DO FRENCH SMES REALLY CARE ABOUT THEIR MANAGERS? MAIN MANAGERIAL AND HR DYSFUNCTIONS ORIGINATING DIFFICULTIES IN UNDERTAKING SUPERVISORY RESPONSIBILITIES

Abstract

Managers often have to face quite a great deal of
criticism when it comes to their leadership functions
and the way they exercise their authority. However,
few researchers and authors have tried to explain
the difficulties encountered by this section of the
workers’ population, particularly in SMEs. In that
sense, management studies (in both English and
French languages) do not address the issue of the
quality of HR management policies implemented in
SMEs for their managers. So we feel that there is in
our area, a lack of research and scientific knowledge, in relation to this topic that opens a large field of
“strategic” research for the years to come, considering
the number and the heavy role that SMEs play in
the French economic framework. As for us now, we
are setting out a research intervention experiment we
have conducted in a SME.
Through this case, we will present our initial analysis
regarding the difficulties to take on a managerial
function due to inadequate or even non-existent
Management of Human Resources towards their
managers, by and within SMEs. In this sense,
managers cannot be systematically held responsible for all the evils of SMEs as they too can be
put in uncomfortable situations or conditions in
the workplace, which contribute to the difficulties
that they face exercising their profession. However,
future research work will have to be undertaken to
question the initial analysis but also to enable us to
offer additional and prescriptive approaches which
might complement this one.