About half of all private sector workers are employed in small businesses with fewer than 100 workers. Work hours, compensation, and other working conditions differ between these employees and their counterparts in larger establishments. (Author)

A survey of 22 Hispanic women who owned small businesses in a western state found that most were located in metropolitan areas, were new to business ownership, had started the business themselves, engaged in "miscellaneous services," and generated lower than average revenues. Respondents were similar to nonminority owners in educational…

Case studies of four British entrepreneurial organizations reveal the dimensions of learning in small organizations: ability to network, assimilate experience and opportunities, reflect on strategies and mistakes, and assess resources. Results suggest that existing organizational learning theories are more appropriate for large firms than…

Guidelines for assessing small business skill needs include paying attention to internal resistance, limiting analysis to a small area, considering all stakeholders' perspectives and interests, using action-research methods, and understanding needs assessment as a continual learning process. (SK)

Looks at four models of training demand: (1) probability of attending training in the near future; (2) probability of having attended training in the past; (3) probability of being willing to follow multimedia and correspondence courses; and (4) probability of repeating the experience of attending another training course in the near future.…

Case studies of three small and medium-sized enterprises in England examined how characteristics of small organizations influence their human resource development (HRD) policies and practices. Three models emerged, based on differences in planning, doing, and evaluating HRD activities. (SK)

A profile of small businesses in the Irish hotel industry shows that all claim to believe in human resource development but few practice it. Small hotels favor informal, specific job training focused on solution of immediate problems rather than long-term development. (Contains 119 references.) (SK)

Community college presidents face an uphill struggle in preparing their institutions for the rapidly changing technological learning environment. Visionary presidents in rural community colleges are presented with yet another challenge: that of finding themselves on the wrong side of the digital divide. This article describes how presidents of 12…

Family firms play an important role in the working of the Canadian economy; despite their importance to the economic activities and job creation it is observed that family businesses have lower survival rates than non-family firms, some argue that this can possibly be attributed (amongst other factors) to the lack of training. Most of the training…

The article reports that Tribal colleges and universities in the United States seek to promote culturally appropriate development and to improve the financial situations not only of their students but the tribal matrix they come from. A study by the American Indian Higher Education Consortium and the Institute for Higher Education Policy…

There is an ongoing debate both in the United States and Europe about the need to develop a broader view of scholarship and the different activities connected with it, including "service to the community". This empirical study reveals that researchers who are engaged in collaboration with small and medium enterprises (SMEs) encounter…

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to determine the relationship between four independent variables educational level, longevity, type of enterprise, and gender and the dependent variable culture, as a dimension that explains organizational learning readiness in seven small-size business enterprises. Design/methodology/approach: An exploratory…

This is an account the work of NetworkNorthWest, a [pound]1m project at the University of Salford that ran between 2004 and 2007 and was developed to address the issues relating to poor take up of traditional business support by small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and low levels of engagement of the business community with Institutes of…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to evaluate a small business-mentoring project, which was delivered in regional Australia. Design/methodology/approach: This paper contains a case study of the mentoring project and focuses on the process and the outcomes of that project from different perspectives. Data collected in semi structured telephone…

A survey was administered to a sample of about 10,000 members of the National Federation of Independent Business in 1985 to ascertain a variety of information about the use of computers in the nation's small businesses, including the extent of their use, training needs of users, and impacts and benefits. Major findings summarized from the 2,813…