HRM Issues and Practices in Small and Medium Size Enterprises (SMEs): Turkish SMEs in North London

Abstract

Despite massive involvement in trading and businesses since they first immigrated to the UK, Turkish Small and Medium Size Enterprises (SMEs) in London fail to comply with formalised human resources (HR) practices in their organisations. This is the study of Turkish migrants’ SMEs in North London, and the purpose of this study is to investigate the barriers regarding professional formalised HR practices and the tendency of the informal approach to employee management. During the research, the inductive qualitative research method was employed through semi-structured interviews, and they were analysed by thematic analysis. This study included only Turkish SMEs in North London, with 12 participants. In fact, future comprehensive research in a greater area will be a better impact on understanding the issue, such as a study in the UK or other Europe capitals. Informal employee management is well common with Turkish SMEs in North London. Although employers are not opposed to formalising their HR practices via working with HR practitioners, financial cost and socio-cultural structure are the strongest barriers to formalised HRM.

Keywords

• Turkish/ Kurdish SMEs
• Socio-cultural Background
• HR Practices
• Employee Management
• Immigrants.

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