Perception of the Moderating Effect of Firm’s Age on Performance of Quoted Manufacturing Firms in Nigeria

Abstract

Production improvement function had existed in the Nigerian manufacturing industry over the years but had failed to deliver the promised goods of accelerated development of the economy. It was further identified that the age of the firm moderates the effect of the production improvement function on the corporate productivity performance of firms in the manufacturing industry. This paper therefore investigates the extent to which the age of firms has moderated the effect of production improvement function on the corporate productivity performance of the Nigerian manufacturing industry. In this respect, production improvement function has the dimensions of production planning, scheduling and control while the corporate productivity performance is measured in the areas of cost minimization, enhanced equity capital and growth, under the moderation of age contexts of the organization. The hypothesis was formulated and questionnaire was distributed to eighty respondents in the eighty sampled manufacturing firms from the one hundred in the industry, quoted in the Stock Exchange (Fact Book 2018). Sixty two copies of the questionnaire were retrieved. These with the financial statements of the firms were used for the analysis. From its findings, the study revealed that age of the firms truly significantly moderate the relationship between productivity improvement function and corporate productivity performance of Nigerian manufacturing industry. This finding implies that firm’s age did not significantly affect the corporate productivity performance of firms directly but moderates. Based on these, the study recommends among others, that the Nigerian manufacturing industry should totally be overhauled, especially in the areas of technical, entrepreneurial and economic knowhow, in order to realign and restore the industry from total collapse.