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Countervailing institutional forces: corporate governance in Turkish family business groups

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Abstract

This longitudinal study investigates the impact of national and international pressures to improve corporate governance in an emerging economy from an institutional theory perspective. Recently, family business groups (FBGs), the dominant form of organizing in emerging economies, have been criticized by policy makers for their poor governance structures. A common recommendation to FBGs has been increasing the number of independent, outsider directors on their boards. Thus, change in the board compositions of the quoted subsidiaries of the six biggest FBGs is analyzed over 2002–2006. One-way-ANOVA and t-tests were used as statistical tools. Findings reveal that there has not been a statistically significant change in board compositions over the research period. FBGs were found to resist institutional pressures through ‘avoidance’, ‘defiance’ and “manipulation” strategies due to the absence of coercive pressures and multiple forms of ‘institutional work’ for change.

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Notes

  1. Quoted firms which have fewer than 10 employees were not included in the sample.

  2. We would like to thank to one of the anonymous reviewers for raising up this possibility.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of International Trade, Bogazici University, Hisar Campus, 34342, Bebek/Istanbul, Turkey

    N. Nisan Selekler-Goksen & Özlem Yildirim Öktem

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  1. N. Nisan Selekler-Goksen
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  2. Özlem Yildirim Öktem
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Correspondence to N. Nisan Selekler-Goksen.

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Selekler-Goksen, N.N., Yildirim Öktem, Ö. Countervailing institutional forces: corporate governance in Turkish family business groups. J Manag Gov 13, 193–213 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10997-009-9083-z

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