GENDER DIFFERENCES IN PERSONALITY TRAITS AND QUALITY FINANCIAL REPORT

ABSTRACT

Accounting professionals are widely spread in various sectors and in all industry, functioning in different roles, overseeing the hem of financial affairs and making judgments or decisions that border on financial matters and thus financial reporting. Yet, the need for quality financial report is on the rise even though a lot of studies have been conducted on this. Against this backdrop, this study investigates the effect of personality traits of practicing accounting professionals on quality financial reports and how these personality traits also differ amongst the male and female practicing professionals. The data was sourced from a sample size of 50 practicing accounting professionals through online questionnaires. Inferential statistics, independent t- test and multiple regression method were used to analyse the data. The result reveals that that the effect of the openness, conscientiousness, agreeableness and neuroticism of practicing professional accountants in Nigeria on the quality of financial report is positive and significant except for extraversion which is insignificant. The result also showed that there exist significant differences in the personality traits and gender of practicing professional accountants in Nigeria except for openness and extraversion which showed no significant differences with male scoring higher than females in conscientiousness and females scoring higher than their male counterparts in agreeableness and neuroticism. The study recommends that there should be a regular personality check and reflection in order to determine how productive practicing accounting professionals can be in preparing quality financial report and that practicing accounting professionals should be matched to specific jobs that are consistent with their personality traits to increase their efficiency and ability in bringing forth quality financial report.