ENTITY OWNERSHIP VARIABILITY: EFFECTS ON EARLY AND LATE FILERS AUDIT REPORTING DECISIONS OF NON FINANCE FIRMS LISTED ON NIGERIAN EXCHANGE GROUP

Abstract

This study evaluated the effect of entity ownership variability on early and late audit reporting decisions of non finance firms listed on Nigerian Exchange Group. Specifically, it ascertained the effect of state ownership and large dominant shareholders on early and late filers’ audit reporting decisions on audited financial reports among listed non-finance firms in Nigeria. 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 State ownership had a weak, negative and no significant effect on audit reporting decisions of early filers of annual financial report but maintained a very strong positive effect on audit reporting decisions of late filers of annual financial report among listed non-finance firms in Nigeria (p-values 0.554 and 0.0000; coefficients -0.085 and 13.833 for early and late filers). It was also discovered that large dominant shareholding (LDOMS) had positive but no significant effect on audit reporting decisions of early and late filers of annual financial report among non-finance firms listed in Nigeria (p-values 0.125 and 0.896; coefficients 0.787 and 0.972 for early and late filers).It was concludeed that this differential effects indicate that their influence on audit reporting decisions among non-finance firms may be structurally muted or contextually dependent on more dominant governance factors. As a result, the study redefines how entity ownership variability should be interpreted and leveraged within the discourse of audit reporting decisions in Nigeria’s evolving capital market. The study therefore recommends that Relevant stakeholders in Nigeria’s non-finance sector should critically re-evaluate the role of state ownership and large dominanr shareholders in corporate reporting processes. To this end, Regulators such as the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria and the Securities and Exchange Commission. and public sector representatives on corporate boards should institute clear reporting performance benchmarks, enforce timeline accountability, and strengthen internal audit coordination in state-influenced firms.