EVALUATION OF FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE ACCORDING TO FIRM SCALE: CASE OF MANUFACTURING SECTOR

Companies are classified as large, medium and small enterprises according to their scale. Today, increasing competition conditions make the sustainability of companies difficult. For this reason, businesses should pay attention to their financial structures and use their resources effectively while continuing their activities. The purpose of the study is to compare the financial performance of the small, medium and large-scale companies in the manufacturing sector which has an important place in Turkey's economy, during the period 2014-2016. In the study, 19 financial ratios related to liquidity, financial structure, activity, and profitability were used. Firstly weights of criteria were determined by using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method and then companies were ranked according to scale by Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) method. As a result of the analyzes, it was determined that small and medium scaled firms, although they have a significant volume in numerical terms, perform relatively weak in terms of financial performance compared to large-scale firms