Aggregate and Disaggregate Measures of Operating and Non-Operating Working Capital Influence on Firm Performance: Evidence from Malaysia
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32890/ijbf2022.17.1.1Keywords:
Working capital, Short-term firm performance, Long-termLong-term firm performance firm performance, PCSE regression, Malaysian firmsAbstract
The study is aimed at investigating the following issues: firstly, whether the different types of working capital, namely operating and non-operating working capital influence the short-term (return on assets) and long-term (Tobin’s Q) firm performance differently, and secondly whether the different measures of operating working capital, namely disaggregated and aggregated (cash conversion cycle) operating working capital, influence the short-term (return on assets) and long-term (Tobin’s Q) firm performance differently. It uses the panel data of 208 listed non-financial firms in Malaysia covering the period from 2013 to 2017, and the data has been sourced from Datastream. It employs the panel corrected standard errors regression model. The study has found that quicker sale of inventory increased both the short-term and long-term performance of the firm. Likewise, faster collection of receivables increased the long-term, but not short- term, performance. However, prompter payment of payables increased both the short-term and long-term performance. The study has also found that the disaggregated working capital measures – inventory, receivables, and payables contributed to a more nuanced influence of working capital on performance, compared to the aggregated working capital. The study has provided novel evidence that– higher non- operating working capital increased firm performance.
References
Abuzayed, B. (2012). Working capital management and firms’ performance in emerging markets: The case of Jordan. International Journal of Managerial Finance, 8(2), 155-179.
Adam, A. M., Quansah, E., & Kawor, S. (2017). Working capital management policies and returns of listed manufacturing firms in Ghana. Scientific Annals of Economics and Business, 64(2), 255-269.
Adekola, A., Samy, M., & Knight, D. (2017). Efficient working capital management as the tool for driving profitability and liquidity: A correlation analysis of Nigerian companies. International Journal of Business and Globalisation, 18(2), 251-275.
Afrifa, G. A., & Padachi, K. (2016). Working capital level influence on SME profitability. Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, 23(1), 44-63.
Afza, T., & Adnan, S. (2007). Determinants of corporate cash holdings: A case study of Pakistan. Paper presented at the Proceedings of Singapore Economic Review Conference (SERC).
Akbar, A. (2014). Working capital management and corporate performance: Evidences from textile sector of China. European Academic Research, 2(9), 11440-11456.
Al-Mawsheki, R. M. S. A., Ahmad, N. B., & Nordin, N. B. (2019). The effects of efficient working capital management and working capital policies on firm performance: Evidence from malaysian manufacturing firms. International Journal of Academic Research in Accounting, Finance Management Sciences, 9(3), 59-69.
Alarussi, A. S., & Alhaderi, S. M. (2018). Factors affecting profitability in Malaysia. Journal of Economic Studies, 45(3), 442-458.
Arshad, Z., & Gondal, M. Y. (2013). Impact of working capital management on profitability a case of the Pakistan cement industry. Interdisciplinary Journal of Contemporary Research in Business, 5(2), 384-390.
Arunkumar, O., & Ramanan, T. R. (2013). Working capital management and profitability: A sensitivity analysis. International Journal of Research and Development, 2(1), 52-58.
Bailey, D., & Katz, J. N. (2011). Implementing panel corrected standard errors in R: The PCSE package. Journal of Statistical Software, 42(CS1), 1-
Barney, J. (2007). Gaining and sustaining competitive advantage. New Jersey 07458. New Jersey: Pearson International Edition.
Beck, N., & Katz, J. N. (1995). What to do (and not to do) with time-series cross-section data. American Political Science Review, 89(3), 634-647.
Bhatia, S., & Srivastava, A. (2016). Working capital management and firm performance in emerging economies: Evidence from India. Management and Labour Studies, 41(2), 71-87.
Brainard, W. C., & Tobin, J. (1968). Pitfalls in financial model building. The American Economic Review, 58(2), 99-122.
Bursa Malaysia. (2020). https://www.bursamalaysia.com/trade/ trading_resources/ listing_directory /main_market
Corsten, D., & Gruen, T. W. (2004). Stock-outs cause walkouts. Harvard Business Review, 82(5), 26-28.
Deloof, M. (2003). Does working capital management affect profitability of Belgian firms? Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, 30(3-4), 573-588.
Dubofsky, P., & Varadarajan, P. R. (1987). Diversification and measures of performance: Additional empirical evidence. Academy of Management Journal, 30(3), 597-608.
