EuroEconomica, Vol 36, No 1 (2017)

Abstract

This study investigated the influence of four firms’ characteristics (size, organisational structure, age and systemic importance) on the extent of performance disclosures by Nigerian banks using the balanced scorecard (BSC) model. The population of the study comprises publicly listed banks in Nigeria, in operation from 2012 to 2014.  Using a self-designed disclosure checklist, the annual reports of a sample of 15 publicly quoted banks in Nigeria were content-analysed for performance disclosure for the period 2012-2014.Descriptive statistics, cross-tabulation, spearman correlation-test, and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) at 5% significance level were applied in data analysis. It was observed that firms did not significantly differ in the extent of performance disclosure in each of the four BSC perspectives on one hand, and the overall BSC measure on the other hand, on the account of the four firm attributes examined. Considering that annual reports are mainstream amongst the media used to communicate performance to the public, it was recommended that preparers of such documents should consider disclosing financial and non-financial performance results; this will not only help in providing a comprehensive basis to judge organisational performance but will also help in diffusing the clout created by asymmetry of information between preparers and users of performance reports.