Examining Effect of Audit Committee Attributes on Firm Performance: Evidence from listed Food and Beverages Firms in Nigeria (Published)
Persistent material misstatements in financial statements and subsequent loss of stakeholder’s confidence on credibility of reported information necessitated the establishment of statutory audit committee by corporate governance ethic of most countries including Nigeria. This paper examined effect of different audit committee attributes on performance of firms listed in the food and beverage industries in Nigeria Stock Exchange. Audit committee independence, audit committee financial expertise and audit committee meeting are proxy for measuring audit committee attributes while financial performance was measured with Earning Per Share (EPS). Ex-post facto research design was adopted and secondary data were collected from annual reports of selected firms spanning eight years from 2011 to 2018. The population of this study constitute of all firms listed under the food and beverages sector in Nigeria stock exchange which are twenty-one (21) firms as at December 31st, 2018. The study purposively selected fourteen (14) firms based on the availability of their annual reports. Data were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Descriptive statistics and inferential statistics was conducted. Analyses revealed that: audit committee independence and audit committee expertise has positive but insignificant effect on firm performance measured with EPS, while audit committee meeting exhibit positive and significant effect on EPS of listed food and beverages firms in Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE). Based on the findings, this study therefore recommended that firm should sustain frequencies of audit committee meetings, so as to ensure that the committee has enough time to take decisions that are efficient and effective in enhancing better firm performance. This study also recommends that regulatory bodies should ensure that audit committee are made more effective by ensuring that members includes independent non-executive directors and also ensure that more members with financial expertise especially accounting expertise be drafted into the audit committee to improve performance of firms.
Citation: Osevwe-Okoroyibo, E. E. and Emeka-Nwokeji, N. A (2021) Examining Effect of Audit Committee Attributes on Firm Performance: Evidence from listed Food and Beverages Firms in Nigeria, European Journal of Accounting, Auditing and Finance Research, Vol.9, No. 8, pp.26-43,
Keywords: Audit, Performance, audit committee characteristics, audit independence, audit meeting, financial expertise