The View from the Top: How Strategic Human Resource Management Affects the Performance of Initial Public Offering Firms

We study SHRM by taking an organizational level perspective on control over all employees. Drawing from agency theory, control theory, and the resource-based view of the firm, we develop hypotheses regarding the differential effects on firm performance of various overarching approaches to human resource management (HRM) control implemented in small, growing firms. We test our hypotheses in a longitudinal study of 342 firms that went public in 1993. Results support the negative effect of bureaucratic HRM control on marketbased measures of performance, while firm-specific HRM control and incentive-based HRM control are related to internal measures of firm growth.