Identification and Ranking of Financial and Nonfinancial Information Affecting the Performance of Companies with an Emphasis on Political and Business Cycles

Objective: As the most important  financial market of the country , the stock exchange  is affected by the firms` financial reports reflecting its financial performance. The economical, political, and social macro factors make some changes in the firms` financial performance and these changes bring about the positive as well as negative efficiency in the capital market, hence they affect the market participants`decsions. According to the exlpanation given above, it can be stated that the political and business cycles can influence the economical macro factors as their effects are observed clearly in the firms` financial perfomance. As the non- financial data, the political cycles influence the firms` performance; for example, during the sensitive periods such as elections, they can cause big and important changes in the firms` financial performance by the economical boom or downturn. On the other hand, simultaneus with the changes in the political cycles, there are also alterations in the business cycles affecting the firms` performance as the financial data. It ıs necessary to know that how the fınancıal performance of the fırms ıs affected by the polıtıcal and busıness cycles ın order to prevent the temporary fluctuatıons and the followıng negatıve economıcal consequences fot the partıcıpants ın the market.  Knowing people, politicians, and the firms of the capital market are considered as the effective factors on the market process. Therefore, being aware of such events can result in the suitable as well as immediate reactions accompanied with the least costs and the best following feedback. In addition, the users of the financial statements take the advantage of the financial performance as one of the most important values to analyze the firm and during their decision making process, they consider the changes in the financial performance. The most noteworthy factors  affecting the changes in the firms` financial performance include the ones in the economical macro factors such as the market boom or downturn, foreign exchange fluctuations, opening or blockage in the international relationships, political cycles, the government changes, budget deficiency,and of course, the basic accounting variables. The aim of the resent paper is to identify and study  the effectiveness of the effective markers on the firm`s financial performance resulted from the political and business cycles as the financial and non- financial data. Also, ranking the obtained markers is studied in order to be applied in the financial decisions and to be introduced to the economical operators.
Method: This research is qualitative and questionnaire- based that by asking questions from the related authorities tries to identify the effective markers on the firms` financial performance, hence it obtained the results by the questions and the response analyses through applying Fuzzy-Delphi procedure. In order to select the experts, the snowball method is used. In the first step, seven experts were chosen that each one introduced a group (the exponential method without differentiation in the snowball method). 62 experts ere chosen and the questionnaire was sent to them by e-mail and 52 ones answered the questions. Friedman test and Chi square test were used to rank the responses.
Findings: The net profit as the accounting information and the profit before tax and the interest devided by total assets as the accounting information affecting the firms` financial performance , the business cycle` effect as the agent of the financial data affect the sales growth of the firms, the sales growth is also considered as the effective accounting information on the financial performance, the board`s political affiliation with government is effective on the financial performance , and the presidential election affects the market value of the firms.
Conclusion: The present research is conducted to identify and to rank the effective factors on the firms` financial performance and the findings are explained in two parts: The first part is related to identify the effective financial and non-financial markers on the financial performance, the statistical community includes the experts who completed the questionnaire and some of the related markers were identified and tested through the statistical analysis of the responses. In fact, in this part, the related markers were identified and obtained by refering to the experts and the research statistical community; the obtained results indicated that among the financial and non- financial markers and the effective accounting information on the financial performance, some cases were identified and their ranking results will be given in the second part. The conclusion related to the identified financial and non-fibnancial markers by the experts is given in the second part. Ranking of each identified marker was done by the statistical analysis and the obtained results were presented. In fact, ranking of the the research findings showed the following results: The profit before tax and the interest devided by total assets accompanied with the net profit as the accounting information are effective on the financial performance. Among these markers, both ones ranked the highest with the average of 3/77. The business cycle which is effective on the sales growth of the firms was the second with the average of 3/44. As the accounting information, the sales growth is effective on the financial performance which was the third with the average of 3/41, the board`s political affiliation with the government which is effective on the financial performance ranked as the fourth with the average of 3/34. Finally, the presidential election with the average of 3/38 obtained the lowest rank, it is effective on the market value of the firm.