Investment in HRM: A Dissertation on UAE ICT SMEs Practices

This dissertation investigates HRM practices within SMEs in the United Arab Emirates, particularly in the competitive ICT sector. It explores whether investing in HRM is necessary for these companies, focusing on employee motivation, skill development, and retention. The research employs qualitative ...Read More

Running head: DISSERTATION
Dissertation
Name of Student-
Name of University-
Author’s Note-

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Chapter 5: Conclusion
5.1 Conclusion
In this research study, the researcher has studied the case of different ICT sector. As
stated in this research paper, Information Communications Technology (ICT) sector is a highly
competitive market in the United Arab Emirates. This research study helps to conclude whether
it is necessary to invest HRM in the companies. There are essential factors for any organization,
and that is to ensure that their human resources are motivated, inspired, skilful and innovative to
work and the organization must aim to retain them. For drawing the conclusion about “HRM
practices within SME’s, to invest or not to invest?” the researcher conducted a research study in
five different organizations to get an idea about what the managers and the employees of the
company think about HRM practice in their company. The study was carried out in the form of
an interview. Questions were asked about different HRM practices in those companies. After
conducting the research study, the researcher can state that organizations already have some
HRM practices within the firm. But, these practices are not always formal but have evolved
throughout a firm’s existence.
In the Introduction chapter, a background study of the research topic has been elaborated
clearly. The objectives of HRM practice are defined in this chapter along with the HRM practice
in the UAE SMEs. The Introduction chapter also defines the rationale of the study with the
problem statement that this research study is providing. Aim and objective of the research are
also stated which addresses this research paper. In the literature review chapter, the main focuses
are given on the employment practices in SME of ICT sectors. The employment practices that
are described in this paper includes training programs, career development programs,

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compensation incentives, performance reviews, organizational commitment, and retention
programs. Employees view on HRM practices are mainly discussed in this research paper.
Different research papers were studied that mainly focuses on the SME organizations in the
United Arab Emirates. In the methodology chapter, the way to carry out the research paper has
been defined. Qualitative data are collected for carrying out the research study. With
epistemology philosophy and interpretivism stance, the methodology that is explained in this
chapter is primary qualitative research. Interviews were being carried out for analyzing the
chosen topic. The fifth chapter in this research paper is the data analysis chapter where all the
data collected from the interviews were analyzed. This chapter is the last chapter in this research
paper where the researcher aims to draw a conclusion about the topic that is chosen for this
research. This chapter mainly links the objectives defined in the Introduction with the data
analysis and shows how the aims and objectives are addressed in this research paper.
5.2 Linking with the Objectives
With the data that has been collected in the data analysis chapter and the literature
review, the researcher has aimed to address the objectives that were defined in Introduction
chapter. For concluding this research study, the researcher has linked the objectives with the data
analysis for providing justification for the topic undertaken for this research study.
Linking with Objective 1: To identify how SME’s view HRM practices
In Chapter 2, a part is explained in the literature review section that states that the main problem
in small businesses is motivation. The main reason for the SMEs to fail is because of
demotivated employees that gives poor results and also lessen the productivity. The literature
review presents many empirical evidence as well as research that says that smaller firms are less

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likely to make use of HRM practices than larger firms. They are also less likely to use formalized
recruitment processes, give less training and are less likely to incorporate performance
appraisals. There are also example given in the literature review that states SME’s uses less
HRM practices that are related to recruitment, formal appraisals, as well as training having
employee retention, increase the financial performance and give high productivity. SMEs in
UAE are increasing are increasing at high rate. And SME plays an important role in facilitating
sustainable economic development and stimulate employment, income, and prosperity. The
employment rate in the SME’s says that the markets are very much competitive. There were
many research methods mentioned in the literature review that stated HRM practices which
includes compensation, strategic movement, selection, development and training.
Linking with Objective 2: To identify if SME’s and start-up firms incorporate HRM
practices and not
For identifying SME’s are implementing HRM practices or not, many researches were
carried out in the literature review. A research paper by a reseracher focused on SME’s
organizations within in South Africa identified that motivation as the primary problem within
small businesses. The study confirms that demotivated employees were a result of poor
recruitment and selection processes, weak job descriptions and performance reviews, poor
remuneration practices, staff training, and development programs. As per the researchers, there
are many Small Medium Enterprises that fails only because of their operating systems. They also
said that there are multiple other factors increase the threat of an SME’s life expectancy such as
the lack of resources that are related to recruitment, retaining, compensation and motivating
employees.

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From another research paper discussed in the literature review, the data from a sample of
968 organizations that HRM practices relating to recruitment, training and formal appraisals
linked to incentives have high employee retention, higher productivity and an increase in
financial performance. The research paper also says that HRM practices can influence employee
behavior which can prove to have crucial implications for an organizations performance and that
HRM practices can affect individual employee performance through its influence on employees.
For addressing this objective, another research conducted by Dubai SME included 1200
organizations. The main findings reported that 25% of the respondents confirmed that they have
a dedicated employee or department that manages the human resource function in their firm.
Whereas 72% of the firms showed that employees’ performances are evaluated and rewarded on
a regular basis. Only 26% of employers offer need-based or comprehensive training to
employees – this is training excludes basic on-the-job training. Compared to international
countries such as New Zealand (63%) and the United Kingdom (55%), Dubai SME’s have a far
less focus on providing training to employees. Making sufficient education and training available
to improve the performance of SME’s have become an increasingly important priority for
governments in both developed and developing countries. However, allocating funds to building
infrastructure might be a more straightforward task than generating funds for training.
Linking with Objective 3: Identify how the following HRM practices will affect
employee attitudes; (1) recruitment and selection, (2) training and development, (3)
compensation and rewarding, (4) retention
For linking this objective, the primary method of collecting data by interview process and
the secondary method explained in the literature review can be taken into consideration. In
literature review, the importance of training, reward programs, compensation, recruitment and

