Abstract:

Purpose - In the 21st century, social and environmental risks have been increasing in global economies day by day. Since companies focus on profit and value maximization primarily, they ignore care for main production factors i.e. labor and natural resources. However, in recent years, production, management, and financing policies, in which social and environmental issues are taken into consideration, have started to be developed in this context. Sustainable development has a policy feature that the effects of the investments will be seen in the long term. Therefore, efficient working capital management is important in these companies, as companies that start to act by adopting the sustainability approach will not be able to benefit from the added value created in the short term. In this context this study aims to reveal the working capital management efficiency performance of sustainable companies. Methodology - his study aims to calculate the working capital management efficiency of 19 companies, which are listed on the BIST Sustainability Index (XUSRD), created in 2014, between 2015 and 2018, by using the Index method developed by Bhattacharya (1997). Besides, the Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test is used to see whether there is a significant difference between the working capital efficiency values of the companies listed on the sustainability index before and after their inclusion. Findings- The companies' working capital management index values decrease after being included in the sustainability index. Additionally, the difference between the working capital management index values before and after being included in the corporate governance index is found to be significant. Conclusion- The findings show that companies aiming to contribute to the world in terms of sustainability with a long-term social and environmental dimension should focus more on short-term assets and liabilities management.

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