AUDIT REPORT FILING RESPONSE OF PUBLIC NON FINANCE FIRMS LISTED IN NIGERIA: THE CORPORATE STRUCTURE VARIABILITY
Keywords:
Audit Report Filling Response, Corporate Structure variability, Early Filers, Free float ownership, Late FilersAbstract
This study evaluated the effect of corporate structure variability on audit report filing response of non finance firms listed in Nigeria. Specifically, it investigated the effect of institutional ownership and free float ownership on audit report filing of early and late filers of audited financial report among listed non-finance firms on Nigerian Exchange Group. Adopting the ex post facto research design, the secondary data source such as the audited annual reports of 68 non-finance firms out of 101 non-finance firms listed on the floor of the Nigerian Exchange group sampled using the sample filtering non-probability sampling technique over a ten-year period ranging from 2015-2024, were extracted. Utilising the STATA ver 17 statistical software, relevance correlation and regressional analysis was conducted. Empirical findings showed that 2. Institutional ownership (IOWN) had strong significant and positive effect on audit report filing of late filers of annual financial report among listed non-finance firms in Nigeria, and the early filers maintained weak and negative effect (p-values 0.002 and 0.02; coefficients -0.064 and 1.854). Also, Free float ownership (FFLOAT) had a positive but no significant effect on audit report filing of early and late filers of annual financial report among listed non-finance firms in Nigeria. (p-values 0.151 and 0.086; coefficients 0.093 and 2.438 for early and late filers).. In essence, this study concluded that corporate ownership variability plays a differentiated and context-sensitive role in determining the audit report filing actions of listed non-finance firms in Nigeria. The study therefore recommends that key stakeholders in the non-finance sector, particularly regulators and corporate governance enforcers such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX), should adopt differentiated oversight strategies in relation to institutional ownership. Specifically, these Enforcers should strengthen institutional Investors’ engagement through the promulgation of stewardship codes and mandatory disclosure of institutional monitoring activities. This is essential to ensure that institutional ownership consistently promotes audit report timeliness across all filing categories.
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