Studying COVID-19 and employee perceptions, business performance
“Storyteller” is a descriptor not often prescribed to business professors. But that is exactly what Sijing Wei, PhD, associate professor of accounting, and Yaxiang Song, PhD, assistant professor of economics, are.
Rather than stringing together words or painting a picture, they enlist data—numbers and figures—to tell a story about COVID-19.
“COVID-19’s disruption is still shaping U.S. firms and workplaces today, and we saw a strong need to understand not only financial outcomes but also employee experiences during this period of crisis,” Wei says.
“Very few studies have looked at employee perceptions alongside firm performance,” she continues. “Our project seeks to fill this gap by bringing together robust financial data and employee reviews to provide a more complete picture of how businesses were affected and how employees’ workplace experiences evolved through the pandemic.”
Digging Into the Numbers Behind the Pandemic
Their approach is ambitious. The two Heider College of Business colleagues are recipients of the Dr. George F. Haddix Presidential Faculty Research Fund, which has supported more than 166 faculty research projects totaling more than $1.8 million since its inception in 2012, covering a wide variety of fields from history to English, theology and more.
Wei and Song are conducting a deep dive into COVID-19’s effect on business. It includes examining such key performance indicators as return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE), Tobin’s Q and buy-and-hold stock returns. It looks at different firm types, including the healthcare, construction and service industries, and considers firms with high environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance scores and report credibility. It also takes into account managerial proficiency.
No matter the variable, people—and their stories—are solidly at the center of their study.
“How firms take action (in response to the health crisis) affects both stockholders and stakeholders,” Song says. “COVID was not just a financial crisis for firms, but also an employee experience crisis. Companies that manage both dimensions well are more likely to thrive in the long run.”
Informing Future Business Resilience
Currently, the two researchers are still collecting and analyzing national data that they will compile into a peer-reviewed paper for publishing and then present at conferences. But this is just the beginning of their story.
Wei and Song will continue their collaboration, applying their findings on a more micro-level to determine how state and local safety measures affect firm performance and employee perceptions.
“Our findings offer practical lessons on how to manage crises and the importance of supporting employees as a key driver of long-term success,” Song says.
