INTERACTION BETWEEN WORKING CAPITAL AND FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE IN THE TURKISH ENERGY SECTOR: A COMPARATIVE RESEARCH BY THE SWARA, AHP AND TOPSIS

Abstract

The development of the Turkish energy sector is of great importance in terms of managing the current account deficit problem and taking the foreign dependency in energy under control in Turkey. Incentives have been increased in the sector by the policies carried out and the obstacles against the private sector have been being removed especially after the 2000s. However, due to the high costs of the activities and investments to be carried out in the energy sector and the high uncertainty at sectoral and economic level necessitate multidimensional thinking while making decisions. Multi-criteria decision-making methods are of important support tools at this issue. The aim of this study is to reveal the financial performance of the Turkish energy sector in a multidimensional way. In the study, the interaction between financial performance and working capital level in enterprises being traded in the BIST energy sector are evaluated comparatively by AHP, SWARA and TOPSIS methods. The indicators of current ratio, cash ratio, trade receivables collection period, debt payment period, leverage ratio, short-term liabilities to assets ratio, return on assets, return on equity and, operating profit margin of 8 companies whose annual financial statements can be accessed are analyzed for the period of 2014-2020 by taking scholar opinions into consideration as well. Findings indicate that the ranking of the companies may vary according to the method chosen.