The trends of intellectual capital disclosures: evidence from the Nigerian banking sector

Purpose – This paper longitudinally examines the intellectual capital (IC) disclosure practices of Nigerian banks following the restructuring exercise and the subsequent policy changes in the Banking sector.Design/methodology/approach – Content analysis of annual reports of the banks was carried out over a period of four years (2006‐2009), a period following the consolidation exercise and the subsequent introduction of the mandatory code of corporate governance. A self‐constructed IC disclosure checklist was used to measure the extent of IC information disclosed in the annual reports. A number of statistical techniques were performed to assess the trend of IC disclosures and compare the IC disclosure categories.Findings – The results show that the overall IC disclosures of the Nigerian banks increased moderately over the four year period. Human and internal capital disclosures dominated the banks' IC disclosures, with only internal capital disclosures showing a significant increasing trend over time.Resea...