CORPORATE GOVERNANCE AND FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE: THE MODERATING EFFECT OF BOARD GENDER DIVERSITY OF CONSUMER GOODS FIRMS IN NIGERIA

Abstract

The main objective of this paper is to examine the moderating effect of board gender diversity on the relationship between corporate governance (audit committee characteristics) and performance of consumer goods firms, Nigeria for the period of 2016-2022. An ex-post facto method was adopted, as the study entails the use of annual reports and accounts of listed consumer goods company in Nigeria. Filter sampling technique was used through applying criteria, for a company to be part of the sample, the application of the criteria resulted to the selection of 10 consumer goods companies as sample size of the study. The STATA version 14 was adopted to test the hypotheses developed in this study. The result shows that proxies of independent variable; audit committee size and audit committee meeting has no significant effect on the performance of consumer goods firms. It was also found that board gender diversity moderates the relationship between audit committee characteristics (audit committee size and audit committee meeting) and performance of consumer goods firms. Therefore, it is recommended that consumer goods firm managers should consider board gender diversity in their operation process as it effect their performance and strengthen the relationship between firm performance and audit committee characteristics.