Abstract
The quality and timely publication/reporting of reliable, relevant and faithfully represented financial facts are key to the usefulness of the financial facts by investors and other users for decision-making. The unremitting growing number of days it takes (auditors) to complete the statutory auditing and eventual filing/publication is becoming worrisome. Thus this study intends to explore the audit Firms structures and its influence on audit report timeliness across listed Nigerian financial service sector firms. The data from 2008 to 2022 were analyzed using both the pooled panel and poisson regression techniques based on linear models designed in agreement with the proposed hypotheses and the estimates revealed that Audit Firms’ Magnitude, ADFMMG, (coeff = -0.2652799, z = 0.000) and Audit Firms’ Tenure, ADFMTN, (coeff = -0.0305613, z = 0.002) had a negative and very monumental influence on Audit Report Timeliness (ADRPTM) while Joint Audit Firms, JTADFM, (coeff = 0.0572719, z = 0.005), Audit Firms’ Switching, ADFMSW, (coeff = 0.1193359, z = 0.000) and Audit Fees, ADTFES, (coeff = 0.2780867, z = 0.000) had an affirmative and very monumental influence on Audit report timeliness (ADRPTM). Consequent upon these considerable outcomes, this study appositely concludes that that on one hand, Audit Firms’ Magnitude (ADFMMG) and Audit Firms’ Tenure ADFMTN had a negative and very monumental influence on Audit report timeliness (ADRPTM); while on the other hand, Joint Audit Firms (JTADFM), Audit Firms’ Switching (ADFMSW) and Audit fees (ADTFES) had an affirmative and very monumental influence on Audit report timeliness (ADRPTM).
Keywords: Auditee, Audit Firms’ Magnitude, Audit Firms’ Structures, Audit Firms’ Switching, Mandatory Shared Audit, Voluntary Shared Audit.