Optimizing Human Resource Conditions for 20‐Year Initial Public Offering (IPO) Survival
Theresa M. Welbourne et al.
Abstract
The entrepreneurship literature emphasizes the importance of imprints founders leave on companies; those imprints can change at transformational events such as the initial public offering (IPO). Prior research has found that objective measures (such as structure or compensation systems) can imprint and predict survival post IPO. However, executive value imprinting has received less attention. We theorize that executive values, which are core to the change management literature, are particularly important for post‐IPO imprinting. Expanding employee‐organization relationships to firm‐level outcomes, we argue that optimization (not underemphasis or overemphasis) of the executive values of sense of urgency and valuing employees creates a unique human resource condition that is key to long‐term survival after the change event of the IPO. Based on the role of the human resource executive (HRE) as a change agent, we posit that having an HRE in place positively impacts 20‐year survival of the firm as its own, independent entity, by bolstering the initial imprint with ongoing support of the imprinted values. We find support for our hypotheses using survey data from executives leading companies from the 1996 IPO cohort and longitudinal archival data. We contribute to the literature on imprinting in IPOs, change management, and human resource management.
Evidence weight
Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40
| F · citation impact | 0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20 |
| M · momentum | 0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07 |
| V · venue signal | 0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03 |
| R · text relevance † | 0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20 |
† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.