Transitioning From Micro to Small: Emergent Organising in Employment System Formalisation
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Ho, Marcus
Kapukotuwa, Lakshika
Wang, Pola
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Sage
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As micro-enterprises grow, employment systems become increasingly crucial due to challenges in surmounting limited resources, environmental instability, and the liabilities of smallness. This article explores how employment systems formalise during micro-enterprise growth, focusing on the interactional micro-processes among founders and other key actors. We utilise a lens of emergent organising to address the limitations of existing HRM and employment models for micro-enterprises, contexts marked by informality, fluid roles and limited HR expertise. Using an embedded exploratory multiple case study design, we show how founders and their micro-enterprise teams collectively enact formalising the employment system through two micro-processes: aligning mental models and routinising employment system practices, evidenced across three hospitality micro-enterprises in New Zealand. Our findings also show that these mechanisms pattern into employment system features that blend formal and informal practices, feedback loops, and a shared understanding of employment in micro-enterprises.
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350503 Human resources management, 350716 Small business organisation and management, 1503 Business and Management, 1505 Marketing, Business & Management, 3505 Human resources and industrial relations, 3507 Strategy, management and organisational behaviour, employment system formation, emergent organising, small and medium-sized enterprises, employment system
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International Small Business Journal: Researching Entrepreneurship, ISSN: 0266-2426 (Print); 1741-2870 (Online). doi: 10.1177/02662426261470097
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Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International
© The Author(s) 2026.
© The Author(s) 2026.
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Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International