Análise contrafactual do desempenho das empresas de capital aberto listadas na B3: o efeito da crise da Covid-19 a partir dos estágios do ciclo de vida das empresas

Abstract

Organizational performance is a phenomenon that has been studied for many years. Some evidence, such as that it is not static and that it varies between periods and companies, is already a given, but other questions remain open, prompting new research. Investors and researchers in the areas of management and finance are interested in knowing, for example, which factors influence the superior economic and financial performance of a company compared to others. In the literature, performance is a concept that encompasses many dimensions, that is, it involves many variables and theoretical components that may or may not be related. Several intra-organizational factors help to explain the variability of performance in organizations, such as size, sector, structure and products that companies trade. Additionally, the life cycle stage (LCS) is one of the variables that can affect performance, since they represent patterns of decisions that organizations make in their daily lives that can influence the result. Furthermore, financial performance is also affected by extrinsic factors, such as the economic and political situation, and crises such as wars, plagues, droughts, and floods. The COVID-19 health crisis has turned into an unprecedented economic crisis, which has affected several countries and companies in a non-homogeneous manner. Since 2020, several studies have sought to highlight these effects, in order to establish patterns and demonstrate which types of companies were more or less susceptible to the pandemic and which variables were decisive for financial performance during the pandemic period. As this is a recent phenomenon, with unknown consequences, it still requires further research. In this sense, this study aimed to analyze the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the economic and financial performance of publicly traded companies listed on B3, considering the stages of the life cycle. Therefore, this is a descriptive study with a quantitative approach, designed as a quasi-experimental ex post facto research. The sample consisted of 38 non-financial companies listed on B3. The data analyzed were collected on the Refinitiv platform in the 48 quarters of the period from 2010 to 2021. Based on the data collected, the Earnings Per Share (EPS) performance indicators were calculated and the life cycle stages (LCS) of the companies-years were classified using the Dickinson model (2011). The data from 2010 to 2019 provided inputs for projecting the companies' performance in a scenario without a pandemic, using time series analysis techniques in the Box-Jenkins methodology. These data were compared with the actual data for the four quarters of 2020, a sensitive period of the pandemic, which configures the counterfactual analysis. The results of the projections demonstrated that there was a positive impact of the pandemic on the performance of companies in the growth and maturity ECVS, a negative impact on the turbulence ECV, in an 80% confidence interval, and that there was no impact of the pandemic on the performance of the sample companies for the introduction and decline ECVS. Additionally, the projections showed that the RPA of the mature ECV companies had a remarkable and positive performance when compared to the other ECVS. In general, the results are in line with the literature regarding the robustness and resilience of mature companies to the detriment of the other ECVs.