Management Accounting Practices and Financial Performance: Evidence from Listed Manufacturing Companies in Nigeria

This research examines the relationship between specific management accounting practices (MAPs) and financial performance in relation to some selected manufacturing companies in Nigeria. The MAPs under consideration are selling and distribution costs, personnel costs, and production costs. For this study, descriptive statistics of 10 listed manufacturing firms were computed from ten-year panel data (2014-2023) and were analyzed using regression techniques including pooled OLS, fixed effects, and random effects models. From the findings, selling and distribution costs’ impact on ROA is positive and significant, while the impact of production cost is positive but model dependent (β = 0.0973 to 0.2973, p < 0.05). With respect to personnel costs, the behavior of the cost has mixed impacts; it is negative in the pooled and random effects (β = -0.3666, p < 0.05) but positive in fixed effects (β = 0.3666, p < 0.05), suggesting that company-specific parameters drive strategic decisions on labor costs. Approximately 73 percent of the variation in financial performance was explained by the model (R² = 0.7313), with the highest adjusted R² (0.6715) in the fixed effects model. These findings enhanced and expanded the practical understanding and the theoretical framework of management accounting within the context of Nigerian manufacturing firms.