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1. Introduction
With the COVID-19 pandemic, the financial performance of companies all over the world has been hurt, and many companies are trying to survive and earn some profit. It cannot be denied that a business can only survive for a relatively short time if it does not make a profit. The financial health of a business allows investors to make comparisons among firms within the same industry or between different industries or sectors (Donthu and Gustafsson, 2020). Several studies have investigated the impact of different factors on company profitability, such as liquidity management (Bandara and Wijesinghe, 2021); firm size (Zaid et al., 2014; Yazdnafar, 2013); firm age (Gabriel et al., 2021); earning management (Zimon et al., 2021); competition (Liljeblom et al., 2020); corporate social responsibility (CSR) (Jaisinghani and Sekhon, 2020); financialization (Xu and Guo, 2021); working capital management (Charumathi, 2012); ownership structure (Din et al., 2021); financial leverage (Boadi et al., 2013); productivity (Bottazzi et al., 2008); net operating profitability (Burja, 2011); debt ratio (Alarussi and Alhadary, 2018); market share (Nagarajan and Barthwal, 1990); liquidity (Nanda and Panda, 2018; Lartey et al., 2013); and research and development (R&D) (Fenny and Rogers, 1999). Nevertheless, the findings are inconsistent even for the same factor; for example, firm size is reportedly positively affecting companies' profitability (Sritharan and Vinasithamby, 2015; Alarussi and Alhadary, 2018). However, Kaukab and Nawaz (2019) and Abeyrathna and Priyadarshana (2019) reported a negative relationship between them; while Whittington (1980) concluded no such relationship exists between firm size and profitability. The same can be said for other factors which make generalization questionable. On this basis, this paper empirically examines four factors that may affect the profitability of companies in China. The Chinese market is chosen as it has become the world's second-largest economy (World Bank, 2018) [1] and the world's fastest-growing economy (IMF, 2018) [2]. However, very few studies have focused on the determinants of profitability by using financial ratios in different sectors. Among these studies, Xu and Banchuenvijit (2014) analyzed the data of 28 companies for the 2008–2012 period. The findings show that asset utilization is positively associated with financial performance [measured by return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE)] [3], and leverage is...