Dwivedi, N., & Jain, A. K. (2005). Corporate governance and performance of Indian firms: The effect of board size and ownership. Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, 17(3), 161-172.
Ganguli, S. K., & Agrawal, S. (2009). Ownership structure and firm performance: An empirical study on listed mid-cap Indian companies. IUP Journal of Applied Finance, 15(12), 37-52.
Giner, B., & Reverte, C. (1999). The value relevance of earnings disaggregation provided in the Spanish profit and loss account. European Accounting Review, 8(4), 609-629.
Giner, B., & Reverte, C. (2006). The risk-relevance of accounting data: Evidence from the Spanish stock market. Journal of International Financial Management & Accounting, 17(3), 175-207.
Gul, S., Khan, M. B., Raheman, S., Khan, M. T., Khan, M., & Khan, W. (2013). Working capital management and performance of SME sector. European Journal of Business and Management, 5(1), 60-68.
Jakpar, S., Tinggi, M., Siang, T., Johari, A., Myint, K., & Sadique, M. (2017). Working capital management and profitability: Evidence from manufacturing sector in Malaysia. Journal of Business & Financial Affairs, 6(2), 1-9.
Johnson, T. H., & Kaplan, R. S. (1987). Relevance lost: The rise and fall of management accounting. Harvard Business School Press.
Jönsson, K. (2005). Cross-sectional dependency and size distortion in a small-sample homogeneous panel data unit root test. Oxford Bulletin of Economics Statistics, 67(3), 369-392.
Kieschnick, R., Laplante, M., & Moussawi, R. (2013). Working capital management and shareholders’ wealth. Review of Finance, 17(5), 1827-1852.
Kusuma, H., & Bachtiar, A. D. (2018). Working capital management and corporate performance: Evidence from Indonesia. Journal of Management and Business Administration. Central Europe, 26(2), 76-88.
Lang, L. H., Stulz, R., & Walkling, R. A. (1989). Managerial performance, Tobin’s Q, and the gains from successful tender offers. Journal of Financial Economics, 24(1), 137-154.
Le, B. (2019). Working capital management and firm’s valuation, profitability and risk. International Journal of Managerial Finance, 15(2), 191-204.
Li, M. Z., Oum, T. H., & Zhang, Y. (2004). Tobin’sq and airline performances. Public Works Management & Policy, 9(1), 51-65.
Maines, L. A., & Wahlen, J. M. (2006). The nature of accounting information reliability: Inferences from archival and experimental research. Accounting Horizons, 20(4), 399-425.
Makarani, K., & Bineshian, Z. (2013). An empirical study on the relationship between working capital management and profitability: A case study of Mehregan Sangesar Company. Management Science Letters, 3(3), 771-776.
Makori, D. M., & Jagongo, A. (2013). Working capital management and firm profitability: Empirical evidence from manufacturing and construction firms listed on Nairobi securities exchange, Kenya. International Journal of Accounting and Taxation, 1(1), 1-14.
Manzoor, H. (2013). Working capital management and profitability: Evidence from cement sector of Pakistan, listed on Karachi stock exchange. Journal of Business Administration and Management Sciences Research, 2(10), 215-223.
Masadeh, R., Tayeh, M., Al-Jarrah, I. M., & Tarhini, A. (2015). Accounting vs. market-based measures of firm performance related to information technology investments. International Review of Social Sciences and Humanities, 9(1), 129-145.
McGuire, J. B., Sundgren, A., & Schneeweis, T. (1988). Corporate social responsibility and firm financial performance. Academy of Management Journal, 31(4), 854-872.
Mohamad, N., & Saad, N. B. M. (2010). Working capital management: The effect of market valuation and profitability in Malaysia. International Journal of Business and Management, 5(11), 140-147.
Moundigbaye, M., Rea, W. S., & Reed, W. R. (2018). Which panel data estimator should I use? A corrigendum and extension. Economics: The open-access. Open-Assessment E-Journal, 12(4), 1-31.
Ng, H., Chen, Y., San Ong, T., & Teh, B. H. (2017). The impact of working capital management on firm’s profitability: Evidence from Malaysian listed manufacturing firms. International Journal of Economics Financial Issues, 7(3), 662-670.
Nurein, S. A., Din, M. S., & Mohd Rus, R. (2015). Nonlinear relationship between investment in working capital and performance: Innovative evidence from food and beverages industry. European Journal of Economics, Finance and Administrative Sciences, 77, 64-72.
