Audit Committee Gender Diversity, CSR and Earnings Management of Selected Consumer Goods Firms in Nigeria

Dorathy C. Akpan, Uwakmfonabasi J. Simeon & Ukeme C. Nkpodot

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Abstract

The study evaluated the moderating effect of audit committee gender diversity on the relationship between social responsibility disclosure and earnings management of selected consumer goods companies in Nigeria. Earnings management was the dependent variable and the independent variable employed in this study was corporate social responsibility measured as social donation disclosure, employee relation disclosure, while audit committee gender diversity was used as the moderating variable. Ex post facto research design was adopted, secondary data were used and three hypotheses were tested. The results showed that audit committee gender diversity significantly moderate the relationship between social donation disclosure and earnings management. Also, the study found that audit committee gender diversity significantly moderates the relationship between customer complaints disclosure and earnings management. Finally, the result showed that audit committee gender diversity significantly moderates the relationship between employee disclosure and earnings management. In line with the the findings of this study, it was concluded that that more gender diversified audit committee boards have the capacity to weaken the opportunistic behaviour of such managers. The study recommended that efforts by stakeholders to promote CSR activities should be pursued alongside institutional monitoring mechanisms such as audit committee boards that is unbiased against female members. This effort will ensure that managers' opportunistic tendencies do not override the ethical and legitimate purpose of CSR initiatives.

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