TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Bryson, Alex
AU  - White, Michael
        TI  - HRM and Small-Firm Employee Motivation: Before and after the Recession
        PY  - 2017/Apr/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 10737
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/publications/dp10737
        AB  - A long-running debate in the small firms' literature questions the value of formal 'human resource management' (HRM) practices which have been linked to high performance in larger firms. We contribute to this literature by exploiting linked employer-employee surveys for 2004 and 2011. Using employees' intrinsic job satisfaction and organizational commitment as measures of motivation we find the returns to small firm investments in HRM are u-shaped.
Small firms benefit from intrinsically motivating work situations in the absence of HRM practices, find this advantage disturbed when formal HRM practices are initially introduced, but can restore positive motivation when they invest intensively in HRM practices in a way that characterizes 'high performance work systems' (HWPS) and 'strategic human resource management' (SHRM). Although the HPWS effect on employee motivation is modified somewhat by the recessionary transition, it remains rather robust and continues to have positive promise for small firms. 
        KW  - small firms
KW  - human resource management
KW  - high performance work system
KW  - workplace motivation
KW  - intrinsic job satisfaction
KW  - organizational commitment
        ER  -