LEADERSHIP AND CULTURE IN TURKEY:



LEADERSHIP AND CULTURE IN TURKEY:

A MULTI-FACETED PHENOMENA

Hayat KABASAKAL and Muzaffer BODUR

1998

I. INTRODUCTION

The Turkish Republic 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 Turkish Republic 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 of the 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 in Turkish 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 and in-depth interviews in 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 includes national 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 survey were 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 by upper 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 orientations of 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 GDP and 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 Turkish businessmen 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.

Wealthy people generally have more political influence in the country. The Turkish Businessmen's and Industrialists' Association includes only the very wealthy owners and few professional managers and this association frequently prepares reports on social, political, and economic affairs. In addition, in eastern and southeastern regions of Turkey, the wealthy individuals who are also the lords are usually elected as parliamentarians and have political power in the sense that they influence their clans.

B. The Political System and Religious Ideology:

The Turkish Republic was founded in 1923 after which several reforms in social, political, economic, and legal systems were undertaken. The first president of the Republic was Mustafa Kemal Ataturk whose principles for reform , such as nationalism, secularism, and statism, have come to be called Kemalism. The basis of the Kemalist ideology was to transform the society into a western and secular structure.

In the Turkish political system, the legislative power is vested in the Turkish Grand National Assembly whose members are elected for a five-year term. The party leader with the highest number of parliamentarians is assigned by the president as the prime minister. The president is elected by the parliament for a seven-year term.

In the early years of the Republic until 1946, there was a single party system. The political life has been frequently interrupted by military coups or interventions whenever political crises developed. After a short period of restructuring, the military typically hands over the system to the political parties and restarts democracy.

In the 1990s there has been an era of coalition governments with very short life spans. Although no party is able to get the majority of votes, in the 1995 elections, the highest number of votes went to the Welfare Party which has an Islamic ideology. The Welfare Party was the principal party in the coalition government during 1996-1997 and was forced to resign due to the tension between the government and the military which perceived it as a threat to the westernizing principles of Kemalism. After it resigned from the government, the Welfare Party was closed by the judiciary, yet, a new Islamic Party called the Virtue Party was opened immediately with basically the same members and ideology.

The fact that an Islamic party received the highest votes (21%) in the 1995 elections is also reflected in the increase in Islamic education and the way of dressing on the part of women, men and children. These developments portray a slow transformation of the society from Kemalist to Islamic values. The rise of Islamism can be perceived as a product of the frustration of the promises of western modernization and represents a critique of modernism (Gulalp, 1995). In this respect, Islamism can be interpreted more as an opposition to modernism, rather than being interpreted as traditionalism. Yet, the rise of political Islam includes multiple factors ranging from fragmentation of moderate political parties to the inflow of capital from outside the country. On the other hand, the percent of votes in the 1995 elections show that approximately 80% of the society did not vote for the Islamic Welfare Party. The remaining 80% of society has fragmented political ideologies, ranging from strong commitment to Kemalism to moderate rightist traditional manifestations.

There is a rural-urban differentiation in the social life of the population which has reflections on the political system. The rural subculture being more conservative and carrying traditional values demonstrates rightist moderate traditional political preferences. The urban subculture has further fragmentation in its value systems. Those who have immigrated from the less developed rural areas form the lower socioeconomic groups of society and a great majority of them perceive radical Islam as a solution to their social and economic problems.

In some rural areas, especially in the east of the country, feudalism is still practiced. The lord inherits his position and is responsible for many of the functions of the institutions, including health, employment, and education in exchange for total loyalty and a subsistence level of survival. The lord has strong political power, in the form of influencing his clan as well as being elected as a parliamentarian.

In Turkish society external/ascribed characteristics serve as an important power base for leaders. Such power is a manifestation of feudal links, which have strong roots in Turkey. These leaders are expected to promote patronage relationships with their followers. There are frequent examples of employment practices which are based more on patronage relationships than professional links. Many parliamentarians spend 90% of their time resolving the personal problems of their voters, such as finding jobs, or solving their bureaucratic problems. Many employers deal with the family problems of their employees, such as the health or education problems of the employee's family. In turn the employee is expected to devote full loyalty to the employer.

