Abstract
Small hospitality firms are very important to the Egyptian economy because of their potential contributions to economic growth and job creation. However, there is a paucity research about small hospitality firms in developing countries, i.e. Egypt. This research bridges a gap in knowledge and investigates human resource management practices in small versus large hospitality firms in Egypt. A pretested questionnaire was self-administered to workers in four groups of hospitality firms: large chain, large independent, small chain, and small independent. The results showed that chain hospitality firms are more likely to practice formal and appropriate human resource management in comparison to other independent firms regardless their size. The results showed that there are statistical significant differences within small firms and also within large firms. Small hospitality firms are not homogenous and recognizing the level of heterogeneity within these firms, will lead to better understanding human resource management practices in these firms. Policy makers in Egypt should pay serious attention to small hospitality firms. Failure to this will impact negatively on the hospitality industry and ultimately on tourism development, which is critical to the Egyptian economy.