Effect of Audit Committee Characteristics on Financial Reporting Lag of Listed ICT Firms in Nigeria

Abstract

Financial information needs to be available to users as rapidly as possible to make corporate financial statement information relevant for decision making process. This study is to investigate the effect of audit committee characteristics (audit committee independence, audit committee meetings, audit committee size and audit committee gender) and financial reporting lag of listed ICT firms in Nigerian. The study was guided by the agency theory. This study employed ex-post research design in which secondary data were collected from the ICT firms in the Nigeria Stock Exchange for the periods of five years from 2010 to 2019. Panel Regression method was adopted for the data analysis. The results showed that audit committee independence has negative insignificant relationship with financial reporting lag while audit committee meeting has insignificant positive relationship and audit committee gender has a significant positive   relationship with financial reporting lag. The study therefore recommends that ICT firms should maintain the number of meeting and gender in audit committee for timely release of audited financial statements to users of the financial information. This study conclusions and recommendations for effective and efficient audit committee characteristics to meet the 21st century complex corporate environment. Therefore, the findings of this research will ensure future platforms changes regarding audit committees are adequately informed.