Under the patronage system, the social contract between the leader and followers is based upon a wholistic approach by the leader and loyalty by the followers. This makes the practice of democratic leadership almost impossible, while it promotes paternalistic leadership.

The immigrants from the rural areas to the cities are faced with a new and significantly more turbulent environment. These newcomers to the cities seek the security of the patronage relationship. The state is slow and insufficient in fulfilling some welfare

functions. Therefore, the political parties, particularly the Islamic Welfare Party was organized on the basis of reducing the uncertainty of the environment and fulfilling the needs of this group, ranging from providing food and lodging, education, and health care, to supplying small capital for starting new shops.

In addition to the Islamic parties, many religious sects emerged in the society in the post-1980 period. These religious sects provide a means of relief for a resolution of societal and identity problems faced by people living in the cities. These sects satisfy an individual’s need for collectivism and uncertainty avoidance by providing strong associations with a reference group. Given the strong collectivist nature of Turkish society, people are in need of close reference groups in which they can survive and identify. With a globalized media Turkish youth has access to western life styles which promote highly individualistic values, creating an identity crisis. In case of such a crisis, close reference groups, such as sects provide a means for building an identity that would be acceptable by the society at large. Some their rituals function as vehicles of entertainment and socialization and take the place of music halls for the youth.

The rest of the urban subgroup demonstrate a variety of political opinions, with a considerable overlap of modern and traditional values in political ideologies. Regardless of the political ideology in the urban subcultures there is an aspiration for higher welfare, consumption of luxurious products, and mobility to higher socioeconomic status, which has blurred the distinction between means and ends in the society. On the other hand, the Islamic movement challenges the “exploitative” capitalist system and proposes a radical change towards a “just economic order” based on the Islamic principle of justice.

C. Education and Human Resource Planning:

There has been a great increase in the literacy rates during the Republican era, while room for improvement remains. The 1990 statistics for the population aged 6 and above indicate that 46.1% were primary school graduates, 7.6% junior high school, 7.8% high school, and 3.0% were university graduates, adding to 64.5% (SPO, Seventh Five-Year Development Plan, 1996-2000, 1995, p.12). In 1990, the literacy rates for males and females were 88.8% and 72.0%, respectively (SIS, Statistical Yearbook of Turkey 1994, 1995, pp. 70-71).

Turkey’s Human Development practices continuously improved during the period 1960-1996. ( UNDP, Human Development Report, 1994; Human Development Report, Turkey, 1996). Based on its Human Development Index (HDI) score, Turkey ranks among the higher human development countries. A majority of Turkey’s population (51%) live in provinces that have high human development indices, 47.1% in medium development provinces, and 1.9% live in provinces with low human development.

Primary school is legally mandatory, which is eight years. On the other hand, the average rate of adult literacy was 79% in 1990, indicating that either the law is not widely enforced, or there are no schools in some rural locations.

Students at universities are encouraged to study at a moderate level. Yet at graduation, universities honor students with the highest grades by giving plaques. On the other hand, the government does not provide loans to individuals to encourage them to seek higher education. In general, there is moderate level of emphasis on learning and performance excellence in the country’s education system. These observations are in line with the comparatively low ranking of Turkish society on performance orientation in terms of GLOBE scales.

In general, at all education levels, the student-teacher relations are based on teacher assertiveness. The relation is characterized by assertiveness and dominance of the teachers rather than tenderness. Students are usually afraid of being scolded by their teachers.

D. The Legal System:

The Turkish legal structure is organized along western lines. Westernization of the laws can be traced back to the latter periods of the Ottoman Empire, specifically to the period after the proclamation of the Edict of Reorganization (Tanzimat Fermani) in 1839. In the period starting from 1839 to the establishment of the Republic, the old Islamic laws and institutions were basically maintained, although some western statutes were adopted from Europe (Guriz, 1987).

1. The Constitution:

Historically, the various rescripts (ferman) after the Edict of Reorganization can be considered as the begin of the constitutionalist movement in the Ottoman Empire. No legal mechanisms were established to ensure the enforcement of these provisions: They were merely a declaration by the Sultan of certain basic human rights of the public (Ozbudun, 1987). In 1876 the first Ottoman Constitution was accepted and some constitutional mechanisms were provided to check the absolute powers of the Sultan. Sultan Abdulhamid II returned to absolute rule in 1878, but had to restore the constitution in 1908, starting the Second Constitution Period.

