Effects of Earnings Quality on Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure: Evidence from Listed Conglomerate Firms in Nigeria

This study investigates the effects of earnings quality on corporate social responsibility disclosure (CSRD) in Nigeria using listed conglomerate firms. Earnings quality also known as earnings management has become an issue that is attracting attention nowadays as a result of reported scandals and such studies are limited in Nigeria. The ability of management to take action that could avoid occurrence of such events may be to take up the practice of corporate social responsibility, which can make earnings management activities low. This study used secondary data from the annual reports of conglomerate firms for 2006 – 2015 to achieve the objective. The data were subjected to statistical analysis using random-effects generalized least square regressions. The results revealed that earnings quality has a positive and insignificant effect on corporate social responsibility disclosure. Also, the findings revealed that firm size has a positive and significant effect on corporate social responsibility disclosure. While other variables such as leverage and performance have positive and insignificant effect on corporate social disclosure. The result implies that firms who report corporate social responsibility may have some elements of earnings management which may not be above average.