Effects of Audit Committee Characteristics on Financial Reporting Quality of Deposit Money Banks in Nigeria.

Abstract

This study investigated whether well-diversified audit committee members of selected deposit money banks in Nigeria can improve financial reporting quality. Discretionary accruals were used as dependent variable to measure financial reporting quality while audit committee gender, audit committee financial expertise, audit committee frequency of meetings and audit committee size were used as independent variables. A sample of 11 quoted deposit money banks in Nigeria were used for the period of eight years spanning 2015 to 2022. The study employed ex-post facto and longitudinal research design. The secondary sources of data were collected from annual reports of the selected banks and four (4) specific objectives and hypotheses were subjected to some preliminary data tests like descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation analysis and Variance Inflation factor (VIF). Hypotheses were tested using panel least squares regression through fixed effect and random effect determined by Hausman test, random effect was accepted, with the aid of E-views 12 econometric statistical software. Using a sample of 88 banks-year observations, the result revealed that audit committee gender and audit committee size documented a negative and statistically significant effect on financial reporting quality of deposit money banks in Nigeria which was statistically significant at 5% level of significance respectively while a positive and insignificant effect was documented for audit committee financial expertise and frequency of meetings in Nigeria banks. On the basis of our findings, the study recommends among others, that there is need to maintain optimal size of the audit committee and also reduce the inclusion of more women in the audit committee to give a seasoned advice without bias on ways to improve financial reporting quality.