EFFECT OF BOARD CHARACTERISTICS ON CONDITIONAL ACCOUNTING CON-SERVATISM OF LISTED INDUSTRIAL COMPANIES IN NIGERIA

Abstract

The separation of ownership from management and the existence of creditors results in information asymmetrical among stakeholders of the firm. Corporate governance was put in place to mitigate corporate scandals as well as align the interest of the shareholders with that of the managers of an organization. This study evaluates the effect of board characteristics on conditional conservative accounting of listed industrial companies in Nigeria from 2013-2022. The study employed longitudinal research design, while panel multiple regression was used for the analysis. Board characteristics were measured by board independence, board size and board gender diversity. The study found that board independence has a negative insignificant effect on conditional accounting conservatism, board size has a positive significant effect on conditional accounting conservatism, and gender diversity has a statistically negative insignificant effect on conditional accounting conservatism. The study recommends that the quality of the board should be increased alongside its board independence as this tends to improve accounting conservatism of companies, consequently enhancing financial reporting quality of the companies as indicated by the result.