Ownership Heterogeneity, Governance Configurations, and Value Relevance of Accounting Information in Nigerian Listed Firms

This dissertation investigates how ownership heterogeneity interacts with governance configurations to shape the value relevance of accounting information in Nigerian listed firms. Value relevance research, which examines whether accounting numbers explain cross-sectional variation in stock prices, has identified governance quality as a significant moderating variable in developed market contexts, but comprehensive evidence for Nigeria's capital market is absent. This study extends the value relevance literature by introducing ownership heterogeneity as a second-order moderator operating alongside governance configurations. Ownership heterogeneity is captured through a taxonomy distinguishing government ownership, founding family ownership, foreign institutional ownership, domestic pension fund ownership, and dispersed retail ownership. Governance configurations are operationalised using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to identify governance archetypes among forty-five listed firms. The value relevance of earnings and book values is assessed using the Ohlson price and returns models augmented with ownership and governance interaction terms. Panel data span twelve years, with controls for IFRS adoption effects, sector characteristics, and macroeconomic cycle variables. The study makes original contributions through its use of configurational analysis to move beyond variable-centric governance research, its disaggregated ownership taxonomy, and its temporal analysis of how governance-ownership-value relevance relationships evolve during regulatory transitions. Findings will assist the Financial Reporting Council, standard setters, and investors in understanding how governance and ownership jointly determine accounting quality. Keywords: ownership heterogeneity, governance configurations, value relevance, accounting information, configurational analysis.