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retention are explained in the sections of literature review. In the training section of literature
review, the researcher has clearly defined that training is a process where organizations increase
their employee's knowledge and skills for a particular role bridging the gap between the job
requirement and the current competence of the employee. Employee training in SME’s can lead
to an increase in job satisfaction, productivity and innovation. For an organization to sustain a
competitive advantage, it must be equipped with the ability to learn faster than its competitors.
SME’s are faced with internal challenges in providing training to staff. These factors are more
commonly related to time and money; firms are concerned with the time training consumes, time
which could have been spent generating opportunities and work output lost. In the literature
review, reward programs are also explained that states employee compensation is a powerful tool
that engineers successful management of human resources and promotes organizational
effectiveness. Motivated employees are more persistent, creative and produce high-quality work.
The data collected from the data analysis chapter after conducting the interviews, the
researcher can state that all the employees and the manager states that HRM is the most
important factor for maintain the producing in a company. HRM is not at all important to them.
The management are able to manage all their activities without any HR in their company. It is
not that all the companies interviewed has implemented the HRM practice in their company. But
according to them HRM is an important factor for managing all activities in a company. After
analyzing the interviews of the employee from five different companies, it can be concluded that
motivation is the main factor that the employees expects from their company. Good motivation
and good leadership helps to improve the quality of work.

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5.3 Recommendations
The study in this research paper was mainly based and was conducted on secondary as
well as primary data that were obtained from different research journals as well as organizing
interviews in five different organizations of United Arab Emirates. The HRM practices involves
training programs, career development programs, compensation incentives, performance
reviews, organizational commitment, and retention programs. This study states the employees
perseverance related to HRM practice in Small Medium Enterprises in United Arab Emirates.
For implementing the HRM practice in small and medium organizations following
recommendations are given.
Focus mainly on the Core Business: The startup business or the small or medium sized
business should firstly focus on the business they are dealing with. They firstly needs to
understand the business and should know how to manage their resources. If small businesses are
capable of managing their HR practices, then those companies will not fall out.
Unable to Move on: There are many businesses who cannot inherit the new way of
business and continue to perform those functions that they were performed by them previously.
To them, the Human Resource Management is not a big factor and they can all manage all the
functions by themselves. But the competition in the market goes on increasing and t stay updated
with the market, businesses needs to maintain all their processes through HRM.
Developing Competency Model: The objective of small and medium sized organizations
is to implement a HR department whose main objective is to choose right people for right jobs.
This must be done keeping their skills, education and expertise in mind. The HR needs to clearly
specify their job descriptions, establish the job competency for all the departments.

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Change Acceptance: Accepting the changes and managing all dissimilarities with time
mainly results in developing the Human Resource Management in Small and medium sized
organizations. The change that is required in project team or actions that are taken in developing
the project mainly requires application that are needed for the changing the environment of the
organizations. This can increase the production process in the organizations.
Mind Blocks: Some of the small companies thinks that the functions of HRM can be
managed by one of them who are already present in the company, there is no needs to hire an
extra personnel for managing the functions of HR. Their minds gets blocked and thinks that only
large organizations can only afford HR. This concept is to be changed all functions from small to
big need HRM practice in their organization.
5.4 Limitation of the Study
From the study conducted above, it can be stated that Human Resources as a function in
firms has achieved vital importance. All organizations from small to big should implement HRM
services within them. As the competition is increasing in the market and there should be a
personnel in the company to stay update with with those factors. HR tends to be undermined as
there is no direct link to profit and loss and the function in previous historical terms were viewed
as an administrative department. More research papers could have been studied for more detail
study on this particular topic.
There was also time constraint and budget constraint in this project which has restricted
the researcher from evaluating the exact information. If there was more time and budget, the
researcher would have conducted quantitative primary data analysis which would have given the

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exact result whether to implement HRM in SME’s or not. There is no sufficient statistical data in
this research study for the data analysis for this research topic.
5.5 Further Scope
For this research paper, the data that is given in the data analysis chapter is only the
qualitative data analysis done on an interview basis. There is no particular statistical data that is
used in this research paper. In future, it can be suggested to carry out a research study with
quantitative data analysis that will give statistical data to the researcher. The statistical data will
be more efficient than the qualitative data that is collected in this research paper. Moreover, the
researcher in future can include more research paper in secondary analysis of data collection.
More statistical data can be taken into consideration that can provide more detailed study about
HRM practices in Small Medium Enterprises in UAE.
5.6 Summary
From the above discussion, it can concluded that HRM is the most important factor for
maintain the producing in a company. Some of them also that they are able to manage all their
activities without any HR in their company. The personnel who were interviewed concluded that
HRM as an important factor. It is not that all the companies interviewed has implemented the
HRM practice in their company. But according to them HRM is an important factor for
managing all activities in a company. After analyzing the interviews of the employee from five
different companies, it can be concluded that motivation is the main factor that the employees
expects from their company. Good motivation and good leadership helps to improve the quality
of work. HRM helps in high turnover of the company and helps to solve the conflict resolutions
in the company.

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