Intellectual Capital and Corporate Performance of Listed Non-Finance Firms in Nigeria

Stella P. Essien & Utitofonidara O. Aniekan

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Abstract

The study investigated the effect of intellectual capital on corporate performance by drawing samples from listed non-finance firms in Nigeria between the periods of 2012-2021. In this study, human capital, structural capital, and relational capital were the intellectual capital proxies employed to examine their effects on firms' performance. The firm’s performance was measured in terms of return on total assets (RETA). Ex post facto research design was adopted; secondary data were employed and a purposive sampling technique was adopted to select the sample size of 85 companies. Furthermore, in line with related extant literature, the researcher adopted a net profit margin to control the model’s goodness of fits. The data were analysed using the Ordinary Least Square regression technique. The results showed that human capital has a positive insignificant effect on return on total assets while structural and relational capital have significant positive effect on the return on total assets of the selected non-finance firms. From the findings of the study, it was concluded that relational capital and structural capital significantly improve the performance of selected listed non-finance firms in Nigeria. On the bases of these findings, the paper recommended that managers should invest more in their structural capital as well as their relational capital since they tend to improve the financial performance of the studied firms. It was also recommended that though human capital appears to have insignificant effect on the studied firms, more emphasis should be placed on them since the other resources of the firm cannot function maximally without their creativity, capabilities and innovative capacities.

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