Strategic human resource management（SHRM）has long been emphasized by senior management to exploit the fullest potentials of their employees.Since then,SHRM becomes an increasingly researched field since its practices are the key drivers of several individual and organizational outcomes.SHRM practices are widely proven that they not only pose positive effects on employee behavior and performance but also help organizations achieve their goals.However,previous SHRM and performance literature mostly focuses on the impacts and changes of employees working at business organizations like companies.Only a minimal number of studies focus on the relationship between SHRM practices and employee performance at educational organizations,primarily from the higher education sector.Research on this relationship in the context of Myanmar and its universities is not known to have existed yet.This research helps to fill the gap in the field of SHRM by providing an empirical evidence from Myanmar.This research focuses on the impacts of SHRM practices of Myanmar universities on an individual-level outcome such as employee performance and explores the mediation effect that employee engagement has on the relationship.This study operationalizes six dimensions（as independent variables）relevant to situations in Myanmar and includes SHRM practices such as recruitment and selection,training and development,compensation and benefit,performance management,promotion and transfer,and career development.In this research,employee performance constitutes the dependent variable,while employee engagement serves as a mediator.As the first step in every SHRM process,recruitment and selection in labor-intensive and service-based organizations is critical to increasing the performance of employees by hiring the right candidates.Employees who seem to be highly fit with their organizations are often the ones who are engaged the most at works.Training and development lead to the improvement of skills,knowledge,and abilities of the workforce and improve their performance.Organizations often conduct training and development to retain their employees by always keeping them engaged at works.Compensation and benefit help employees increase their morals,motivation,and engagement,which later indirectly build up their performance.Highly compensated employees have more potentials to show a higher responsibility for higher performance and work quality.Performance management balances employees’ skills and performance levels.Since employees tend not to have low scores or negative feedback on their performance appraisals,they often strike to achieve higher performance.Promotion and transfer are inter-related with compensation and benefit.Promotion is a motivating factor for most employees to convince them that they will be appropriately rewarded according to their work outcomes and results.Career development is an SHRM practice that focuses on the long-term skill and experience development of employees.Since it helps organizations keep their employees on track of their individual goals,it is a useful tool to boost employee engagement and productivity.The primary data for this study is collected using a multi-sections questionnaire on SHRM practices and their antecedents and administered in a paper-based form.Because of the years of extensive fieldwork of the researcher in the higher education sector in Myanmar,the data collection process is mainly carried out on behalf of the researcher by the presidents of the participating universities.A total of 1,162 samples are completed by employees（both academic and non-academic）working at 40 public universities in Myanmar.After several rounds of data cleaning,the final sample,consisting of 835 employees,is analyzed.Several statistical analyses,such as exploratory factor analysis,tests for reliability,multicollinearity,and common method bias,correlation matrix,and regression analysis,are perform to testify the seven hypotheses proposed in this study.The results reveal three uncommon findings.First,rather than having impacts on employee performance as anticipated,two SHRM practices: recruitment and selection,and promotion and transfer,have no major influence on employee performance.Second,more surprisingly,compensation and benefit have a negative connection with individual performance.Last,employee engagement does have a partial mediating effect in the relationship between the independent and dependent variables.It is essential to keep in mind that these unique results are specific to universities in Myanmar as they have SHRM practices that are different from these practices implemented at universities in other countries.This research raises a few significant implications based on the above findings.In terms of theoretical implications,this study provides new evidence that not all SHRM practices have positive effects on employee-level outcomes or imply that the same constructs would exist for all organizations.Different ways of SHRM practices will have different impacts on employee engagement and performance.This reminds organizations that they cannot simply replicate the implementations of SHRM practices from other organizations since some organization-specific factors may have altered the relationship.This study also contributes to SHRM literature by adding new knowledge on the mediating effect of employee engagement,which is fairly uncommon in the literature currently available.With regard to the managerial implications,this paper aims to raise the awareness that there is a need to appropriately implement SHRM practices to encourage employee engagement,increase their performance,and operate more effectively and efficiently than before.Understanding the actual effects of SHRM activities on employee job performance with contexts specific to Myanmar would be indeed helpful for university leaderships to implement appropriate practices and improve the performance level of staff.The study’s results and conclusions can be extended to all universities that are under the Ministry of Education（MOE）.