Abstract:

A nation’s poor attitude to the development of its human capital is a devastating and worrisome challenge to the attainment of Vision 2020 and the chance that country would ever attain development. The level of education, the state of health of the human beings in any society as well as what is being done to improve same, speak a lot about the country's readiness for development and global competitiveness.  This paper assesses the current Human Resource Management and Accounting Disclosure (HRMAD) practices in Nigeria, using financial service and manufacturing firms as the bases for study. Correlation and independent-t test analyses were done on data collected from secondary sources to assess relationships. Findings show that there is no significant difference in HRMAD practices between the Financial and Manufacturing industries in Nigeria and that there is a strong positive relationship between HRMAD and company size. The paper concludes that: there is arbitrariness in reporting human resource management activities; also, there is currently no legislation on reporting human resource practice, and this explains the lack of uniformity in the presentation of information on human capital in annual reports of companies in Nigeria. It recommends, amongst others, that for Nigeria to achieve vision 2020 and be globally competitive, there is the need to value and incorporate human resource in its financials while all relevant or concerned authorities should also look into coming up with a financial reporting standard on human resource activities.