Impact of Corporate International Linkage on the Incidence of Addit Delay in Nigeria

Abstract

This paper examined the relationship between the audit delay and characteristics of reporting companies in a developing country, Nigeria. The objective of the study is to measure the extent of audit lag in Nigeria. Both univariate and multivariate analyses were performed on the data collected from forty listed companies used for this study. The audit delay for each of the 40 listed sample companies ranged from 16 to 284 days. Nigeria listed companies under study take approximately four months on the average beyond their balance sheet date before they are finally ready for the presentation of the audited accounts to the shareholders at the annual general meeting. The results of the 40 listed Nigerian companies showed that most of the explanatory variables namely, profitability, total assets, total debt, total equity, audit fees and industry type have no significant impact on audit delay.

Keywords: Audit, delay, profitability,equity