Formal experience of SME owners in the field of HRM: A case study in Kosovo as a country with an emerging economy

In this paper, an attempt has been made to identify the extent of formal experience of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the field of human resource management (HRM). It also views the manifestations of SME owners’ experience in human resource management practices as well as in recruitment processes. On the other hand, it attempts to see if there is a connection between informality and the experience of the owners in the field of HRMs. Qualitative methods were used in this study. A random sample selection technique was used in the sample selection. Five small and medium enterprises were selected for this paper and semi-structured interviews were conducted with the owners of these enterprises. For the evaluation of the results, topics and categories were defined and afterwards interpreted based on the research questions of this paper. The results of this study have shown that there is a correlation between the formal experience of owners in relation to the implementation of human resource management practices and the informality of the enterprise. In this study, it is understood that owners of small and medium enterprises do not have formal experience in the field of HRMs and recruitment processes. The lack of experience of the owners in these fields has resulted in these SMEs not having formal practices in HRM and has influenced the increase of informality. The results of this paper can be considered as the first in this regard which is done in the Republic of Kosovo, known as a country with a developing economy. We also consider that this paper will open the possibility to conduct other researches in relevant areas which have not yet been addressed in Kosovo. Therefore, this paper can be considered as the first contribution in this area.