A Hybrid MEREC-CoCoSo-MARCOS Framework for Assessing Financial Performance: Evidence from Istanbul Stock Exchange

This study evaluates the financial performance of firms operating in the BIST Non-Metallic Mineral Products Sector for the period 2013–2022 by employing a hybrid multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) framework. The analysis integrates the MEREC method for objective criterion weighting with the CoCoSo method for performance ranking, while the MARCOS approach and Spearman rank correlation analysis are used to test the robustness and consistency of the results. Four financial indicators representing liquidity, operational efficiency, profitability, and financial risk dimensions are included in the evaluation: Current Ratio (CUR), Asset Turnover Ratio (ATR), EBITDA Margin (EBM), and Leverage Ratio (LEV). The findings reveal that EBITDA Margin consistently emerges as the most influential criterion throughout the analysis period, indicating that operational profitability constitutes the primary determinant of firm performance in the sector. In contrast, leverage and liquidity indicators exhibit relatively lower explanatory power. The ranking results further demonstrate that certain firms maintain consistently superior performance across the years, while others display persistent underperformance and greater sensitivity to changing macroeconomic conditions. Robustness tests conducted through the MARCOS method produce highly similar ranking structures, and the Spearman correlation coefficients indicate strong statistical agreement between the applied methodologies. Overall, the results suggest that financial performance in the BIST non-metallic mineral products sector is predominantly driven by operational profitability and efficiency rather than short-term liquidity or debt structure. The study contributes to the literature by applying recent objective weighting and compromise-based MCDM methods within a sector-specific and long-term financial performance evaluation framework.