Purpose: In view of the need to gain a greater knowledge of internal corporate governance mechanisms and their associated influences, this paper interrogates the impact of internal corporate governance instruments on intellectual capital for eight quoted oil and gas firms. Design/Methodology/Approach: Internal corporate governance mechanisms were represented by board size, independence, gender, share ownership, audit committee size, institutional ownership, government ownership, family ownership and foreign ownership. Intellectual capital was represented by value added intellectual capital score disaggregated into capital employed efficiency, human capital efficiency and structural capital efficiency. The impact of internal corporate governance mechanisms on intellectual capital was interrogated over 13-year period (2007-2019) using panel regression technique. Findings: The findings provide clear evidence that internal corporate governance influences intellectual capital performance of oil and gas firms. Board size, independence of directors, women on the board, family ownership and foreign ownership are seen to have no significant impact. However, share ownership, audit committee size, institutional ownership and government ownership show significant impact. Implications/Originality/value: The findings of this study are important because they provide strong empirical evidence for corporate stakeholders to strictly monitor the internal corporate governance mechanisms and intellectual capital score of oil and gas firms. This also serves as one of the few empirical studies in Nigeria.
Keywords: audit committee size, capital employed efficiency., government ownership, institutional ownership, share ownership
