Role of Strategic Human Resources Management on SMEs' Performance in Iraq

The survival and success of any firm rely solely on its ability to integrate the right personnel at the right time and at the right place. Human resource management has been recognized by professionals as an important factor responsible for the competitiveness of firms and it assists firms to determine the key human resources management functional areas that are responsible for elevating the status of an organization. Acceptance and practices of human resources management in an organization present a number of role changes and bring new challenges to the professionals in this discipline.That is, the more establish the strategic roles or functions of HR, the more the expectation to partner with top management to achieve business success.However, there have been many criticisms to whether Strategic Human Resources can directly contribute to the performance of SMEs.This study hereby used a quantitative method of research to determine the role of SHRM in Iraq SMEs.In this research, 87 respondents were investigated within the SMEs industries in Baghdad, Iraq, which represents 94.56% of the distributed questionnaire. Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 16(SPSS 16.0) was used to analyze the collected data in this research. The overall findings of this research revealed that SHRM practices are vital to the performance of SMEs in Iraq. The finding further indicates that SHRM components: alignment, line manager, training, compensation, performance appraisal and employee participation are significant to SMEs performance. Based on this, the study concludes that factors such as alignment,line manager, training, compensation, performance appraisal and employee participation are very crucial in predicting SMEs performance particularly in Iraq. These findings are useful for managers to make better decision in relation to Human Recourse Management