Determinants of Corporate COVID-19 Narrative Reporting: Evidence from an Emerging Market

This paper contributes to the existing narrative reporting literature by examining the determinants of corporate COVID-19 narrative reporting in an emerging market, Egypt. The authors utilized manual content analysis to evaluate how companies listed on the Egyptian Stock Exchange (EGX) communicated their response to COVID-19 during the pandemic from 2020 to 2021. Additionally, the authors employed OLS regression analysis to investigate how firm characteristics and corporate governance mechanisms influenced corporate COVID-19 narrative reporting. The empirical analysis shows that large firms and firms with high profitability are more likely to corporate with COVID-19 narrative reporting. In addition, the study shows that board size, audit committee size and board independence are positively associated with corporate COVID-19 narrative reporting. Finally, the analysis indicates a statistically insignificant impact of industry type on corporate COVID-19 narrative reporting. Our results have a significant impact on academics, management, shareholders, governments, and regulators. The results of this study, for instance, may be used to create legislation for a suitable corporate governance framework, showing that good governance enhances disclosure practices in times of crisis.