CORPORATE GOVERNANCE PRACTICES, CEO CHARACTERISTICS AND EFFICIENCY OF THE FIRMS LISTED ON THE NIGERIAN STOCK EXCHANGE
Author: Bilkisu Aliyu Abubakar, Yahya Zakari Abdullahi & Shuaibu Adamu
Volume: 58 Issue No:3 Year:2016
Abstract: Corporate governance has increasingly become a field of study arising from the increasing number of high profile corporate failures around the world. The main objective of this paper is to find out the relationships between certain board characteristics and chief executive officer (CEO) characteristics on firm performance. This is because the code of corporate governance for quoted companies in Nigeria is silent on certain variables that impact on firm performance and empirical studies in the area of corporate governance in Nigeria are concerned with how few board characteristics are related to performance, while studies on the relationship between CEO characteristics and firm’s performance remain sparse in developing countries. The research uses panel data sampled from 64 quoted companies drawn from various sectors of the Nigerian Stock Exchange for a period of 10 years, i.e. 2004 to 2014, using the availability sampling technique. The ROA, ROE and Tobin’s Q were used to measure the dependent variable, while gender of CEO, CEO ownership, CEO experience, board’s proportion in audit committee, board composition, board size are the independent variables while firm size is used as the control variable. The study applies panel regression models of pooled ordinary least squares (Pooled-OLS) as well as fixed and random effects estimators. The major findings of the study reveal a negative relationship between board size, gender of the CEO, number of directors in audit committee and firm’s financial performance. Based on the findings, recommendations were given on how firms should appoint CEO who are competent irrespective of gender and maintaining the number of directors sitting in the audit committee to three.
JEL classification: G32, G38
JEL classification: G32, G38
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