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This study aims to examine whether corporate governance mechanisms – board size, board independence and CEO duality – influence the actions of oil companies operating in Nigeria to clean up oil spills from their facilities.

Both binary logistic regression (linear) and random-effects logistic regression models were used to test three hypotheses using a unique data set of 1,262 oil spill events involving 24 oil companies from 2017 to 2019.

The study found that board size and board independence are positively related to oil spill cleanup.

Private oil companies in Nigeria should encourage larger and more independent boards in their corporate governance (CG) structures, as these boards may be more effective in serving the interests of stakeholders by bringing diverse knowledge and experience to the boards. Similarly, regulators should extend the enforcement of CG codes to private firms.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that investigates the influence of CG attributes on oil spill cleanup.

The purpose of the paper is to extend prior research on the psychological effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster by developing and testing a conceptual model in which exposure to the oil spill through clean-up activity, physical symptoms, worry about the impact of the oil spill on health, and the disruption of the gulf/ocean-related lifestyle were hypothesized as predictors of depressive symptoms.

The analysis included a randomly selected sample of 354 subjects from the three most Southern Mississippi counties. The Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale was used to measure depressive symptoms.

Results indicated that physical symptoms since the oil spill were related to depressive symptoms directly and indirectly through worry about the impact of the oil spill on health and the disruption of the gulf/ocean-related lifestyle. Worry about the impact of the oil spill on health was related to depressive symptoms directly and indirectly through the disruption of the gulf/ocean-related lifestyle.

Study results highlight that uncertainty and worry about the impact of the disaster played a critical role in understanding the psychological effects of the oil spill disaster, especially among coastal residents whose lifestyles were bound up with the gulf/ocean.