LEADERSHIP AND CULTURE IN TURKEY:
A MULTI-FACETED PHENOMENA
Hayat KABASAKAL and Muzaffer BODUR
1998
I. INTRODUCTION
The TurkishRepublic is located mainly in western Asia and partly in southeastern Europe. Its location on two continents serves as a bridge between east and west culturally, economically and politically. The country is bounded in the east by Georgia, Armenia, Nakhichevan and Iran, in the south by Iraq and Syria and in the west by Greece and Bulgaria. Inland Turkey is 774,815 square kilometers and is surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea in the south, the Aegean in the west and the Black Sea in the north.
In mid-1995 the population was estimated to be approximately 61 million. Nearly 52.5% of Turkish population live in urban areas where the major cities are Istanbul, Ankara (the capital), Izmir, Adana, Antalya, Bursa, and Konya. Life expectancy is 66.5 years on the average and birth and infancy death rates are reported as .27% and .07%, respectively for the1990-1995 period (UN, World Population Prospects: The 1994 Revision).
The official language is Turkish, spoken by 90% of the population; followed by 7% Kurdish, spoken mainly in the southeast. While Islam is the religion of 99% of the population, the TurkishRepublic is a secular state. It was estimated that in 1986 there were approximately 100,000 Christians and in 1996 there were approximately 25,000 Jews in Turkey (The Europa World Year Book 1996).
At the threshold of the 21st century, in view of the recent developments in Central and North Asia, Eastern Europe, and Middle East, Turkey is faced with the challenges of sustaining a western economic and political ideology. With continuing economic liberalization, industrialization take-off and a highly favorable geographical location, Turkey is a promising country for foreign investments and international trade prospects.
The historical roots of Turkey go back to the rise and fall ofthe Ottoman Empire. With the decline of the Empire many Muslim groups living in former Turkish territories in Southeastern Europe and around the Northern Black Sea migrated to the home country. At that time these migrations created a subculture that had a western orientation which still prevails today.
Today, Turkish culture may be characterized as having elements of modernity, tradition and Islam. With the worldwide globalization trends, new life styles are being created, especially among the younger population. On the other hand, the rise of the Islamist movement in the country is leading to a new subculture. The subculture that identifies itself with Islamism includes not only the aspiring middle class of the towns, but also some university students and young professionals of the middle class, owners of small- medium-sized firms, and the lower socio-economic groups of the metropolises.
Turkey has been moving closer to Europe by entering into a Custom Union with EC countries with the intention of becoming a full member in the near future. But the recent restructuring of the former Soviet states is also offering many opportunities economically and culturally where a common language is spoken. In addition, the proponents of the Islamist movement claim that Turkey should initiate an Islamic Common Market instead of trying to join the European Community. Thus, a multiplicity of ideologies is seen which is leading to a culture which has a mixture of traditional, modern and Islamic values, and an eastern and western orientation at all layers of society and organizations.
This chapter describes the unique aspects of the society, organizations and leaders inTurkish culture with the objective of providing insights and drawing implications for culture specific leadership and organizational practices. After introducing the methodology, the chapter will proceed with an overall description of the societal culture, followed by descriptions of GLOBE dimensions at societal, organizational, industry and leader levels.
II. METHODOLOGY
A. Qualitative and Quantitative Data:
The country analysis is based on both qualitative and quantitative data. The following data sources were used:
1. Focus groups and in-depth interviews:
Two focus group interviews were conducted with five and seven individuals each. All participants had full-time work experience as middle level managers, supervisory level managers, or office workers. In-
depth interviews were conducted with six middle level managers from the financial and food processing sectors. We conducted the focus groups andin-depthinterviewsin Fall 1994. After a preliminary analysis of the interviews and survey results, two more in-depth interviews were conducted to validate the findings.
Topics discussed in both focus groups and in-depth interviews included: Concept of leadership; concept of management; comparison of an average manager, a successful manager, and an outstanding leader in terms of skills, attributes, personality characteristics, values, and behaviors. All interviews were recorded on tape and later were transcribed verbatim. The transcribed data served as the basis for ethnographic analysis.
2. Media analysis:
This analysis had the purpose of analyzing news published in the printed media for identifying leadership patterns in the Turkish context. We collected the data during April 4-19, 1996. Five separately printed media which comprised of three daily newspapers and two weekly periodicals were used as the data base. They are the following:
a) Daily newspapers:
Milliyet - a well-respected newspaper with a general readership throughout the country. It offers diverse national and international news events. It has nation-wide distribution.
Turkiye - a popular newspaper with a specifically right-wing and nationalist perspective. It predominantly includesnational news and has national distribution.
