Decision making regarding employee access to training and development in medium-sized enterprises: A proposed study employing the Critical Incident Technique

Abstract

This paper outlines a proposed study employing the critical incident technique aimed at uncovering factors influencing owner-managers’ decisions when employees in medium-sized enterprises request access to external training and development opportunities. Employees in these enterprises form part of a ‘disadvantaged’ group within the workforce that receives less access to formal training and development than employees in large firms. The owner-manager’s decisional role is critical when considering employee access to training and development. Unfortunately, there is scant research into factors affecting owner-managers’ decisions regarding employee access to a requested development opportunity in medium-sized enterprises. To address this research gap, we intend to conduct semistructured interviews incorporating critical incidents with a sample of 20 owner-managers. We anticipate that the interviews will provide rich, nuanced and contextualized information on the decision-making role of owner-managers that can be analysed for key themes.1