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Advances in HRD models and processes have kept pace with the increasingly sophisticated information and production technologies that continue to diffuse throughout our nation's most vital industries (Swanson and Torraco, 1994). During this period of rapid technological development, the HRD function could be relied upon to support a broad range of business initiatives that required a competent workforce.
Critical business issues, from new marketing strategies to innovations in production technology, were based on, among other factors, the performance capabilities of those expected to use these new work systems.
As a factor integral to business success, employee expertise itself has been expanded through effective programs of employee development. Expertise is defined as the optimal level at which a person is able and/or expected to perform within a specialized realm of human activity (Swanson, 1994). In short, the development of workplace expertise through HRD has been vital to optimal business performance.
There are numerous examples of how HRD is used to support business objectives. Indeed, most HRD programs referred to as somehow having "strategic" value assume roles that are supportive of a given business strategy. The education and training used to support business objectives at Motorola is typical of the challenges and opportunities faced by many organizations in today's business environment.
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What Motorola discovered earlier than most organizations that began introducing new sophisticated technologies into the workplace was that their employees did not have the skills to make full use of the technologies (Agrawal, 1994). Companies that compete in the fast-paced communications market where customers are particularly innovation-conscious must deliver high-quality, reliable products despite short product development cycles.
Motorola sought production advantages through both the integration of new technology and the development of employee expertise. Motorola offers on- and off-site classroom education and training, laboratory training, and structured training in the workplace for employees at all levels of the organization.
In addition to supporting Motorola's successful pursuit of its business objectives, many of its education and training initiatives serve as examples of best practices against which other organizations' HRD functions benchmark their performance. Thus, Motorola provides an early and influential example of HRD used to support business ...
Over the last two decades, many studies have reported the implementation of ISO certification and its impacts on Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) around the world. However, until recently, there have been only few attempts to empirically establish the link between Human Resource Management (HRM) practices and ISO 9000 certification.
SMEs, both in size and shape, are not uniform across the globe. The way they are defined depends on the stage of national economic development and the broad policy purposes for which the definition is used. The Small-Scale Industry (SSI) sector in India is different from the SME sector in other countries. There is no typology of medium scale industry in India and the Indian definition of SSI is investment specific, while in the rest of the world it is in terms of employment, assets or sales or combination of these factors (Krishna, 2004).
SMEs occupy a place of strategic importance in the economy of many countries owing to their significant contribution made to national income, employment, export, innovation, and developmental activities. They contribute significantly to social and economic development objectives such as labour absorption, income distribution, rural development, poverty eradication, regional balance, and promotion of entrepreneurship.
In fact, they play an important role in the process of the country's industrial development. In developing countries, small labour-intensive industries have been favoured basically to create employment opportunities in an economy with abundant unskilled labour available even though such industries may not always be supported on grounds of economic efficiency. Small enterprises particularly, have been in vogue in manufacturing endeavour even before the dawn of industrial revolution (Lall, 1998).