Impact of Working Capital Management on Corporate Profitability- Empirical Evidence from Pharmaceutical Industry of Bangladesh

Abstract

Working capital management plays centric role in enhancing operational efficiency and their ultimate profitability. Globally financial managers have been searching the proper way on how to utilize working capital components which prolong profitability. The purpose of this study is to assess the impact of working capital components on profitability indicators of selected pharmaceutical firms in Bangladesh. The paper used financial data of 9 pharmaceutical firms listed in Dhaka stock exchange (DSE) covered 2011-2015. Two methods were used in this study for analysis data set. Firstly, to measure the relationship between selected variables Pearson Correlation matrix was used. Secondly, multiple regression analysis was used to investigate the impact working capital components on profitability of selected pharmaceutical firms. The study also conducted Durbin Watson test to assess autocorrelation of selected variables. In this study the correlation matrix identified a negative correlation between working capital components and profitability, whereas regression analysis found number of days account receivable (AR) had significant positive and current ratio (CR) and debt ratio (DR) had appeared a significant negative impact on profitability.