Public Sector Accounting Standard Adoption and Quality of Financial Reporting in Higher Institutions in Rivers and Bayelsa States, Nigeria (Published)
This study investigated public sector accounting standards adoption and quality of financial reporting in higher institutions in Rivers and Bayelsa States, Nigeria. The study adopted survey research design. The study population consisted of all public higher institutionsin both states and a sample size of three hundred and twenty (320) was utilized for the study. Primary and secondary sources of data were employed while univariate and multivariate analysis were used for data analysis. The multivariate analysis revealed that Pre – and Post- IPSAS adoption has no significant difference in the financial reporting of relevance while faithful representation, understandability, timeliness, verifiability and comparability has significant differences in the Pre- and Post-IPSAS adoption periods in the higher institutions in Rivers and Bayelsa State. The study concluded that Pre- and Post-IPSAS periods has no significant influence with relevance of higher institutions in Rivers and Bayelsa States;Both Pre- and Post-IPSAS adoption period has significant difference in influencing faith representation of higher institutions in Rivers and Bayelsa States;Both Pre- and Post-IPSAS adoption period has significant difference in influencing understandability of higher institutions in Rivers and Bayelsa States;Both Pre- and Post-IPSAS adoption period has significant difference in influencing timeliness of higher institutions in Rivers and Bayelsa States; and both Pre- and Post-IPSAS adoption period has significant difference in influencing verifiability of higher institutions in Rivers and Bayelsa State. Hence the study recommended amongst others that public sector entities should adopt both Pre-IPSAS and Post-IPSAS principles in preparing financial reporting quality in term of faithful representation because this study affirmed that both Pre and Post IPSA has significant difference in the financial reporting in term of faithful representation.
Keywords: Accounting Standard, Financial Reporting Quality., Relevance, timeliness, verifiability
Ethical Principles and Relevance of Financial Reports of Quoted Companies in Nigeria (Published)
Financial reports are meant to present relevant accounting information among other qualities required of them. The relevance of financial report is necessary in decision making; investors, lenders and other creditors place reliance on financial reports that reflect predictive and confirmatory financial information. However, some financial information have been known to be distorted or falsified; resulting in irrelevant and misleading reports that are not suitable for decision making. Using survey research design based on a population of 4893 accountants and auditors of 169 quoted companies and four regulatory bodies in Nigeria, the study investigated the relationship between ethical principles and relevance of financial reports. Four hundred copies of the research instrument with a reliability test coefficient of 0.830 using the Cronbach’s alpha statistics were distributed with a 92.5% return rate. Data analysis employed the use of descriptive and inferential statistics. The results indicate that ethical principles influence the relevance of financial reports significantly ( F(4, 366) = 36.721, Adj. R2 = 0.279, p = 0.000). The study recommends continuous ethical orientation for accountants, managers and auditors of Nigerian quoted companies
Keywords: Ethics, Financial reports, Integrity, Quoted companies, Relevance