Firms Financial Performance and Human Resource Accounting Disclosure in Nigeria

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between firms financial performance and humanresource accounting disclosure of companies in Nigeria. Five years financial data from 2005-2009 of fifty twocompanies across all sectors as listed on the Nigeria stock exchange fact book of 2005-2009 were extracted usingsimple random sampling techniques. Descriptive, correlation and regression statistical techniques were used inanalyzing the data. Our findings show that the combined effect of Firm Financial Performance accounted for75.9% of the variation in Human Resource Accounting Disclosure (HRAD) with an F– ratio 3.581 beingsignificant at 5% confidence level. The positive correlation between Return on Equity (ROE) and HumanResource Accounting Disclosure (HRAD) supposes that an increase in return on equity encourage firm inreporting human capital information so as to establish trustworthiness with stakeholders; enhance externalreputation, appear legitimate in the public eye and avoid cost for non legitimacy. The study concludes thathuman resource accounting information of an organization is very important factor for decision makers in an eraof knowledge based economy. There is growing evidence of the interest and demand among stakeholders forinformation from firm in relation to human capital. Based on this, the study recommended among others,regulatory intervention in the accounting standard setting process for human capital reporting in Nigeria.Standard should be created for human resource identification and measurement. This will enhance valuation ofhuman capital, ensure a higher degree of utility to stakeholder, uniformity in disclosures and will allow reliablecomparison of human capital values.