The effect of pandemic conditions on financial success rankings of BIST SME industrial companies: a different evaluation with the help of comparison of special capabilities of MOORA, MABAC and FUCA methods

Abstract

Considering COVID-19 pandemic conditions from an MCDM perspective, the change in the ranking positions of the companies before and during the pandemic conditions has become more critical for many researchers and especially financial decision-makers. In this study, different from other studies, a new methodological procedure was followed. For the first time, an MCDM method was chosen among the alternatives with an objective point of view, and the application was continued. In other words, the final performance evaluation is based on the results of this chosen method. In the first step, the financial performance of companies traded in the BIST SME Industry, which is the application area of the study, was calculated with three different MCDM methods (MOORA, MABAC and FUCA). In the second step, the ranking correlations between the calculated financial performance scores and the stock return in the current period were compared with the Spearman method. Finally, in the third step, based on this indirect objective reference verification result (as it is the most appropriate and successful), the necessary financial analyzes were made with the FUCA method. According to the findings, the FUCA method correlated higher with the stock return before and during the pandemic than the other MCDM methods. According to these results, when a performance comparison is made between before and during pandemic conditions, three changes become prominent: the most successful companies, the companies' overall ranking, and the favourite sectors have entirely changed for the base periods. This innovative procedure has been proposed for the first time in the literature and has been successfully applied.