Abstract:
The study examines the association of corporate governance characteristics with the performance of ZESA, NRZ and ZUPCO from 2012 to 2023. Interest in corporations has been triggered by the increase in international scandals and other corporate abuses, especially by government agencies and management Also due to its wide participation, the board is strongly linked to the components of the corporate governance system. The research sample consists of 168 employees working in managerial and supervisory positions in these companies. They are headquartered in Harare or Bulawayo. In the data analysis, the results of descriptive statistics were first presented, and then the correlation of research variables, regression analysis and results of sensitivity tests were presented. While board size, diversity, CEO duality and independence are the independent variables, return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE) are the dependent variables. Dummy factors related to year and industry were used to assess the sensitivity of the data. The regression results show that board diversity and CEO duality positively affect the performance of Zimbabwean SOEs in terms of ROA and ROE. These findings are consistent with previous studies. There are no significant observations on the size or independence of the board. In other words, neither the size nor the independence of the board affects the performance of the SOE. This work makes equal contributions to practice and scholarship. Since Zimbabwe has not produced many contemporary academic works on this topic, this can serve as a revised study of the impact of government structure and other management systems on the performance of SOEs. Management, regulators and decision-makers can also use the study and its results to improve their understanding of the factors affecting the performance of SOEs and thus guide the company's management choices. Finally, the results can also be useful for other countries with similar situations characterized by high levels of corruption as measured by the Global Corruption Index.
