Firms Characteristics, Institutional Factors and Corporate Sustainability Disclosure in Healthcare Companies in Nigeria

Considering the importance of sustainable activities of corporations in the 21st century and environmental friendly accounting practice vis-à-vis economic growth, some factors impact on the Phenomena-Corporate Sustainability Disclosure. This study sought to empirically assess the moderating effect of these institutional factors on the relationship between firm characteristics and corporate sustainability disclosure for 10 years (2011-2020). This study relied extensively on secondary source and the data was specifically gathered from the annual reports of the listed health companies in Nigeria under study. The regression output on the relationship between firm characteristics and CSD (MODEL1) revealed that firm size and performance alone are relatively not enough to determine CSD, evidenced from R2 of 57%. The regression output of the effect of firm characteristics and institutional factor put together on CSD (MODEL 2) revealed an R2 of 92%, which implies that firm size, performance, board size and institutional factors together are very good determinants of CSD, evidenced from significant p-value of 0.000 which is less than significance value of 0.05. The effect of interaction between firm characteristics and institutional factor on CSD (MODEL 3) showed an R2 of 93%. This means that the interaction variable could explain up to 93% variation in CSD. This is further substantiated by a significant p-value of 0.000 which is less that significance value of 0.05. In conclusion, institutional factor moderates the relationship between firm characteristics and CSD. Therefore, policy makers in Nigeria related to sustainability development issues like NESREA should consider the importance of institutional factors in the study and introduce laws that mandate CSD like other part of the countries.