With the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I, the Ottoman government in Istanbul collapsed and armies of the Allies occupied the country. A parallel government was developed in Anatolia by the nationalists resisting the armed forces of the Allies. The leader of the nationalists, Mustafa Kemal, called for the election of a new assembly with extraordinary powers in Ankara. This body, called the Grand National Assembly enacted a Constitution in 1921. Later on a new constitution was adopted in 1924 which retained most of the principles of the 1921 Constitution, basically the principle of national sovereignty. This constitution reflected the struggle against the sultans, where the only threat was seen as the domination of the sultans and that there would be no need to protect the nation against its elected representatives. According to this constitution both legislative and executive powers were vested in the Assembly. It clearly proposed a "majoritarian" system, rather than a system of checks and balances (Ozbudun, 1987). Both in the single-party (1924-1946) and the multi-party (1946-1960) years of the constitution, the "executive" dominated the Assembly. During this period, the Turkish political system witnessed the authoritarian leadership of party leaders and the obedience of the parliamentarians to party decisions.

The authoritarian measures taken by the government in the 1950s created unrest in society, and on May 27, 1960 Turkish armed forces overthrew the Menderes government. In 1961 a new Constitution was prepared which represented a reaction to the 1924 Constitution. The 1961 Constitution proposed a pluralistic, rather than a majoritarian system of democracy. The 1961 Constitution stayed in effect for 19 years, until the military takeover of 12 September 1980.

The second half of the1970s was characterized by considerable political instability. With the succession of weak coalition governments, terrorism and political polarization became widespread. Turkish armed forces intervened in the political system for the third time. In 1982 a new constitution was prepared which was a reaction to the 1961 Constitution. The political crisis of the 1970s was attributed to the "excessive permissiveness" of the 1961 Constitution and to the weaknesses of the executive branch. The underlying objective of the 1982 Constitution was to establish a strong state and a strong executive.

2. Codes and Statutes:

The Turkish legal system was westernized by some radical reforms after the proclamation of the Republic in 1923. The radical reforms in legal matters paralleled other social reforms in all facets of life. Both in the field of private law and in the sphere of public law western codes were adopted. The Swiss Civil Code and Code of Obligations which included the law of persons, family law, succession, property, contracts, torts and unjust enrichment were adopted in 1926 with some minor revisions. In 1929 the Turkish Code of Execution and Bankruptcy was adopted from the Swiss Federal Code, which was later changed in 1965 to fit the changing economic and commercial requirements of the Turkish context. In 1926 the Criminal Code was adopted from the Italian Criminal Code, and was later modified several times. Codes of administrative law were mainly adopted from France.

In Turkish society, individuals must be at least 18 years old in order to hold public offices, to attain legal status as an adult, and to get married. Cohabitation of couples living together without marriage is generally viewed unacceptable. Yet a sizable proportion of couples in the country, especially those in the rural areas, are not legally married, but have only the religious marriage. The religious marriage does not have any written document, and thus is not subject to the legal restrictions of the laws. It only takes place with the presence of the couple and two witnesses. Similarly, while laws do not permit a man to have multiple wives, it is common practice, especially in rural areas for men to have multiple wives, by religious marriages. In the case of legal marriages, when the marriage ends with a divorce, laws favor males. These practices portray the low levels of gender egalitarianism that is prevalent in society.

While societal requirements for order and consistency are spelled out by rules and laws in many cases, some of them are overridden by religious laws and traditions. Written laws prepared under the influence of western laws, mainly in the early years of the Republic, represent a need for westernization of the country and breaking the ties with the past which represent the religious state. However, we often see a dual structure and mixed applications in society. While some parts of society which aspire for westernization adhere to the rules and laws of the Kemalist ideology and state, other subcultures in society, mainly the rural and lower socioeconomic groups in the urban areas prefer to rely on the traditions.

