THE IMPACT OF CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY ON FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE OF LISTED OIL AND GAS COMPANIES IN NIGERIA

ABSTRACT This study investigates the impact of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) on financial performance—proxied by Return on Assets (ROA)—in Nigeria’s oil and gas sector, using panel data from five listed firms between 2015 and 2020. Grounded in the Resource-Based View (Barney, 1991), the financial returns on CSR expenditures. Adopting a mixed-methods approach, secondary data from annual reports were analyzed using descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, and fixed-effect panel regression. CSR was disaggregated into three dimensions: environmental responsibility (ENV), community development (COM), and employee welfare (EMP). The results reveal that environmental CSR significantly and positively affects the RBV’s claim that CSR is a strategic resource. However, community development and employee welfare expenditures do not exhibit statistically significant effects on ROA. These findings imply that environmental sustainability efforts enhance firm profitability by reducing operational risks and regulatory pressures, while weak implementation of other CSR components limits their financial impact. The study recommends that firms prioritize environmental CSR and that policymakers enforce standardized CSR disclosure frameworks. Although limited by data availability and potential endogeneity concerns, this research contributes to the CSR-performance literature in resource-dependent economies and encourages future longitudinal and qualitative investigations into stakeholder outcomes.