Firms Attributes and Reporting Lag: The Moderating Role of Audit Committee

Abstract

This study investigated empirically the moderating role of audit committee on firm attributes and reporting lag of quoted money deposit banks in Nigeria for a period of ten years covering from 2012 to 2021. The study adopted ex-post facto research design and data sourced from selected firm’s yearly reports. To proxy firm attributes the study used return on asset (ROA), asset tangibility (ASSTAN), firm growth (FGRWT), firm age (FAGE), and firm size (FSIZE). Reporting lag was measured using the firm’s reporting lag within the period of review while audit committee was measured by the audit committee size. The study conducted some preliminary analysis such as descriptive statistics, correlation analysis to ascertain the normality and presence of multi-colinearity in the data collated and used the ordinary least square regressions analysis to analyze the data collected. Findings show that the moderating role of Audit committee on ASSTAN, FAGE, and FSIZE positively but insignificantly affect the level of reporting lag of quoted Money Deposit Bank in Nigeria while ROA and FGRWT, positively and significantly affect the level of reporting lag of quoted Money Deposit Bank in Nigeria hence audit committee moderating firm attributes can impact on the level of reporting lag of Money Deposit Bank. The study recommends that firms should have an efficient audit committee to boost a strong internal control and accounting system and also abide by all the regulations, including accounting standards, so as to reduce auditors’ reporting lag