At the societal level, a strong reliance on ideology and belief systems is observed in an effort to move towards a western state guided by the Kemalist ideology. In addition, political leaders often emphasize their reliance on traditions that represent the requirements of the Islam religion. For example, they portray themselves as going to mosques or fastening during Ramadan. The duality between the emphasis on traditions and the west is observed at the societal level and the behaviors of the leaders.

As an indication of reliance on ideology, it is the regular procedure that all urban locations have the statue of Ataturk and the main avenue is called Ataturk boulevard. In the larger cities, airports, stadiums, museums, concert halls and smaller avenues carry the names of either Ataturk or other prominent leaders that have promoted the Kemalist ideology. We find public symbols of recognition of living leaders, such as their pictures on stamps or their names given to avenues in the central parts of the city, to a much lesser extent. Once they are dead, they are honored with public symbols of recognition.

E. Family Life:

Turkish society as well as organizations in the society are characterized by a strong tendency towards collectivism. In a cross-cultural study on values, Turkish respondents, who were randomly selected from all parts of the country, indicated that they mainly trust their family members, while they do not basically trust non-family members (Erguder, Esmer, and Kalaycýoglu, 1991). This finding is a strong indicator of collectivism that is prevalent in society. Only 10% of the respondents indicated that they would trust most people. 90% of the respondents indicated that while having any type of relationship or doing business with other people they would always be careful about the relationship. In addition to the family, religion seems to be another important institution that people trust, although not the second most trusted. Among the most trusted institutions, the Turkish military seems to rank second, followed by religion. The parliament and the court receive some trust, while the media, unions, large corporations, and government officials rank very low in terms of trust.

Family members, rather than professionals, constitute the top management of even large holding companies. While the domination of family members, rather than professionals, in management can partly be explained by state-organization relationships, it can also be explained by the highly collectivist characteristic of Turkish society.

Commercial advertising in the country predominantly has collective appeal - appeal to the family rather than to individualistic values. In their socialization, children are taught to support and help their friends and families rather than to be self reliant or fending for oneself. In Turkish society there is commonly an interdependent relationship between the children and the family. As a part of this interdependence the family is always available to support the children when needed. Children are generally encouraged by their parents to engage mostly in team sports such as soccer or basketball, rather than individual competitive sports. It is common practice that older members of families arrange marriages for the younger members of their families. Unmarried/widowed adults or elderly parents commonly live with their families and eating practices are collectivist, such as communal dishes, collective food purchasing, and cost sharing. Important personal problems are solved by seeking help from the family.

In addition to strong collectivist tendencies in the family life, there is also strong assertiveness, mainly on the part of the males. They are mostly dominant and authoritarian towards their wives and children. In addition, mother-in-laws practice dominance over their daughter-in-laws after their sons get married.

F. Gender Differences:

The overall Human Development Index (HDI) score of males is 0.824, while females have a much lower HDI value, which is 0.648. On the other hand, in 1995, Turkey's ranking in terms of its Gender Development Index (GDI) was higher than its HDI ranking: 45th as opposed to 66th among 130 countries. Furthermore, Turkey has been one of the few countries whose GDI improved at a very high rate during the period 1970-1992 (UNDP, Human Development Report, 1995). The average non-agricultural wage of Turkish women is 84.5% of men's: Turkey ranks 11th out of 55 countries in terms of women’s relative wage, above many developed nations of the world. On the other hand, there is a huge variation between the intra-family status of women in rural settings and urban women in professional/managerial occupations (Kagýtcýbasý, 1982). Such wide variation was not found in the 8 countries where the same study was conducted .

Parallel with this finding, Turkish women's representation in highly prestigious professions is very high, much higher than the most developed nations of the world. In the 1990s Turkish women constitute 32% of academics, 60% of pharmacists, 19% of physicians, 30 % of dentists, and 34 % of lawyers (Acar, 1991; Gunluk-Senesen, 1994; Koray, 1991). On the other hand, women's representation in the urban labor force is quite low: In 1995 only 15.5 % of the urban work force is women (SIS, 1996. p.37). These statistics portray the huge variation in the status of women with different socio-economic backgrounds.

