THE EFFECT OF CREATIVE ACCOUNTING ON THE JOB PERFORMANCE OF ACCOUNTANTS (AUDITORS) IN REPORTING FINANCIAL STATEMENTIN NIGERIA

Abstract

The study is titled “The Effect of Creative Accounting on the job performance of Accountants/ Auditors in Reporting Financial Statement in Nigeria”. The study aimed at identifying the strategies used by the accountants to avoid creative accounting in
any of their financial dealings. Despite the international and local scandals received by accounting officers, they still involve themselves in misrepresentation, malfalsification of figures of financial statement. The study employed empirical survey. Two hundred and twenty seven out of 500 respondents were chosen, using simple ransom sampling techniques and Yaro Yameni’s for formula. The same
number of questionnaire were returned representing 100% response rate. The reliability of the instrument yielded a reliability coefficient of 0.98 indicating that the instrument is highly reliable. The data generated were analyzed using simple percentage method and pie chart for the research question, and t – test statistics for the hypotheses formulated. Among the findings made in the study was that the accountants/auditors indulge in creative accounting through profit eroding mechanisms to attract investors and resources but deceptive or fraudulent accounting practices often conduct to drastic consequences. One of the implications of the findings is that the managers of non profits organizations may have incentives to manipulate their reported programme-spending ratios because donors use them in determining contribution decision. Also, manipulation of financial information which is
called several names like earnings management, income smoothing, creative accounting practices, aggressive accounting or account manipulation, prevents the allocation of resources in the most areas in the economy. It is recommended that there is urgent need for practice monitoring to commerce in order to raise the quality of financial report globally.