Critical Review Martin Sedgley and Jo McBride

QUESTIONS for critical review 1. What are the main academic arguments being made by the author? 2. Which are the two or three most important ideas that are the foundation for the author’s claims? 3. What is the ‘evidence’ that the author is drawing upon to support his argument? 4. What are the main findings and conclusions made by the author? 5. In your view, what might be a potential weakness in the author’s line of argument and why? 6. Which aspects of the author’s argument do you agree and disagree with, and why? (McBride 2010)

1. Introduction In this paper it will be argued that Behrends’ (2007) study of recruitment practices in small and medium sized professional service firms is an interesting but problematic piece of research. The argument will be developed through a critical review of Behrends’ paper, discussing in turn its conceptual bases, research methods, main findings, and practical implications. Article research focus, essay position (Q. 6), essay aim / structure

2. Synopsis Behrends’ paper reports a study of 342 companies’ recruitment practices. In particular the research is concerned with small and medium-sized knowledge- intensive professional service firms (SMKIPSFs) in Germany. Behrends justifies the paper’s focus of how SMKIPSFs manage recruitment on the grounds that professional service firms are highly dependent on their employees for the quality of services sold by the company. Methodology – study sample (Q. 3 and Q. 5 ?) Claim for importance of research focus

20. Conclusion In conclusion, Behrends has attempted to explore recruitment activities in a sub-set of German SMEs. The importance of employees, and recruitment in particular, to these firms along with the general absence of knowledge-intensive firms from discussion of HRM in SMEs (Scase, 1995) suggest that this was a worthy endeavour. Unfortunately fundamental difficulties with Behrends’ conceptualisation and execution of his research mean that the reported results must be treated with extreme caution. Research importance and gap Essay position (Q. 6)