THE IMPLICATIONS OF DEBT FINANCING ON WORKING CAPITAL MANAGEMENT EFFICIENCY: EVIDENCE FROM MENA EMERGING MARKETS

Abstract

This proposed study aims to examine how debt financing affects the working capital management (WCM) efficiency of firms in eight selected MENA countries over the period 2016-2020. This study discusses different theories of debt financing which include the trade-off theory, the pecking order theory, the market timing theory, and the agency theory (i.e., the agency theory of debt, equity, and free cash flow). Particularly, the study addresses how short-term debt, long-term debt, and total debt influence WCM efficiency. We hypothesize that there are positive relationships between the short-term debt (measured by the current ratio), the long-term debt (measured by the long-term debt to total assets ratio), and the total debt (measured by the total debt to total assets ratio) toward WCM (measured by cash conversion cycle). Firm’s specific characteristics such as the firm type, the firm size, firm’s sales growth, and tangibility were used as control variables for WCM. To achieve the study objectives, a sample of 718 non-financial listed companies on stock exchanges in countries of Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and UAE will be used over the period 2016-2020. Secondary quantitative data will be collected from the annual financial statements of firms. The multiple regression model will be used to test the study hypotheses. This proposed paper originally contributes to the extant literature in several ways. First, there were limited studies of WCM in the MENA context and the current study provided a new insight that has not been investigated before in the MENA region. Thus, it bridges the gap in the literature. However, the majority of extant WCM literature emphasized the relationship between efficient WCM and firms profitability. Moreover, this paper contributes to developing efficient WCM practices and strategies that improve the financial performance of listed companies in the MENA region