PRE-POST HUMAN CAPITAL ACCOUNTING AND FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE OF LISTED OIL AND GAS COMPANIES IN NIGERIA: AN EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FROM PRE And POST COVID19 ERA

Abstract

More often than not Oil and Gas companies experienced huge financial losses due to storage of workers, mismanagement of funds, corruptions in the recruitment process, decrease in oil price, foreign exchange devaluation and coupled with COVID-19 pandemic. The lockdown of major cities as a result of COVID-19 outbreak in the world and Nigeria arising from the COVID-19 Pandemic have impacted oil and gas sectors in Nigeria negatively. Due to this current development in the oil and gas companies in Nigeria, this study investigates the relationship between pre-post human capital accounting and financial performance of listed oil and gas companies in Nigeria. The specific objectives sought to: investigate the relationship between pre-post Covid19 employees cost and earning per shares, investigate the relationship between pre-post Covid19 training/development cost and earning per shares, finally, determine the relationship between pre-post Covid19 value added intellectual coefficient and earning per shares of listed oil and gas companies in Nigeria. The study adopted ex-post facto research design. The population of the study consisted of ten (10) Oil and Gas Companies listed in the Nigerian Exchange Group and Five (5) were chosen simply because as at the time of this research work, some of the companies do not have 2021 data available. Data of two year period for Pre-Covid19 era from 2018-2019 and two year period for Post-Covid19 era from 2020-2021 was chosen for the study. The study used secondary data employing Descriptive Statistics and Multiple Linear Regression analysis of panel data with aid of E-View 12. This study result showed that earning per shares under Pre-Covid19 era and Post-Covid19 era had insignificant relationship with employee cost, training/development cost and valued added intellectual coefficient of listed oil and gas companies in Nigeria. The study concluded that there is insignificant relationship between human capital accounting and financial performance of listed oil and gas companies in Nigeria under Pre-Covid19 era and Post-Covid19 era. It is suggested amongst others that companies should evaluate employees cost and training/development cost with return on assets, return on equity, net profit margin etc because this study result showed that earning per share had insignificant relationship with human capital accounting.