Dunya - a well-respected daily newspaper targeting the business audience. It offers news about issues which would concern the business world and managers. It has regional distribution in Western and urban areas.
b) Weekly periodicals:
Nokta - a nation-wide periodical which includes issues related to the general society, politics and entertainment. It is one of the oldest and most widely distributed periodicals of its kind.
Ekonomist - a special periodical focusing primarily on economic news. It covers local and international company profiles operating in Turkey, interviews with managers, as well as macro-economic issues. Managers are familiar with this periodical to a great extent.
In selecting the type of news to include in the analysis three criteria were identified: a) news about leadership, b) news about a person who is a leader, c) news about an organization with the changes in that organization attributed to a particular person. All articles were initially read by the researchers, and those fitting the above criteria were identified. Those paragraphs in each article about leadership were pointed out and transcribed verbatim for ethnographic analysis.
First, we read all the articles that took place in the selected media which were published during the mentioned 15 days. Second, we clipped those articles which fitted the above three criteria.Third, we highlighted the paragraphs which were about leadership. Fourth, we transcribed the highlighted sections verbatim. Fifth, we categorized the highlighted sections based on the context in which the leadership is covered. Finally, we interpreted the findings on leadership as they are related to cultural dimensions of the GLOBE study.
3. A survey of middle level managers:
Two types of self-administered questionnaires were conducted with 323 middle level managers employed in 23 firms, 150 employed in the financial sector and 173 in the food processing sector. The firms were selected by judgmental sampling procedure. The judgment criteria used for selection were : a) origin of nationality, with the emphasis on local firms, b) size based on number of employees and yearly sales volume, with the emphasis on medium and large firms, c) industry position based on market share rates, with the focus on the top three firms. After the selection of companies, the researchers contacted a top manager in the company to select the managers who fitted the middle management characteristics. The questionnaires were handed to a contact person who distributed and collected the completed questionnaires.
Scales were designed by the GLOBE Coordinating Team, one inquiring about the organizational culture and the other about the societal culture, while both included questions related to characteristics of outstanding leaders. The scales were developed on the basis of a pilot study from 48 countries. Every organizational and societal scale had at least two parallel items. The nonparallel items were kept on the scales to obtain desirable psychometric properties.
Scales were translated into Turkish and backtranslated into English by bilingual translators. The data were collected in Fall 1995.
4. Organizational demography questionnaires:
A total of six companies were selected out of the 23 companies covered in the survey. Those six companies with the highest representations in the surveywere selected for the organizational demography study. Three of these companies were from the financial and three from the food processing sectors. The organizational demography study covered general management, marketing, human resources, and operations management departments and the questionnaires were completed byupper level managers in each area.
5. Participant observation and unobtrusive measurement questions:
The participant observation questionnaire included 101 questions and unobtrusive measurement questionnaires had 38 questions about the societal dimensions of culture. These questionnaires were completed by the researchers and were based on their own knowledge and expert opinion about the values, structures, and institutions prevalent in the society.
6. Industry analysis:
Industry analysis included a review of routinely printed media, in-house newsletters or magazines that cater to managers in that industry, trade association newsletters, publications on industry structure and sectorial reports.The purpose of industry analysis is: a) to describe the industry structures, origins, nationalization/globalization orientationsof the sectors involved in this study, and b) to relate the information acquired from these sources to leadership patterns by ethnographic summary.
7. Ethogenic analysis of major political and industry leaders:
Autobiographies, biographies, historical diaries,news published upon their death are reviewed with the purpose of evaluating leadership patterns, the position attributed to business and political leaders throughout history within a societal and institutional context.
B. Representativeness of the Samples Studied:
As far as the focus group and in-depth interviews are concerned, the majority of the interviewees were middle level and supervisory level managers with full-time work experience. Thus they are highly representative of white-collar middle class employees in private sector organizations which make up nearly 50% of Turkey’s workforce in such establishments. The two interviewers were the members of GLOBE study for the Turkish chapter, with Ph.D. degrees in management and marketing and extensive teaching, research and consulting experiences.
In the case of GLOBE study dimensions, the 23 firms (n= 14 for food processing sector and n= 9 for finance sector) selected had diverse characteristics in terms of size and industry position. Both large and small firms with leading and deteriorating industry positions in their sector were included in the study in order to seek better representatives.
Printed media, from which news items on leadership is derived, can be deemed to be highly representative in terms of circulation and coverage of news content in Turkey.
In summary, it can be claimed that various samples studied in this research are representative of the subculture of the Turkish population that make up the middle classes of social strata which covers nearly 30% of the population.
III. AN OVERALL VIEW OF THE TURKISH CULTURE
A.Economic Environment, Business Structure, and Social Systems:
At the macro level, the Turkish economic environment, strengthened by the government’s neoliberalization measures since the early 1980s, demonstrates a commitment for growth. The Turkish economy grew at a rate of 5.5% in the period 1980-1995 (SIS: Statistical Yearbook of Turkey, 1995). However the neoliberalization process has intensified the income inequalities. Turkey has become one of the countries with least equal distribution of income, with a Gini coefficient of 0.50 in 1994 (Onis, 1997).
