Financial Crisis Impact on SMEs and SMEs Strategies during Economic Crises: A Case of Sivas Province

Abstract

Financial crises affect all the economic units according to the region, country and firm structure at macro and/or micro levels. It's very important for the economical structures of countries to develop strategies and policies by the examination of effects of financial crises over SMEs and by determining how some firms managed to be successful during the crises while some of them failed. The main purpose of this study is to determine which financial ratios of small sized firms and medium sized firms are affected by financial crisis and which ratios are not effected for specify the transmission channels of crisis on SMEs. The practice of the study was realized on manufacturing firms in Sivas territory. The reasons to choose the manufacturing sector are the majority of the manufacturing firms among the main sector groups in Turkey and the contribution of manufacturing firms both to the employment and export. The "liquidity, financial structure and profitability ratios" of these firms will be calculated with the use of the firms' financial tables which have successful audit reports. The ratios covering a 5 year-period (2006-2010) will be calculated to be able to make a comparison between the pre-crisis and post-crisis terms. The results of the study indicate that remarkable number of ratios of small sized firms have been changed according to medium sized firms, the net profit/equity ratios show the best change, the profitability ratios of medium sized firms are higher than small sized firms, the SMEs increased their liquidity levels in crisis term and the financial ratios of medium sized firms are less effected than small sized firms during the crisis.