Disclosure requirements and quality of financial statement reports of listed oil and gas firms in Nigeria

ABSTRACT

This
paper critically investigates the disclosure requirements on financial
statement reports of listed oil and gas companies in Nigeria for the period of
2007-2015. The listed Oil and Gas firms are Nine (9) in numbers out of which a
sample of Seven (7) were used for the study. Firms disclosure attributes as the
independent variable was proxy with firm size , leverage, Institutional
ownership, profitability, liquidity and firm growth), While the residuals from
the modified Jones model by Dechow et ‘al (2005) was used to proxy earnings
quality. The study adopts multiple panel regression techniques and data were
collected from secondary source through the annual reports and accounts of the
firms. The findings reveal that leverage, liquidity and firm growth has a
significant positive impact on earnings quality while firm size, institutional
ownership and profitability have a significant but negative influence on
earnings quality of listed oil and gas companies in Nigeria. It is recommended
among others that the oil and gas companies may choose to go for more debt
especially where the interest rate is considerably low and also increase their
liquidity asset and turnover as it has been found empirically to enhance the
quality of the firms reported earnings.

Keywords: Firm Attributes, Earnings Quality
and Oil and Gas Companies