Human Resource Management Concepts Within Micro Businesses : The study of Thai micro businesses

Abstract:   Micro businesses are the most common form of business in the world and they play an important role in the economic growth of every country. They are usually characterized by a lack of financial resources, which influences the management of such firms. The role of the owner manager is crucial in micro businesses and has a strong influence on every aspects of the business and one of these aspects is human resource management. Compared to the research about larger companies, the number of researches in the scope of human resource management (HRM) specifically within micro businesses is very small. Another fact which caught the attention of the authors is that the situation in Thailand regarding HRM within micro businesses remains a blank spot. This master thesis will try to provide more information about the situation on the Thai micro businesses and human resource management within them. In order to do so, a theoretical framework was created based on the literature available about human resource management within micro businesses. The second step was to interview the owners of nine Thai micro businesses and discover what their HRM practices are. After these steps we compared the literature and the data provided by the owners of micro businesses in order to find similarities and differences between the two. The conclusions of this study were that many similarities could be found between the theory chosen in our frame of reference and the reality of the nine Thai micro firms. Some differences were noticed but those could not overshadow the fact that the frame of reference was able to describe the situation of the Thai businesses. This thesis obviously evidences some limitations and recommends that more studies should be performed in order to generalize human resource management within micro businesses in Thailand.