Small sample likelihood based inference for the shape parameter of the inverse Gaussian distribution is the purpose of this paper. When shape parameter is of interest, the signed log-likelihood ratio statistic and the modified signed log-likelihood ratio statistic are derived. Hsieh (1990) gave a statistical inference for the shape parameter based on an exact method. Throughout simulation, we will compare the statistical properties of the proposed statistics to the statistic given by Hsieh (1990) in term of confidence interval and power of test. We also discuss a real data example.