Corporate governance before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from non-financial companies listed on the mexican stock exchange
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.71068/SMJ00117Keywords:
corporate governance, COVID-19, compliance index, Mexican Stock Exchange, listed companies, longitudinal analysisAbstract
Introduction: Corporate governance can strengthen oversight, transparency, and accountability among listed companies during periods of uncertainty. However, it is necessary to understand how reported compliance with these practices evolved in Mexico before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Objective: To describe the trajectory of the corporate governance compliance index (INDEX_GC) among non-financial companies listed on the Mexican Stock Exchange between 2015 and 2024 and examine descriptive differences by period, sector, region, and company size. Method: A quantitative, longitudinal, descriptive-comparative study was conducted using a balanced panel of 31 companies and 310 firm-year observations. The index was constructed from 143 dichotomous items in corporate best-practice questionnaires. Descriptive statistics and a sensitivity analysis that provisionally excluded an extreme observation were calculated. Results: The overall mean was 0.8889; the pre-pandemic, pandemic, and post-pandemic means were 0.8900, 0.8983, and 0.8809, respectively. No descriptive decline was observed in 2020–2021. In 2023, the mean was 0.8493, with a minimum of 0.00 whose documentary status could not be established. Conditionally excluding that observation increased the post-pandemic mean to 0.8905. Conclusions: Reported compliance remained relatively stable in the panel studied. Differences across sectors and periods are descriptive and sensitive to the extreme observation. The results do not demonstrate causal effects of the pandemic and do not represent all issuers in the Mexican market.
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