An Empirical Evidence of the Value Relevance and Timeliness of Financial Reports in the Post Adoption of IFRS in Nigeria

Abstract

The emergencies of the globalization of accounting standards and other critical issue have been reported to reduce the cost of enhancing comparability, understandability, and producing supplementary information, and analysis of the accounting reports. This allowed many developing nations who do not want to be left behind to take a cue from the world's major economies to meet the international financial reporting standards (IFRS) that Nigeria has taken measures to converge equally. The study examines the effect of IFRS adoption on financial reporting quality of listed non-financial companies in the Nigerian stock exchange. Particularly, in the area of value relevance and timely loss recognition. The study used 63 non-financial companies’ annual reports listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) for the period of 2008 to 2018 (i.e., 5years pre-adoption and 5years post adoption). Multiple linear regression was used in analyzing the collected data via STATA software. The result shows a significant increase in the value relevance of financial reports after IFRS adoption. The study also showed that the identification of significant losses increased in the post-IFRS adoption era. Based on the result, the study suggests that the relationship between accounting measures on IFRS adoption and financial reporting quality indicates that both foreign and local investors can predict the future of market value of individual securities. Therefore, investor receives considerable information by knowing the price information on time that shows more value relevant. Finally, this study contributed to the theory and practice, as well as direction for further studies related to the financial reporting standards and the reporting quality.