Sustainability Reporting and Discretionary Accruals of Multinational Corporations in Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

The quality of accounting information has attracted considerable interests among many scholars, investors, and other stakeholders worldwide. Earnings management is one of the factors responsible for this development. However, studies have shown that sustainability reporting can assist companies in reducing information asymmetry which encourages earnings’ manipulation. Hence, the paper investigated how sustainability reporting could influence accrualsbased earnings management among multinational corporations in Sub-Saharan Africa countries. The research’ design wasex-post facto. All the 48 multinational companies in thesub-Saharan Africa countries constituted the study’s population. Purposive sampling technique was used in selecting 5 multinational companies from each of 10 sampled countries based on data availability. The data for the period 2010-2019 were obtained from the published annual financial reports of the sampled multinational companies and the Global Reporting Initiatives (GRI)’s sustainability guidelines. The study revealed that the lag of discretionary accruals, corporate governance sustainability reporting and economic sustainability reporting had positive relationship with discretionary accruals, while social sustainability reporting and environmental sustainability reporting were negatively linked to discretionary accruals. Additionally, the study found that sustainability reporting jointly had significant effect on discretionary accruals of multinational corporations in Sub-Saharan Africa (Adj. R² = 0.33, W(6, 444 ) = 668.67, P<.05).This study concluded that sustainability reporting exerted significant influence on discretionary accruals of multinational corporations in Sub-Sahara Africa. The study recommended that management of multinational corporations in sub-Saharan Africa should ensure strict compliance with sustainability reporting so as to improve the earnings quality.

Keywords: Sustainability reporting, environmental reporting, economic reporting, social reporting, corporate governance reporting, earnings management, discretionary accruals.

DOI: 10.7176/RJFA/12-24-02

Publication date: December 31^st 2021