SME Learning in a Recession: In Search of Growth

This study aims to explore how a successful small business utilised a ‘learning in the organisation’ strategy to achieve business performance in the last recession of 2008-09. In the case study firm, learning activities helped to improve employee efficiency. Employee efficiency, in turn, helped to achieve business performance. To gain business performance, the firm implemented formal, semi-formal and informal learning activities. The skills and knowledge gained from learning activities were transformed and transferred to the business context. To understand the growth phenomena, this research employed pluralist and pragmatic methods. The research is supplemented by the participant action research as the main approach and mix method to collect and analyse the data. Being a case study, the outcome of this research may not be replicated directly to other businesses. However, this research provides a foundation to SME owner-managers, researchers (academics and scholars), policy-makers and support organisations to understand how a ‘learning in the organisation’ strategy helps to achieve business performance in a recession.