Does Ownership Concentration Influence Discretionary Earnings Quality in Emerging Market: Evidence from Nigeria

The purpose of this study was to ascertain the influence of ownership concentration on discretionary earnings quality among quoted non-financial companies on Nigeria stock exchange. The study used panel data, Diagnostic tests were performed such as linearity test, Autocorrelation test, and heteroscedasticity. Thereafter correlation and simple regression was performed on 105 quoted non-financial companies for 15 years from 2002 to 2016. The findings revealed a positive and significant relationship between ownership concentration and discretionary earnings quality. The study recommends that non-financial companies should also ensure that the ownership structure is diverse and widely owned to safeguard the minority shareholders and reduce the overbearing power of the majority shareholders as it was discovered that concentrated ownership has positive significant relationship with discretionary earnings quality of the quoted non-financial companies in Nigeria.