Employee Rewards And The Likelihood Of A Successful Initial Public Offering

Abstract

In this paper, we survey employees about human resources practices regarding employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) and profit sharing plans of firms that have registered for an IPO offering. We find that firms that had ESOPs in place prior to the registration of an IPO have a greater likelihood of eventually launching an IPO than those registered firms who do not. Our results broaden the existing finance literature of IPO analysis as we survey registered companies prior to their attempted IPO launch to determine whether their employee-based compensation structure impacts the likelihood of a successful IPO launch.