Abstract
Research on human resource management (HRM) practices and policies in large enterprises is well developed. However, relatively little has been done to help managers of small enterprises to deal with their employees. Due to the specifi city of small businesses, the concepts originally developed for larger enterprises cannot directly be introduced in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) (Kaman et al. 2001). As a result, both managers’ interest in and researchers awareness of this problem have stimulated increased attention to the issue of the HRM in small enterprises in recent years (Edwards et al. 2005). Despite the growing literature on HRM in the small business context (Edwards et al. 2005), the implementation of the relevant theoretical patterns seems to be unsatisfactory. In our chapter, we focus on exploring and analyzing the HRM practices in Polish small enterprises through normative theory lenses, thereby following the research carried out by Cardona and Stevens (2004), Kotey and Slade (2005) and Ulrich (1997). Our study combines the elements of HRM theory, entrepreneurship (i.e., small business) theory, management theory and the universalistic approach.