In Turkish society the social differences between women and men lie primarily in the area of what they are expected to "do". More specifically, women are expected to engage in activities that are inside the house or the organization, basically in support roles. On the other hand, men engage in activities that require relationships with the outside. In another perspective, women are more in support activities, while men are more in positions of power and decision making. Beyond the differences in what they are expected to do, few sex-role stereotypes exist. In a study of sex-role stereotypes, high school students of both sexes judged the desirability of personality characteristics for women and a men (Gurbuz, 1988). Accordingly, for six socially desirable characteristics, "ambitious", "analytical”, “forceful", "rash", "insists on one's rights", "enterprising", and three socially undesirable characteristics, "dominant", "jealous", "autonomous" were identified as masculine traits. Four socially desirable characteristics, "loves children", "dependent", "elegant", and "thrifty", and five socially undesirable characteristics, "submissive", "cowardly", "weak", "insecure", and "naive" were identified as feminine. It can be seen from the results of this study that femininity is associated with more negative attributes than masculinity, which is in line with low gender egalitarianism that is obtained by the GLOBE scales.

As signs of differentiation between men and women in terms of what they can "do", in Turkish society men can marry multiple wives by religious marriages (more common in rural areas and in lower socioeconomic groups), while women can have only a single husband; women cannot serve in the army in combat roles; women predominantly work in jobs that have lower status and that are related to home making, child caring, caring for others and servicing others.

On the other hand, socioeconomic status is a more important status source than gender and women with high socioeconomic origins are often employed in high status professions (Kabasakal and Ozugur, 1997).

G. Work Life:

In Turkish companies, hierarchy is the way to exercise leadership. Respect for authority is important. High power distance between superiors and subordinates does not allow for equality neither in wealth nor in decision-making. A one man show prevails; thus there is less dialogue between management and employees. In a study conducted by Esmer (1997) among 4824 people from all regions of Turkey, working respondents were asked to evaluate the styles of managers whom they are familiar with as well as their preferred management styles. Responses show that the most dominant management style was authoritarian (53%), followed by paternalistic (25%), consultative (13.6%), and democratic (8.5%). On the other hand, the most preferred style was consultative (35.2%), followed by paternalistic (28.9%), democratic (25.6%), and authoritarian (10.3%).

The high power distance prevalent in the society makes democratic leadership a rare practice. Furthermore due to the huge inequality between managers and subordinates, most people do not even expect their managers to have a democratic style. In some sense employees expect management to make decisions, but they prefer that the manager asks their opinion before making a decision. The second most preferred style of paternalistic leadership is rooted in the patronage relationship of the feudal system. The leaders would have a wholistic and benevolent concern for employees in return for absolute loyalty and unquestioned obedience.

While the legal employment age in Turkey is 18 years, children below 16 occasionally work full-time instead of going to school. There are business establishments where you would frequently see many workers who are children. There is a big informal sector which employs children workers by paying them very low wages and provide no social security. These observations are in line with the relatively low levels of humane orientation that is prevalent in society. In line with a low level of humane orientation, although the laws require the companies to employ handicapped people, the law is not enforced. Neither does the government provide special assistance to the handicapped.

Following the Second World War, Turkey’s labor market experienced two major changes (Ozar, 1994). First, a sizable group of villagers were made redundant by the mechanization of agriculture, and massive migration to urban areas resulted in the fast growth of the urban labor force. Second, industry experienced high growth rates in the 1960s and 1970s. As a consequence, the non-agricultural labor force grew at a rate of 4.2% per year while the agricultural labor fell from 77.3% in 1955 to 58.9% in 1980.

However, the rate of growth in industry is not sufficient to employ the surplus labor in the formal sector. A sizable body of the people who migrated to the urban areas are engaged in informal activities or are unemployed. The formal non-agricultural employment opportunities is much lower for women than men.

Based on the 1990 statistics 43.7% of females and 83.3% of males at age 15 and over are employed. (SIS, Statistical Indicators, 1923-1990). In urban areas, 14.8% of the women above the age of 12 and 72.6% of the men were working. The overall employment figures show that a limited number of women have wage work in urban settings. Furthermore, there is polarization in the female urban wage work between professionals, administrators, clerical workers and other workers in nonagricultural production (Ozbay, 1994). Professionals and white collar workers have on the average11 years or more of formal education. The majority of the less educated women are young and unmarried, and often leave work after they get married.

