Auditee Importance, Board Gender Diversity and Audit(or) Quality: Perspectives on Achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Nigeria

Abstract

The importance of audit(or) in building strong, accountable and transparent institutions, thus ensuring societal peace and justice cannot be underestimated. It is against this background that this paper examined influence of auditee importance and board gender on audit quality, proxied with discretionary accrual earnings management. Data were collected largely from annual reports and audited financial statements of fifty (50) quoted non-financial firms, for 7 years, from 2014 – 2020, aggregating into 350 data sets. Thereafter, descriptive statistics and panel OLS regression were adopted for trend analysis and estimation of model specified for this study. Overall, auditee importance, board gender, alongside auditor type, audit fees and profitability are effective factors that are capable of influencing audit quality, thereby influencing role of external auditor in contributing to the achievement of sustainable world peace, justice, as well as, ensuring creation of strong and accountable institutions. Therefore, to ensure and sustain strong, accountable and transparent institutions, it is recommended that relevant authorities should formulate policies around auditee importance and gender board diversity, in order to achieve the sustainable development goals within the time set for nations.