1 Himalayan Economics and Business Management Review Article Impact of Nomination and Governance Committee Attributes on Earnings Management of Listed Firms on the Nigerian Exchange Group Peter-Mario Efesiri EFENYUMI *1 , John Ugochukwu NWOYE 2 and Emmanuel Ikechukwu OKOYE 3 1 PhD Student, Department of Accountancy, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Anambra State, Nigeria 2 Lecturer, Department of Accountancy, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Anambra State, Nigeria 3 Professor of Accounting, Department of Accountancy, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Anambra State, Nigeria INTRODUCTION All-encompassing corporate governance structure in firms especially the existence and independence of nominating/governance committees cannot be over emphasized. De Jong, Hooghiemstra, and Van Rinsum (2014) resolved that board composition is a key determinant of board effectiveness. The nomination/governance committee's principal responsibility is always to identify and choose board members. Riabichenko (2014) posit that the existence of nominating/governance committee improves board independence. Consequently, one can argue that an adequate and well constituted nomination/governance committee can nominate and select the best candidates for the board of directors which will not only reduce agency costs but also help in mitigating earnings management. The view of this study was corroborated by earlier studies such Azar, Sayyar, Zakaria and Sulaiman (2018) that separating management and control by creating a nominating/governance committee is an important step in ensuring that committee members are independent and free from influence. A board or recruitment committee will be judged compared to other board members based on their choices in the process of recruitment. They have the task of recruiting directors that would be effective monitors of management and are therefore interested in upholding their own reputations and thus recruit people that would do a good job. For instance, Puni cites Fernando (2006). He found that through the mechanisms of well- constituted independent committees shaping board decisions and this begins with a nominating/governance committee with unbiased selection and recruitment of the members. Notably, most Nigerian works in the domain of corporate governance focused on governance attributes and firm performance amongst others (Demaki & Jeroh, 2016; Odjaremu & Jeroh, 2019; Jeroh, 2020; Ukolobi & Jeroh, 2020; Ideh, Jeroh & Ebiaghan, 2021), with little concern on the efficiency of board committee attributes on concepts like earnings management. Outside Nigeria, prior studies on the extent of nomination committees’ influence did not provide information about how characteristics of a nomination or governance committee affect earnings management (El- Faitouri, 2014; Ntim, 2013; Fauzi & Locke, 2012 and Heenetigala, 2011). *Corresponding Author Peter-Mario Efesiri EFENYUMI Article History Received: 25.08.2022 Accepted: 20.09.2022 Published: 30.09.2022 Citations: Peter-Mario Efesiri EFENYUMI et al., (2022); Impact of Nomination and Governance Committee Attributes on Earnings Management of Listed Firms on the Nigerian Exchange Group. Hmlyan Jr Eco Bus Mgn; 3(5), 26-34. Abstract: All-encompassing corporate governance structure in firms especially the existence of diligent and independent nominating/governance committee is key to the overall wellbeing of organisations. This study uses 76 sample firms and a holistic earnings management model to assess the effects of the nomination/governance committee's qualities (diligence and independence) on the management of earnings for listed non-financial enterprises on the Nigerian Exchange Group from 2012 to 2021. Using Stata 13.0 software for both descriptive statistics and simple regression methods, two study hypotheses were created and tested (OLS). The findings showed that measures of nomination/governance committee diligence exert positive significant influence on earnings management of listed firms on Nigerian Exchange Group while nomination/governance committee independence exerts negative significant influence on earnings management of listed firms on Nigerian Exchange Group. Also, the introduced control variables (sales growth and market capitalisation) have a negative relationship and significant effect earnings management of Some Selected Listed Corporations in Nigeria. Subsequently it was recommended upon this study that management of companies should not emphasis too much on the role of nomination/governance committee especially in the areas of diligence (frequency of meetings) but on the independence of nomination/governance committee in relation to earnings management and regulatory bodies should shift emphasis on how financial estimates prepared can be devoid of earnings management. Keywords: Corporate governance, nomination/governance committee, diligence, independence, holistic model, earnings management, Nigeria. Open Access