Acquaintance, meritocracy and critical realism: Researching recruitment and selection processes in smaller and growth organizations

Organizational growth inevitably involves expansion in employee numbers, and hence recruitment and selection. To achieve this, prescriptive human resource management (HRM) texts tend to recommend processes that are founded on complex job analysis and time-consuming techniques such as advertising and testing. This approach to people management is informed by functionalist, often positivist research. In this review I argue that this version of HRM is of little use or meaning to small firm managers as they recruit and select. I suggest that analyses of recruitment and selection based on detailed qualitative, interpretive research provide a more meaningful basis for scholars and practitioners to understand recruitment and selection processes in smaller firms. The article concludes with a proposal for future research that draws on critical realism, with the aim of bringing practice, analysis, and legislation into one reflective iterative process to work towards more socially just methods of recruiting and selecting staff for smaller, growth organizations.