Narrow Results

This study compares the private returns to education in Palestine and Turkey over the period 2004-2008. Alhough educational enrollment ratios are similar in both countries, the labor force participation of women is much lower in Palestine: such structural differences are likely to affect labor market outcomes especially along gender lines. In both countries, the results show high returns to an additional year of education at the two-year tertiary and the university levels. The returns to education are higher for females than for males in both countries, although the gender gap is larger in Palestine than in Turkey. In Turkey, with its open borders and stronger export potential, private-sector capacity is much greater than in Palestine. Workers in Turkey earn higher returns to education in both the formal and informal private sectors than do workers in Palestine, whose labor market is dominated by the government sector and the international organizations. Overall, the results imply that years of schooling and experience explain wages better in Turkey than in Palestine, and that within Palestine they explain wages better for women samples than for men.

Several empirical studies have examined the gender-differentiated effects of education on economic growth or on a steady-state level of economic output, using cross-country data to determine the quantitative importance of these effects and the direction of correlation. This chapter reports on a similar study of the gender effects of education using province-level data for Turkey. It finds that female education positively and significantly affects the steady-state level of labor productivity, while male education has either positive or insignificant effects. A separate examination of the effect of the educational gender gap finds a negative relationship with output. The results are robust to a number of sensitivity analyses, such as elimination of outlier observations, controls for simultaneity and measurement errors, controls for omitted variables through the inclusion of regional dummy variables, the use of steady-state versus growth equations, and the consideration of different samples.

The male-dominated social structure in Turkey constitutes a serious barrier to women's entrepreneurship. Gender discrimination experienced by women in the private as well as the public sphere significantly limits their visible participation in the economic life outside their homes. A sample survey of nearly 5,000 Turkish micro and small enterprises (MSEs), 6 percent of them led by women, shows that women's businesses tend to be very small. Nearly half are in trade and one-third are in industry. Many of the one-person women's enterprises are in home-based manufacturing. Women entrepreneurs tend to be younger and have more education than men entrepreneurs, and about half of the women entrepreneurs were employed as wage earners before starting their own businesses. Virtually none of them made use of credit for starting their businesses and very few had access to business support services of any kind. Recommendations are made for improving the environment for women's MSEs, including establishing a Women's Entrepreneurship Center.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of factors of environmental uncertainty on the innovativeness of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Innovativeness is widely accepted as an important characteristic for firm competitiveness and it has been studied by both researchers as well as business managers. Environmental uncertainty is a measure of the complexity of changing external forces faced by an organisation and it crucially impacts the responses of organisations in order to stay competitive. Based on approaches in existing literature, this study conceptualises environmental uncertainty comprised three separate dimensions — competitive intensity, market/demand turbulence, technological turbulence. Data for the study were collected from 156 SMEs in Turkey. SMEs are regarded as an important ingredient in the economic growth of nations and especially so in developing nations such as Turkey. The findings of the study reveal that market/demand turbulence and technological turbulence have a positive effect on the innovativeness of SMEs. Interestingly and contrary to popular belief, competitive intensity was not found to have significant effect on an SME's innovativeness. The implication of the results from this research is that the degree of organisational innovativeness for SMEs tends to increase and therefore should be supported in environments with greater technological and market/demand turbulence. This research makes an important contribution to the developing body of innovation literature and provides directions for managers and researchers in influencing innovativeness of firms.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of factors of environmental uncertainty on the innovativeness of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Innovativeness is widely accepted as an important characteristic for firm competitiveness and it has been studied by both researchers as well as business managers. Environmental uncertainty is a measure of the complexity of changing external forces faced by an organisation and it crucially impacts the responses of organisations in order to stay competitive. Based on approaches in existing literature, this study conceptualises environmental uncertainty comprised three separate dimensions — competitive intensity, market/demand turbulence, technological turbulence. Data for the study were collected from 156 SMEs in Turkey. SMEs are regarded as an important ingredient in the economic growth of nations and especially so in developing nations such as Turkey. The findings of the study reveal that market/demand turbulence and technological turbulence have a positive effect on the innovativeness of SMEs. Interestingly and contrary to popular belief, competitive intensity was not found to have significant effect on an SME’s innovativeness. The implication of the results from this research is that the degree of organisational innovativeness for SMEs tends to increase and therefore should be supported in environments with greater technological and market/demand turbulence. This research makes an important contribution to the developing body of innovation literature and provides directions for managers and researchers in influencing innovativeness of firms.