The representation of women in highly prestigious professional jobs, such as medical doctors, lawyers, and university professors is quite high (28%) (SIS, 1990). These statistics portray the fact that gender segregation in employment is stronger among the lower socio-economic groups of the society. In another perspective, socio-economic origin is a stronger indicator of status than gender in Turkish society (Kabasakal and Ozugur, 1997).

1. Performance Appraisal System:

Some of the major companies in Turkey use formal performance appraisal systems, sometimes only as a lip service. Financial organizations conduct performance appraisals on a wider basis compared to food processing ones. However, the process of using performance appraisal systems is very difficult. Sometimes, there are protests by the employees, like wearing only a black dress and not going to lunch at the end of the evaluation process. Companies grant promotions to individuals based on both performance excellence and social behavior, personal contacts, and family background. However, the emphasis is less on performance excellence. At our university in 1997 the upper administration on a voluntary basis wanted to conduct performance evaluation of faculty members for their teaching to serve the purpose of selecting the best teacher of the year. The process was voluntary, and the faculty members who wanted to be evaluated had to indicate so to the upper administration. 25% of the departments rejected being included in the evaluation process. Of the remaining departments a small percentage of the faculty members applied for evaluation. There has been heated debates in the instructor's forum about the issue. Faculty are not used to receiving regular feedback about their scholarly performance. These observations are in parallel with the quantitative results of the GLOBE study which indicate that a relatively low level of performance orientation is prevalent in Turkish society and organizations.

2. Entrepreneurship:

Entrepreneurship carries a moderate level of prestige in the country. Historically, before the establishment of the Republic and in its early years, entrepreneurship carried a very low level of esteem in society. Being a government official or a military official was more prestigious. Entrepreneurial activities were primarily in the domain of the minority groups, such as Jewish, Armenian, or Greek citizens. However, recently, especially after the 1980s, entrepreneurship gained much more prestige in society. Despite the trend toward a higher prestige of entrepreneurhip, individuals are not expected to take individual initiatives to make opportunities for themselves. These observations indicate that there is a low level of performance orientation in society.

IV. TURKISH SOCIETY AND GLOBE DIMENSIONS

In this section, the results of the survey conducted with 323 middle level managers from the financial and food processing sectors are presented. Table 1 portrays the characteristics of the sampled managers.

This section of the questionnaire probed about the beliefs of the respondents with respect to "how are" the current norms, values and practices and "how they should be" in their society. In both sections of the questionnaire, a series of 7-point Likert scale statements were given to the respondents. The items were categorized into eight dimensions. Table 2 portrays inter-country societal “as is” and “should be” rankings.

According to the inter country societal “as is” rankings, Turkey is below the world average on gender egalitarianism (55th), uncertainty avoidance (49th), performance orientation (45th), humane orientation (40th), and future orientation (35th), whereas it is higher in collectivism (4th), power distance (10th), and assertiveness (11th).

When inter country societal “should be” ratings are viewed, it is seen that Turkey is below world average in performance orientation (57th), assertiveness (54th), power distance (51th), and gender egalitarianism (37th), whereas it is higher in future orientation (16th), collectivism (22nd), humane orientation (25th), and uncertainty avoidance (33rd).

The beliefs of the Turkish middle level managers regarding "how their society is" portray strong tendencies for some of the societal culture dimensions. The highest mean response for societal culture is attributed to collectivism. Secondly, Turkish society is evaluated as having high power distance, and finally it has high scores in assertiveness.

On average, the preferences of middle managers regarding "how society should be" are more intense compared to their beliefs about "how it is". Managers would like their society to be much more future oriented (t=5.86), performance oriented (t=11.87),

gender egalitarian (t= 12.40), humane oriented (t=11.38), uncertainty avoiding (t=7.29), and have much less power distance (t=-26.66) and assertiveness (t=-13.72). On the other hand, the preferred level of collectivism is as high as the actual level of collectivism in society. Differences between the actual and normative societal level descriptions of Turkish cultures are verified by t-tests which are statistically significant at p ................
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