HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT PRACTICES: CATALYSTS FOR REAL ENTREPRENEURIAL FIRMS’ GROWTH IN SOUTHWEST, NIGERIA

The study examined the role of Human Resource Management Practices (HRMPs) on entrepreneurial firms’ growth in South West Nigeria.  This was to entrenching a set of adequate human resource management practices that can enhance the growth objective of entrepreneurial firms. A structured questionnaire was used to elicit information on relevant variables of the study. Data collected were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics with the aid of IBM SPSS statistics version 21.  The results revealed that employees’ training (    = 31.03, s=8.6405); controlling (   = 25.95, s= 6.721)); organizing manpower (    = 23.20, s = 5.760); job analysis and design (   = 23.10, s = 5.883) were reasonably practiced among the firms under the study. Whereas motivating strategies (    = 21.5, s = 5.2905; recruitment and selection (   = 20.45, s = 4.831); and manpower planning (    = 18.72, s = 4.786) fell below the agreement criterion (    = 23.0).  However, it was established that there was a statistically significant influence of the predictor variables on the outcome variable (R2 = 0.837, adjusted R2 = 0.825).  Therefore, the study concluded that Human Resources Management Practices as an omnibus concept have significant influence on Entrepreneurial firms ‘growth. The study suggested that Human Resource Management Practices should be considered as a process by entrepreneurs as it galvanizes entrepreneurial firms' growth objectives.     &nbsp