Chief Executive Officers’ Attributes and Financial Performance in Nigerian Oil and Gas Sector

Abstract

The broad objective of the study was to investigate the relationship between chief executive 
officers’ attributes (CEO) and financial performance in Nigeria. The study employed the ex post 
facto research design of a data set of eight (8) years from 2015 to 2022. The secondary data used 
were sourced from the data base of the Nigerian Exchange Group (NGX) for oil & firms as well 
as the corporate annual reports of corporations under review for the respective years. The Auto 
Regressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity (ARCH) of the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) 
regression technique was used to obtain the relationship between the regressors and the regress 
and. The ARCH was preferred based on the nature of the data as it involves volatility in time series 
so as to forecast future volatility. The findings showed positive and significant relationship 
between CEO Political Connection, CEO Educational Qualification, Sales Growth and Financial 
Performance; negative and significant relationship between CEO Tenure and Financial 
Performance thus suggests that these variables are good predictors of financial performance in 
Nigeria. The study found negative but insignificant relationship between CEO Age and Financial 
Performance while positive but insignificant relationship was found between CEO Gender 
Diversity, Firm Size and Financial Performance, therefore implying that CEO Age, CEO Gender 
Diversity and Firm Size are not good predictors of financial performance in Nigeria. Against the 
backdrop, the study recommends that further empirical studies should be conducted using other 
sectors of the economy especially the consumer goods sector considering the high level of inflation 
in the country.  

Keywords: Chief executive officers, Auto Regressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity (ARCH), and financial performance and CEO attribute