ABSTRACT

This study empirically estimated the relationship between corporate governance and the performance of deposit money banks in Nigeria. Twelve (12) deposit money banks were used in this study. Five variables such as; Tobin Q, audit committee size, board size, board independence and board gender were used for the estimation. The data used ranges from 2006 to 2020 across 12 deposit money banks in Nigeria. This study used the pooled panel regression technique. This implies that the 180 observations are pooled together before the regression was ran, thus neglecting the time series nature and cross sectional nature of the data. Specifically, the following findings were made: that audit committee size has a positive and significant impact on the performance of deposit money banks in Nigeria; that board size has a negative and significant impact on the performance of deposit money banks in Nigeria; that board independence has a negative and not significant impact on the performance of deposit money banks in Nigeria; and that board gender diversity has a negative and not significant impact on the performance of deposit money banks in Nigeria. Following the findings from this study, we recommended that: deposit money banks should maintain a balance audit committee size to continually boost performance; deposit money banks should maintain an optimal board size to enhance performance; deposit money banks should enhance the independence of the board to effectively boost the performance of the board; and deposit money banks should encourage diversity of personnel’s in it board to tap into the potential benefit of a diversified board.