Branding plays an important role in contemporary marketing and branding strategies, as the key role in the marketing mix, are viewed as a powerful tool to obtain sustainable competitive advantages. This study explores strategic brand management activities of firms on domestic and foreign products and to compare brand equities in the Turkish market and a conceptual framework in which marketing elements are related to the dimensions of brand equity. These dimensions are then related to brand equity. The research results indicate that different marketing mix elements and brand equity dimensions affect the creation of brand equity with different levels of intensity. This study is the first time in Turkish market, which the domestic and foreign firms of the white good sector studied in a comparison way to figure out how the firms create brand equity by their brand policies and how the consumers perceive it.

This article emphasizes the development of the Muslim women’s movement in Turkey. It traces the historical roots of this movement as well as its evolution toward two different understandings of women. It is clearly seen that there exist two main approaches to the role of women among Islamic groups: while the traditional Islamic understanding strives to maintain women’s traditional roles notwithstanding that it advocates the right to benefit from modern education, another understanding challenges this and tries to ensure women’s existence on a “womanly” base in the public life. The author attempts also to depict the story of how Muslim women have attempted to be articulated in the public sphere, their 50-year struggle to achieve that goal, as well as the discourses, values and symbols that have generally been centered on the “headscarf debates”.

“A nation’s women are the measure of its modernity.”

Working life refers to the process by which employees using mental or physical labor are used to produce goods and services. When the development of this process is analyzed with regard to Turkey, it can be seen that the economic structure and relations of production that were taken over from the Ottoman Empire were a key determinant for the working life during the Turkish Republic. The key determinant of the economic structure was agriculture in the early Republican era. Apart from the manufacturing workers in a few cities where the industry was relatively advanced, 90% of the workers were employed in the agricultural sector. The adventure of the working life of Republican era is actually a story of immigration from the countryside to the city in a sense. Having started with the 1950s and accelerated after the 1980s, migration to cities from agricultural regions has deeply affected not only Turkey’s political and social structure but also its labor markets.

Education is one of the factors widely understood to affect women’s empowerment. Gender-neutral compulsory schooling requirements can decrease gender gaps in education in some circumstances. Compulsory schooling in Turkey was increased in 1997 from 5 years to 8 years. We examine the effect of this change on educational attainment, and in particular investigate whether there was a differential effect of this change on females relative to males. Using 2003 Demographic and Health Surveys data, we find an overall positive effect on the probability of completion of 8 years, as well as a positive differential effect for females of the change on both years of education and probability of completion of 8 years. We also find, as predicted, that the gender gap narrowed in low-wealth families in particular. However, we find a persistent gender gap in the country’s more traditional, less-developed eastern region.

Drawing from the literature about international entrepreneurship and emerging multinationals, this chapter undertakes a comparative analysis of three cases of Turkish infant multinationals to understand how entrepreneurial internationalisation works in emerging market contexts. The accelerated internationalisation process of these multinationals is analysed under the light of their historical progress. The findings of the study suggest that the increased presence of emerging multinationals in global foreign direct investment is primarily based on the success of these firms’ founding entrepreneur’s vision and ability to manage the underdeveloped institutional context. Another finding highlights the changing entrepreneurial process and behaviour of these firms as new generations started to control these firms. Finally, the impact of the entrepreneurial background on corporate entrepreneurship has been identified as the determinant factor of internationalisation for these cases. The differences and similarities between emerging multinationals and “born global” firms are also mentioned to link the international business and international entrepreneurship sides of the literature.

This chapter presents several important aspects of the business context of Turkey. Initially, an overview of Turkey’s historical, political, and economic development is provided. The chapter then addresses the characteristics of Turkey’s business framework conditions and continues with the country’s ranking in terms of ease of doing business. The chapter concludes with a brief outlook for the future and provides some insights and recommendations for doing business in Turkey.

With a CGE model, we quantify the impact of the Customs Union between Turkey and the European Union (EU). Since the average tariff on non-agricultural imports will be less than 2 percent, the trade diversion costs of the Customs Union are quite small. Improved access to third country markets (through reciprocal preferential access agreements of the EU) results in the largest gains from the Customs Union, estimated overall to be about 1–1.5 percent of Turkish GOP. Applying the VAT uniformly (rather than raising it to compensate for the tariff revenue loss) will increase the welfare gain from joining the EU.