Padachi, K. (2006). Trends in working capital management and its impact on firms’ performance: An analysis of Mauritian small manufacturing firms. International Review of Business Research Papers, 2(2), 45-58.
PwC (2018). Disrupt or be disrupted: 2018 Malaysia working capital study. https://www.pwc.com/my/en /assets/publications/2018/ deals/PwC-MY-WCM-Study-2018.pdf accessed on 22.08.2020
Parks, R. W. (1967). Efficient estimation of a system of regression equations when disturbances are both serially and contemporaneously correlated. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 62(318), 500-509.
Rafindadi, A. A., & Bello, A. (2019). Is dividend payment of any influence to corporate performance in Nigeria? Empirical evidence from panel cointegration. International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, 9(2), 48-58.
Rehman, M. U., & Anjum, N. (2013). Determination of the impact of working capital management on profitability: An empirical study from the cement sector in Pakistan. Asian Economic and Financial Review, 3(3), 319-332.
Sim, S. L., Ali, A., & Ming, W. W. P. (2019). Working capital management and firm performance: An empirical study for Malaysian public listed companies in property industry. Borneo Journal of Social Science & Humanities, 1(2), 1-15.
Singh, H. P., Kumar, S., & Colombage, S. (2017). Working capital management and firm profitability: A meta-analysis. Qualitative Research in Financial Markets, 9(1), 34-47.
Smirlock, M., Gilligan, T., & Marshall, W. (1984). Tobin’s q and the structure-performance relationship. The American Economic Review, 74(5), 1051-1060.
Summers, B., & Wilson, N. (2003). Trade credit and customer relationships. Managerial and Decision Economics, 24(6-7), 439-455.
Tahir, M., & Anuar, M. B. A. (2015). The determinants of working capital management and firms performance of textile sector in Pakistan. Quality & Quantity, 50(2), 605-618.
Truica, L. D., & Trandafir, R. (2009). Review on financial risk procedures for assessing companies regard to young customers. Paper presented at the Proceedings of FIKUSZ’09.
Ullmann, A. A. (1985). Data in search of a theory: A critical examination of the relationships among social performance, social disclosure, and economic performance of US firms. Academy of Management Review, 10(3), 540-557.
Vătavu, S. (2014). The determinants of profitability in companies listed on the bucharest stock exchange. Annals of the University of Petrosani Economics, 14(1), 329-338.
Vural, G., Sökmen, A. G., & Çetenak, E. H. (2012). Affects of working capital management on firm’s performance: Evidence from Turkey. International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, 2(4), 488-495.
Wahla, K. S., Syed Zulfiqar Ali, & Hussain, Z. (2012). Impact of ownership structure on firm performance evidence from non-financial listed companies at Karachi Stock Exchange. International Research Journal of Finance and Economics (84), 7-13.
Watanabe, A., Xu, Y., Yao, T., & Yu, T. (2013). The asset growth effect: Insights from international equity markets. Journal of Financial Economics, 108(2), 529-563.
Wisner, J. D., & Eakins, S. G. (1994). A performance assessment of the US Baldrige Quality Award winners. International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, 11(2), 8-25.
Wolfe, J., & Sauaia, A. C. A. (2005). The Tobin Q as a business game performance indicator. Simulation & Gaming, 36(2), 238-249.
Wong, W.-C., Sabki, S., Regupathi, A., Salim, S., & Na’im, S. M. (2019). Malaysian SME’s liability strucutre and its impact on profitability and growth. Asian Academy of Management Journal of Accounting Finance, 15(2), 77-94
Woo, C. Y., Willard, G. E., & Daellenbach, U. S. (1992). Spin-off performance: A case of overstated expectations? Strategic Management Journal, 13(6), 433-447.
Wuryani, E. (2015). Analysis working capital on company profitability. Australian Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences, 9(7), 86-88.
Zariyawati, M., Hirnissa, M., & Diana-Rose, F. (2017). Working capital management and firm performance of small and large firms in Malaysia. Journal of Global Business and Social Entrepreneurship (GBSE), 3(7), 166-177.
Zhang, X., Chen, S., & Yu, S. (2017). Trends in working capital management and its impact on firms’ performance: An analysis of SMEs. Research on Modern Higher Education, 3, 47-54.
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2022 International Journal of Banking and Finance

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
How to Cite
Research impact
Harvested 2026-09-07Counts differ between services because each indexes a different body of literature. None of them is the whole picture.









