IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT, MACROECONOMIC CRISIS DUE TO COVID-19, AND FEMALE REPRESENTATION IN BRAZILIAN PUBLICLY TRADED COMPANIES

Resumo

Impression management (IM) in organizational contexts is employed by companies to enhance their image, preserve their reputation, and ensure legitimacy before stakeholders. This practice can be influenced by the macroeconomic environment in which the company operates. The literature on the relationship between IM and macroeconomic crises presents divergent empirical results, rendering the debate inconclusive. Consequently, it is worth discussing whether other variables may affect this relationship, such as female representation in top management, since women are generally less prone to manipulating corporate information due to personal characteristics such as ethical behavior. This study aims to analyze the relationship between IM, the macroeconomic crisis resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic, and female representation in top management in companies listed on the Brazilian stock exchange (B3). This is a descriptive and quantitative study, based on a sample of companies listed on B3 that published Earnings Releases from 2017 to 2021. Techniques such as descriptive statistics, mean difference tests, and multiple linear regression using panel data were applied. The findings revealed a statistically significant and positive relationship between IM and the crisis, indicating that the level of IM is higher during periods of economic instability. Furthermore, no evidence was found of a relationship between IM and female representation in top management, nor that such representation weakens the IM-crisis relationship by mitigating this practice.