A Human Resources Development Model for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) via the Three-Branch Management Model Approach

Owing to the key role small and medium enterprises play in achieving social and economic goals, it has become gradually more vital to scrutinize their performance. Human resource development via expanding organizational and employees’ capabilities guarantee survival and functional improvement of such companies. This descriptive mixed-method research was thus undertaken to identify the dimensions, components and indicators of human resources development in SMEs and explicate the factors affecting it based on the three-dimensional management model. The research sample in the qualitative phase comprised a panel of 25 professors and experts from different universities and industries selected via snowball sampling procedure. In the quantitative phase, the research population comprised all manufacturing organizations and companies with 10-99 employees and operating under the name of SMEs. Using a two-step purposeful cluster sampling based on geographical distribution and the company’s orientation, nine provinces and two randomly selected cities in each province were chosen to form the cluster sample of 384 workshops. The research data were collected via interviews with experts that were analyzed using the Delphi technique to form the 50-item questionnaire which was employed in the quantitative phase. The research data were further analyzed using Mic Mac Software to locate the identified variables and exploratory analysis was conducted to define the components that were effective on human resources.