Methodology
The study employed comparative and empirical literature review to compare the methods adopted by 30 Ph.D researchers selected from concluded studies in finance and accounting from four universities in Nigeria. Sample selection targeted only studies on financial performance with four dependent-variable surrogates. Logistic regression was used to convert the a priori expectations of the 30 Ph.D research theses into a probabilistic log values’ data. The probability values ranged from 0.24 to 0.99 in accordance with the expressed expectation to the actual expectation. The log values were then compared with the individual surrogate performance on the one hand and the surrogates’ geometric means on the other hand using ANOVA and logistic regression analysis.