Education, training and development policies and practices in medium-sized companies in the UK: do they really influence firm performance?

This paper sets out to examine the relationship between training and firm performance in middle-sized UK companies. It recognises that there is evidence that ‘high performance work practices’ appear to be associated with better performance in large US companies, but argues that this relationship is less likely to be present in middle-sized companies. The paper's key contribution is to justify the wider concept of education, training and development (ETD) as applicable to such companies. It then finds that clusters of some ETD variables do appear to be associated with better middle-sized company performance.