Small Is Beautiful or Big Is Better: How Much Do Industry and Family Ownership Matter in Firms of Different Sizes?

Abstract

Drawing on a national survey – the 2011 British Workplace Employment Relations Study (WERS 2011) – this paper examines whether the associations between industry sectors, family ownership and calculative human resource management (CHRM) vary between firms of different sizes. The analysis of 1,293 establishments in the UK suggests that the associations between service industries and CHRM are stronger in smaller than in large firms, whereas family ownership (primarily family-owned and -managed businesses) is significantly and negatively associated with the prevalence of CHRM in large organisations compared to smaller businesses. Overall, the study suggests that: (1) smaller businesses tend to be more coerced to take on CHRM for legitimacy recognition than large organisations; and (2) extending an academically long-held wisdom, owner-management among family businesses has a significantly deleterious effect on the uptake of CHRM in large organisations than in smaller firms.