Do Independent Director Characteristics Affect Firm Performance Under the COVID-19 Epidemic? Empirical Evidence from China

This paper investigates the effect of independent directorship on the firm performance of Chinese listed companies under the impact of the global COVID-19 epidemic. The study starts by assessing the relationship between independent director-related characteristics and firm performance, then mines independent director characteristics variables, collects variable data, proposes reasonable hypotheses, and constructs a data model. 1597 companies listed on Shanghai and Shenzhen stock index, China, from 2020 to 2021 has been selected as the research sample. An empirical study on the relationship between independent directors' characteristics and firm performance was conducted using SPSS25. The results show that under the impact of the global COVID-19 epidemic, the proportion of independent directors on the board of directors, the age of independent directors, the remuneration of independent directors, and the overseas background of independent directors in Chinese listed companies have a negative relationship with the current firm performance, while the proportion of female independent directors and the part-time rate of independent directors do not have a positive effect on firm performance. The findings of this study strongly imply that independent directors' characteristics play a significant role in corporate governance and firm performance in Chinese listed companies and that the external environment has an impact on how well independent directors can carry out their duties.