping Work (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge)
34.
StanworthJGrayC (Eds), 1991Bolton, 20 Years On: The Small Firm in the 1990s (Paul Chapman, London)
35.
WebbMPalmerG, 1998, “Evading surveillance and making time: An ethnographic view of the Japanese factory floor in Britain”British Journal of Industrial Relations36611–628
36.
WestheadPStoreyD, 1997Training Provision and Development of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises R R 26 (The Stationery Office, London)
37.
WestwoodS, 1986All Day, Every Day (Pluto Press, London)
38.
WilkinsonA, 1999, “Employment relations in SMEs”Employee Relations21206–217
39.
WintersJNolanC, 2000, “Does new employment legislation cause small firms to fail?”, paper presented to the 50th BUIRA Conference, University of Warwick, Coventry, July; copy available from Ms Nolan, Canterbury Business School, Canterbury Christchurch University College, Canterbury, Kent
40.
WynarczkPWatsonRStoreyDKeaseyK, 1993Managerial Labour Markets in Small Firms (Routledge, London)
