Isaac Monday Ikpor

Even though the determinants of sustainability reporting have been highly studied, the influence of Board Governance characteristics on sustainability reporting has mainly remained understudied in Africa, especially Nigeria, despite the overwhelming Business opportunities in the country. This study, therefore, investigates the influence of Board Governance on sustainability accounting and reporting, drawing insights from large businesses listed in Nigerian stock exchanges. Using a sample of 167 reports drawn from three sources—annual reports, sustainability reports, and website over the period 2015 to 2020, this study employs content analysis to quantify three layers of sustainability disclosure and fixed effects regression estimation model to predict the influence of Board governance variables on sustainability reporting quality. Our results indicate that Board governance characteristics such as Board capacity, board independence and Board Incentives are significant factors that affect sustainability reporting quality. The results further suggest that although the number of directors on the board is positively associated with the quality of sustainability reporting, CEO duality is insignificant and has a negative association with the quality of sustainability reporting. This study provides evidence that setting up long-term incentive-based compensation affects sustainability reporting positively in developing countries, such as Nigeria.

Stakeholders’ demand for companies to provide social, economic and environmental reports is increasingly becoming a fundamental requirement for companies. This paper investigates the factors that drive the choice of sustainability reporting in an emerging market economy context, with reference to Nigeria. Using data sourced from 3 different reports (annual accounts, sustainability reports and websites) of the top 50 large companies listed in the Nigeria Stock Exchange for the period 2015–2020 and a fixed effect panel regression model, our study makes three important findings. First, the study provides evidence that sustainability reporting is mostly influenced by the following company internal factors: size, profitability, ownership structure, listing age, leverage and auditor type. Second, the findings indicate that that size of firms, profitability and companies audited by Big-4 audit firms has a significant positive relationship with sustainability reporting in Nigeria. In contrast, ownership structure and the leverage position of firms affect sustainability reporting negatively. Finally, our study shows that the banking and oil and gas sectors take sustainability reporting more seriously than any other sectors in Nigeria. Contextualizing the findings within accountability and transparency, we provide evidence on the drivers and the relationship between the various drivers and sustainability reporting in Nigeria. This has implications for policymakers, future researchers and contributes to the literature of sustainability reporting in Nigeria. Even though this study used Nigerian data, it will increase pressure on firms in other developing countries to assess the context-specific determinants of sustainability reporting.

Purpose: During the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic lockdowns, stay at home or work from home, many have argued that the westernised non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI) do not provide remedial in low-income countries like Nigeria, where informal job seekers, street traders, informal labourers and artisans depend mainly on the informal economy. By applying social solidarity (SS) and community-based approach (CBA), the authors evaluate individual acts (trust, altruism and reciprocity) during the lockdown and how these practices evolve from individual approaches to collective actions.Design/methodology/approach: This study reflects on pragmatism research paradigm that enables researchers to maintain both subjectivity in their reflections and objectivity in data collection and analysis. The authors adopt a qualitative method through purposeful and convenience sampling procedure. Data were analysed thematically to identify elements of SS, individual acts, collective or community actions and perceptions.Findings: The findings reveal that COVID-19 had a disproportionate impact (lack of food and a fall in daily income) on workers, informal job seekers, informal businesses operators and the poor households. As such, the study developed a reflective model of solidarity exhibited by individual acts and collective acts (practices of resource pooling, information sharing, women empowerment, distribution of palliatives and donations) within trusted circles that helped people cope with the lockdown experiences.Practical implications: Solidarity represents beliefs, practices of values and norms. The SS exhibited by people through NPI would have implications on planning and monitoring the effectiveness of public health programmes during a pandemic in the future.Social implications: The findings of citizens and community actions have implications related to the process of building communities – coming together – and solidarity that enhances social development with implications on community health policy agenda during disasters, emergencies and health pandemic.Originality/value: This is one of the first studies to analyse the relationship between trust, altruism, reciprocity, SS and CBA during the COVID-19 pandemic. Also, it seems reasonable to clarify the concept of SS given the lack of clarity about the definitions from previous studies.

Purpose: This study discursively engages with public sector accounting reforms in the context of how much they promote accountability and transparency that potentially reduce corruption and safeguard public resources to achieve sustainable development goals in Nigeria Design/methodology/approach: The paper adopts a conceptual approach to articulate how public sector accounting reforms could promote primarily the achievement of Sustainable development goal(SDG) in Nigeria subject to the institutionalisation of transparency and accountability to combat corruption, which is an albatross to achieving any of the UN Sustainable development goals. Findings: The paper indicates that accounting reforms could be incapable of eliminating corruption and delivering the achievements of SDG on zero poverty without a deliberate institutionalization of accountability and transparency in the Nigerian public sector governance. Whereas institutionalised accountability and transparency are necessary pre-conditions for those reforms to achieve their policy thrusts, the reforms instead seek to achieve accountability and transparency without first reforming the institution of corruption that is a threat to those accounting reforms. The paper further shows that the extent those reforms actually promote accountability and transparency is tenuous given the weak institutional and governance structures in which they are embedded. Research Limitations/Implications: Given that the paper is conceptual in nature, it suffers from the limitation of generalisation of its findings. However it sets the tone for future empirical research on the subject matter. Originality/Value: To the best knowledge of the authors, this is the first conceptual paper that has engaged the public sector accounting reforms in Nigeria through the lenses of accountability and transparency within the context of achieving SDG 1 implicating corruption in the process. It therefore contributes to the literature on accounting reforms and sustainable development goals within the context of an emerging market. Keywords: Public sector accounting reforms, Sustainable Development Goals, Nigeria and less-developed economies, Poverty and corruption, Accountability and transparency.