| dc.description.abstract | The global increase in failures and scandals in the financial services sector, especially banking institutions, has renewed the call for a more robust corporate governance in the industry. This has necessitated the need to investigate the impact of corporate governance on bank performance, and this study focuses on the case of Nigeria. Previous research has investigated the impact of corporate governance practices mostly in the developed world, to the neglect of vulnerable and poor economies such as Nigeria. This study therefore investigates the impact of corporate governance on the performance of Nigerian banks in the pre- and post-colonial period, using quantitative and qualitative methodological approaches. While various different theoretical perspectives have been adopted to study the impact of corporate governance in specific social contexts, the appropriateness of these theories to the socio-political context of poor countries has become contested. Considering the integration of the Nigerian economy into the global neoliberal capitalist economic system, this thesis adopts neoliberal global capitalism to understand the activities of the Nigerian banking institutions. Using both qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection, adopting qualitative semi-structured interviews and questionnaires, within the framework of neoliberal capitalism, the quantitative results suggest that board size, frequency of board meetings, frequency of audit committee meetings and managerial share ownership have a negative relationship with bank performance. Most of the respondents did not believe that neoliberal corporate governance practices were practical in Nigerian banking institutions. In sum, the study identifies a number of factors leading to failure of banks in Nigeria: the impact of the Nigerian socio-political context of overbearing family domination, ineffective boards, dual and pseudo-dual CEOs, flagrant disobedience and poor application of corporate governance codes. These factors have resulted in poor risk management, excessive risk taking and other unethical behaviours. This study contributes to the body of knowledge by providing an understanding of the connection between corporate governance principles and the performance of banks, looking at the peculiarities of each society in the application of corporate governance principles and introducing a balanced score card to the application of corporate governance. Keywords: Corporate governance, profitability, board size, neoliberalism, Central Bank of Nigeria, political economy, audit committee | en_US |