In 1994, Turkey's gross national product (GNP) was estimated to be US$ 149,002M, equivalent to $2,450 per person. Agriculture(including forestry and fishing) contributed 15.9% to GDPand industry (including mining, manufacturing, construction and power) contributed 30.6% of GDP in 1995.About 43.6% of the employed population worked in agriculture, and 22.2% in industry in 1993. These figures show that agriculture is overpopulated in Turkey.
1. State (Inter)dependence:
Business life in Turkey is dominated by private holding companies and state economic enterprises.The state is an important institution in shaping the business structure. Turkish private companies remain highly dependent on the state for financial incentives and the state often intervenes by frequent and unpredictable policy changes, which introduce uncertainties in business life (Bugra, 1990). Although there has been significant liberalization in many areas, such as the finance sector, international trade and some privatization of state economic enterprises, the state still remains as the key actor in the economy as well as the distributor of resources in the second half of 1990s.
We observe two major developments that parallel the increasing politicization of the state. First, businessmen had been trying to reach the politicians at increasing intensities through various networks and institutions, some of which have newly emerged or strengthened in the post 1980 period. We observe a frequent interaction of political leaders with the networks and institutions such as chambers of commerce and industry, exporters’ unions, businessmen and industrialists’ associations in an effort to receive their share of resources from the state. Second, there has been increasing incidences of corruption, such as bribery, illegal and unjust government bids or sale of public land. As a result of these incidents, both political and business leaders are often perceived in society as lacking integrity.
The nature of state-business relations in Turkey appears to be a key factor in determining the type of market activity and organizational structure of the companies. Even the large company owners manage the company as a family-enterprise, rather than involving the professionals in the major decisions. The decision-making process is centralized in the hands of the family members located at the headquarters. The preference for heavy centralization is partly due to the major role that the state plays in the decisions to enter into a new field of activity.
Bugra(1987), in her analysis of the autobiographies of the leading Turkishbusinessmen notes that the relations with government authorities rather than the "market" determines the strategic decisions in Turkish organizations. There is high interdependence between the state and the few businessmen that the state trusts.
In their study of Danish investors in Turkey, Bodur and Madsen (1993) conclude that rules and regulations, as well as personal contacts with influential government officials become important tools in finalizing decisions.
In the current Turkish context, since the "market" does not carry a primary importance, the major concern of the large company owners is not "leading" the employees in a democratic way so that the employees would contribute to the running of the organization with their creative ideas or high intellect. The key factor would be managing the relationship with the government authorities, which is not delegated but conducted by the family members.
On March 6, 1995, the Turkish government signed an agreement with the European Community, involving a series of prospective activities which would reduce the interdependence between the state and business companies. If the market becomes a key factor in the lives of business companies, professionalism, democratic leadership style and the employees would gain importance for the companies. Yet, full-membership to the European Community does not seem to be possible in the foreseeable future. The state is likely to continue as the key actor in many facets of economic life in the future.
2. High Inflation :
The Turkish business context is characterized by high levels of inflation, ranging between 40 and 150 percent per year during the last decade. High levels of inflation make planning and input of employees very difficult for companies. Unavoidably, the decision-makers focus on the short-term; sometimes even yearly plans become difficult. Since predicting the future is almost impossible, speculative activities decided by the company owners gain importance, which reflects the relatively low levels of future orientation that were obtained by the quantitative findings of the GLOBE scales. In addition, high uncertainty that has been accompanying high levels of inflation seem to have socialized the society into coping with uncertainty, yielding low uncertainty avoidance results in the GLOBE scales.
3. Socio-economic status:
Vast differences in socioeconomic status of classes are manifested at both societal and organizational levels. Such differences parallel high power distance prevalent in society and the organizations, although it is higher at the societal level. Both organizations and society at large maintain inequality among their members by stratification of individuals and groups with respect to power, prestige, authority, status, wealth, and material possessions.
In most business organizations the amount of office space is generally allocated according to the status of the employees/managers rather than the requirements of the work to be done. Usually at places of work titles are listed on the doors of the offices. Titles are generally used when addressing others who are not intimate friends. In business organizations generally eating places and parking spaces are separated according to the status of the employees. In addition, privileges such as health insurance, housing, and cars are allocated on a hierarchical basis.
The way people address each other in society reflects status differences. Individuals are addressed differently: a) with different pronouns and b) with their first names or use of sir/madam before their first names based on status differences. Lower status people are addressed by their first names, whereas for higher status people madam/sir is added.The three most powerful families in the country are very clear for everyone. Wealthy families generally have three or more domestic servants. Even middle income groups would have a domestic servant.