The Trend of Intellectual Capital Disclosure : Experiential Evidence from Post IFRSS Adoption in Nigeria

The basic purpose of this paper is to examine the trend of intellectual capital (IC) disclosures in Nigeria following the adoption of international financial reporting standards. The analysis is based on a sample of 91 listed firms on the Nigeria Stock Exchange over the three fiscal years 2012 to 2014. A self‐constructed IC disclosure checklist of 72 items was used to measure the quality of IC information disclosed in the 273 annual reports and accounts reports of the sampled firms. A number of statistical techniques were carried out to assess the trend of IC and that of its three components of human capital, relational capital, and internal capital disclosures and as well to confirm the degree of differences in the level of disclosures across the industries. The study finds a significant increase in the trend of IC and all the three components over the period of study. The relational capital is most disclosed components of the three items and that overall IC disclosure is significantly difference across the industries. The study is first to examine the quality of IC disclosure following IFRSs adoption in Nigeria. The study suggests that financial reporting council of Nigeria should provide a scientific reporting guidelines for the IC disclosures as the current practice among is not uniform