Abstract:
The research sought to examine the compliance of listed companies to the new Zimbabwe National Code of
Corporate Governance (ZIMCODE) which was instituted in April 2015. Corporate governance factors such as
the board composition, board evaluation, duality of roles and the issue of board committees were
highlighted.The mixed-method approach was used for gathering data with the questionnaire as the major
instrument that was administered to the selected 25 listed companies. The study established that of all the
corporate governance factors highlighted in the study, only board evaluation had a strong correlationship with
the performance of companies. All other variables such as the role of the board, duality of roles and board
committees showed weak linkages to the organisational performance. The study also found out that companies
were in compliance with best practices from other codes apart from ZIMCODE. The research showed that our
own code was not in much use due to poor launch and promotion. It was recommended that listed companies
should adoptZIMCODE, devise an implementation plan for full adoption of the code since its inception.It was
also highlighted that it was important for future studies to focus on how other control variables such as
political, economic, social, ecological and technological factors affect the implementation of good corporate
governance practices and compliance in listed companies.