The human resource executive effect in initial public offering firms

There is much discussion about firms putting human resource management (HRM ) to strategic use, in part by hiring senior HRM executives. This study exp lored whether that recommendation can help entrepreneurial, growth-oriented companies. By applying organizational inertia concepts, we investigated wh ether having a senior HRM executive reporting to a firm's CEO affected firm performance in a sample of firms making their initial public offerings (IP Os). Results indicate that smaller, fast-growing IPOs experience the most g ain from having senior human resource executives.