The impact of outsourcing on the capital structure of manufacturing firms

The purpose of this thesis is to to analyze the impact of firm specific characteristics on the corporate capital structure decisions of Turkish firms. In this study, the panel data methodology is used and five variables - size, profitability, growth opportunities in plant,property and equipment, growth opportunities in total assets, and tangibility - are analyzed as the firm specific determinants of the corporate capital structure. The sample covers 139 Turkish manufacturing firms listed on the Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE) and the analysis is based on the quarter observations of ten consecutive years running from 2005-2012. Results of the analysis show that; except growth opportunities in plant, property and equipment all of the independent variables are significant determinants of the structure decisions of the Turkish production firms. According to the analsis, size, growth opportunity in total assets, profitability and tangibility reveal a negative association with the leverage ratio. This result shows that, growth opportunities in total assets can be explained with the Trade-Off Theory, whereas other determinants can be explained with The Pecking Order Theory.