Corporate Governance, Financial Performance, and Social Sustainability Practices of Consumer Goods Companies Listed in Nigeria

Abstract

Social sustainability practice is a contemporary issue and is internationally embraced by organizations to exhibit the significance of its existence in the society. Published financial statements have not been communicating the social sustainability practices of firms. The study examined the effect of corporate governance and financial performance on social sustainability practice of listed consumer goods companies in Nigeria. Ex-post facto design was applied in the study using annual reports for a period of 10 years, 2010 - 2019 of listed consumer goods companies in Nigeria. The population is all the twenty listed consumer goods companies in Nigeria as at December 31, 2019 and purposive sampling technique was used to select sixteen companies as sample size. Content analysis was used to obtain data on social sustainability practices from annual reports of the selected listed consumer goods companies. The outcomes of the study showed that the collective effect of corporate governance and financial performance have a significant impact on social sustainability practices of listed consumer goods companies in Nigeria though the isolated effects were mixed. It was concluded that corporate governance and financial performance influenced social sustainability practices of quoted consumer goods firms in Nigeria. It was recommended that the regulators should enforce effective corporate governance by having adequate board size, independent board coupled with frequent and sufficient meetings to attend to the companies' issues and management of such companies should ensure adequate running of companies' resources to generate better financial performance. The social sustainability practices and its disclosure should be made mandatory and failure to comply should attract sanction with a huge penalty.