A SURVEY OF SHAREHOLDERS’ INTEREST, UNDERSTANDING AND USAGE OF THE CORPORATE ANNUAL REPORT IN THE POST-IFRS NIGERIA
Otusanya Olatunde Julius1, Anani Sunday Koukoudjoe2, Fakile Oluwaseye Grace3
1,2Department of Accounting, University of Lagos, Lagos, Nigeria
3Department of Accounting, University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Nigeria
Email: fakile.og@unilorin.edu.ng
Corresponding author: Fakile Oluwaseye Grace
ABSTRACT
The study was carried out to determine if the adoption of the international accounting standard which is considered to be a major change in the financial reporting environment has made shareholders of companies to show more interest in reading, having proper understanding of, and using the corporate annual reports in the IFRS era. A survey research design was adopted and with the aid of a questionnaire, data was gathered from one hundred and ten shareholders of companies. Levene’s test was used to test the formulated hypotheses. It was concluded that shareholders understand the report except the Notes to the accounts and the Statement of Changes in Equity which a high percentage of shareholders find difficult to understand. The study recommended that the corporate annual report should be made more understandable to users who are without specialist knowledge of accounting standards used in preparing and explaining the financial statements in the corporate annual reports of companies
Keyword: Shareholders’ interest, annual report, Post-IFRS
