The use of management techniques: A survey of small firms

Abstract

A previous article on management training described some of the shortcomings in the national provision of management courses specifically for small firms and methods of overcoming some of the problems. Many of the findings were based on a detailed survey of 80 small and medium sized manufacturing firms in the Sheffield area carried out by the Small Firms Management Service at Sheffield Polytechnic. The use of management techniques in small and medium sized firms was also extensively investigated during this survey and this report describes some of the findings. It is now well known that small firms with less than 200 employees represent an essential and substantial sector of our national manufacturing capability and are frequently responsible for high financial performance and the introduction of new products and ideas. It is becoming clear, however, that so far as national resources are concerned, such as grants for new buildings and equipment, investment allowances, factory moving grants and management training and consultancy, the bigger firms are getting a disproportionately large share of the money and facilities available. This is mainly due to the fact that the small business has little management time available for information seeking and form filling and also providers of management training and consultancy tend to favour those firms who are most willing and able to pay high fees for extended services. Research at Sheffield has already pointed the way to the creation of better training facilities for small firms, but has also provided data on the extent to which modern management methods are applied in different industries and sizes of firm and related this to return on capital. Small firms are well known for their resistance both to training facilities offered, which they rightly say are inappropriate, and to management help available which is thought to be too costly and disruptive.

Citation

PRYNNE, P. (1974), "The use of management techniques: A survey of small firms", Industrial and Commercial Training, Vol. 6 No. 9, pp. 416-419. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb003418