Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the determinants of audit report lag in Sub-Saharan African Central Banks. In this case, the determinants were divided into two categories: independent variables and mediating variables. The independent variables, which were generated from board characteristics, included board size, board gender diversity, governor duality, audit committee size and audit committee meetings. The mediating variables were auditing characteristics and they comprised audit mandate, audit approach and audit quality.

Design/methodology/approach

The study used data from 192 observations from African Central Banks' financial reports for the period 2000–2016. The data collected were analyzed using path analysis, whereby four regression models were run and tested simultaneously. From the analysis, the study determined total effects and then decomposed the total effects into direct and indirect effects.

Findings

The study results indicate that in the case of board characteristics, governor duality and audit committee size were found to have a positive influence on audit report lag. In the case of audit quality, only audit mandate was found to have a negative influence on audit quality in the Central Banks. However, the introduction of mediating variables increased the positive effect of governor duality and audit committee size, while also making board size and board gender diversity have a significant negative effect on audit report lag.

Practical implications

The findings of this paper have implications for the practice and policy of the auditing and governance of Central Banks, which includes designing appropriate governance structures as well as proper auditing strategies.

Originality/value

This is the first study which has examined factors influencing audit report lag in Central Banks. Previous studies on Central Banks' governance have examined the independence and autonomy of the Central Banks, as well as their accounting. This paper extends prior studies by examining the effects of those factors. Another contribution is the study's application of auditing characteristics as mediating variables.

中文翻译：

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非洲中央银行的董事会特征、审计特征和审计报告滞后

目的

本文的目的是研究撒哈拉以南非洲中央银行审计报告滞后的决定因素。在这种情况下，决定因素分为两类：自变量和中介变量。由董事会特征产生的自变量包括董事会规模、董事会性别多元化、董事二元性、审计委员会规模和审计委员会会议。中介变量是审计特征，它们包括审计任务、审计方法和审计质量。

设计/方法/方法

该研究使用了来自非洲中央银行 2000-2016 年期间财务报告的 192 项观察数据。收集到的数据使用路径分析进行分析，其中四个回归模型同时运行和测试。根据分析，该研究确定了总效应，然后将总效应分解为直接效应和间接效应。

发现

研究结果表明，在董事会特征的情况下，发现行长二元性和审计委员会规模对审计报告滞后有积极影响。在审计质量的情况下，只有审计授权被发现对中央银行的审计质量产生负面影响。然而，中介变量的引入增加了行长二元性和审计委员会规模的正效应，同时也使得董事会规模和董事会性别多元化对审计报告滞后有显着的负面影响。

实际影响

本文的研究结果对中央银行审计和治理的实践和政策具有影响，包括设计适当的治理结构以及适当的审计策略。

原创性/价值

这是第一项研究影响中央银行审计报告滞后的因素的研究。以往关于中央银行治理的研究考察了中央银行的独立性和自主性，以及它们的会计核算。本文通过检查这些因素的影响来扩展先前的研究。另一个贡献是该研究将审计特征作为中介变量的应用。