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Purpose – We show that, although most private employer establishments are small, much reported research (and subsequent suggestions for practice) in management comes from large firms. In turn, we wanted to explore if organizational knowledge gained from studying one or more large firms is necessarily applicable to numerous smaller firms.

Design/methodology/approach – We computed firm size in the United States using existing databases, and we then considered published literature in human resources and strategy to see if the large sample results logically applied to smaller firms.

Findings – At the job-analytic level, it is suggested that jobs might be defined differently and more broadly in smaller establishments than in large organizations. Also, the feasibility of best corporate strategies may be moderated by the size of the firm. In addition, we noted that the underlying model of selection utility in human resource management (HRM), and several factors in its numerical estimation, might need to be modified as a function of firm size.

Originality/value – We hope that this chapter inspires HRM and strategy researchers by helping to focus future evidence-based efforts, creating new initiatives, and providing results that are useful (or scalable) to the large number of small, private-sector U.S. firms.

Welcome to volume 6 of Research Methodology in Strategy and Management! In creating this series about eight years ago, our belief was that the organizational sciences needed a forum wherein leading scholars could openly express their views about important and emerging issues within research methods. In particular, we wanted the book series to serve as a metaphorical bridge between areas of inquiry that could benefit from increased interaction with each other. This sixth volume of the series recalls these roots by being built around the theme of “Building methodological bridges.”