Abstract
This study examined the effect of board attributes on human capital disclosures in corporate reports of listed deposit money banks (DMBs) in Nigeria. The study employed a longitudinal research design. Data were retrieved from annual reports of 14 DMBs covering the period 2011-2020. The panel regression technique was used for data analysis. The findings of the study using fixed effect from the Hausman specification test revealed that board independence and board size have a significant effect on human capital disclosure while board gender diversity has a positive but insignificant effect on the human capital of DMBs in Nigeria. The study concluded that the board is a viable corporate governance mechanism for influencing the level of human capital disclosure in financial reports of companies. The study recommended that there is a need for companies to improve the level of human capital disclosures in corporate reports. Furthermore, corporate governance should ensure that management emphasizes human resource disclosures by encouraging the voluntary disclosure of value-added human capital activity. JEL Classification: C23, M4, M14, M49
Keywords: Board Gender Diversity, Board Independence, Board Size, Human Capital Disclosure, Deposit Money Banks.
Introduction
There is a general opinion that globalization and transformation have shifted the world economy toward a knowledge base. Following this trend, several businesses are now focusing more on value creation from human knowledge, thereby increasing their intangible assets, viz.-á-viz. human knowledge is a veritable tool to achieve beneficial goals and success (Forte, 2017). This obvious economic value contribution from the human effort in organizations ought to be reported; thus, the aspect of human capital is born. Human Capital (HC) is considered in both management and accounting literature as one of the intangible assets that help in generating value for the firm. Human capital accounting and its subsequent disclosures have been a contemporary issue in accounting research for a long time, and to date, there is yet to be an end to the debate surrounding it. Mainly, the arguments have come from the relegated position that human capital has been given in financial accounting and reporting despite the opulence that has heralded corporate reporting of other assets. Considering human capital as part of the unique and valuable knowledge of their employees, they will be relevant in generating a sustainable competitive advantage for organizations. The value of knowledge reflects the power to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the firm, exploiting market opportunities and/or neutralizing potential threats, while the unique knowledge helps to differentiate firms from their competitors (Pelayo-Maciel, Calderon- Hernandez & Sema-Gomez, 2012; Zhang, 2012).
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