Cultural background of governance style and quality in Turkey: An introduction

Abstract

Governance is a term that has gained popularity and has been used by academics and institutions such as UN, IMF and World Bank since 1990s. The term may be defined in a broad manner as "the processes of interaction and decision-making among the parties involved in a collective problem". There are different governance perspectives for different aims. Corporate governance, for example, consists of the processes, customs, policies, laws, and institutions affecting the way people direct, administer or control a corporation. Corporate governance may play an important role especially for the developing countries. They need capital inflows that is affected by sound corporate governance considerably. Turkey is one of the most highlighted emerging economies. In practice, there are some shortcomings in corporate governance compliance in Turkey. In this study, it is aimed to go further than current literature done towards cultural and historical roots which has potentially big impact on the present understanding and compliance of corporate governance in Turkey. The main tool adopted for this aim is closing the gap between respectable studies on the cultural roots of economic understanding of Turkey and studies on corporate governance in Turkey. This paper is presented to share first impressions of this effort