The concept of disclosure in the financial statements of an organization is pivotal to the existence of the firm. This study investigates the effect of board characteristics on corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure of listed consumer goods firms on the Nigerian Stock Exchange, using a sample of ten (10) consumer goods firms. The study covers 10 years (2009-2018) and employed ex post facto research design. OLS regression analysis was adopted. The study found a positive significant relationship between two board characteristics (female directors on board and outside directors) and CSR disclosure of listed consumer goods firms in Nigeria. Therefore, with board characteristics explaining 33.7% of the variation in the CSR disclosure of these firms, we recommend that firms should be encouraged to continue to hire female directors and more of outside directors on their boards. These will improve CSR disclosure and in return benefit the firm legitimately. Keywords: Board characteristics, Corporate social responsibility disclosure, Legitimacy theory, Nigeria

This paper aims to analyze the structure of the corporate board that triggers social sustainability reporting in the healthcare industry. The sample consists of 60 firm-year observations. Data on corporate governance was collected from the annual reports of the sampled companies and social sustainability data were obtained from MachameRatios. Moreover, financial information was collected from the NSE factbooks. Consistent with the study’s predicted hypotheses, the result reveals that companies with several directors and with one or more female directors as board members are more likely to report social sustainability activities. However, having nonexecutive directors on the board had limited impact on issues relating to sustainability. Our study adds to the existing literature on board structures and sustainability reporting that large and diverse boards are material determinants of social sustainability reporting. The study findings are consistent with various regulatory bodies’ initiatives (for example, the Securities and Exchange Commission of Nigeria) on board structures. The commission mandated all listed firms to have at least five directors. Hence, encouraging companies to have larger and diverse boards composed of mixed genders with greater experience will positively impact sustainability reporting.

Prior studies have revealed that foreign shareholders have a greater influence on dividend policy. However, it is unclear how foreign owners in large firms affect the propensity to pay dividends. This paper is aimed at exploring the relationship between the propensity to pay dividends and foreign ownership. It also examined the moderating role of firm size on the relationship between the decision to pay cash dividend and foreign ownership. The study uses pooled logistic regression on a data set of non-financial listed firms on the Nigerian Stock Market from 2011 to 2015. The results showed that foreign ownership has a great tendency to influence the propensity of a firm to pay a cash dividend. The effect is more pronounced in larger firms, thus, indicating that in larger firms, foreign owners mitigate agency problems using dividends. Based on the findings, firms should be encouraged to pay a dividend to attract foreign investors and in return will help the firms to acquire the expertise of foreign owners.

Gender diversity on boards is one of the attributes of good corporate governance practices. Male directors over the years have continued to dominate boards of corporate bodies. Our study is aimed at exploring the impact of older and matured companies on female directors on the boards. The study employs data of companies listed on the main floor of the Nigerian Stock Market from 2012-2016. The study segregated the sampling period into pre and post mandatory periods of the SEC code. Findings from the study revealed that throughout the periods, age of company is positive and significant. In the pre mandatory period, size of company is negatively significant. During the post mandatory and the entire sample period, size of company was found to be positively associated with female directors. This implies that fear of greater liabilities from the oversight body and public outrage have encouraged larger companies to have divergent boards in terms of gender.