Moroccan SMEs and human resource management practices: what impact on performance?

Abstract

Human resource management practices have a huge impact on the life and prosperity of the company. But do these practices affect SMEs in the same way as large companies? This question has more legitimacy when it comes to Moroccan SMEs that use managerial practices and new technologies to increase their performance at work, in an increasingly competitive economic context.

The aim, through this study, to find out to what extent the performance of Moroccan SMEs is impacted by the human resources management (HRM) practices adopted? The importance of measuring HRM practices against various internal and external factors is emphasized and how this affects the performance of the companies studied.

Using a questionnaire with multiple-choice questions and other questions with a five-level Likert attitude scale, which was conducted with a sample of five SMEs, the results confirm a positive correlation between the HRM practice and the performance of SMEs. The multivariate analysis also specifically identified the impact of particular practices on different aspects of SME performance. In addition, the important role that practices play in organizational performance appears to vary depending on the size of the organization. These results limit the impact of HRM practices and show that they may be specific rather than general.

The article concludes with data from previous studies and a discussion of management implications that may be of interest to SME managers.

Keywords: Human resource management, universal approach, contingent approach, performance.

JEL Classification : L20, M10

Paper type : Empirical research