The Influence of individual values on managerial practices: implications for the Turkish Business context

Abstract

The study aims to develop a map of values held by members of regional businessmen's associations in Turkey and to test the relationship of values to business network dimensions and to organizational practices in enterprises represented by these members. Organizational practices are also analyzed for their possible associations with firm-level characteristics and occupational descriptors conceptualized in an earlier phase of the study. The value dimensions specified for analyses are paternalism, conservatism, achievement, individualism, materialism, confrontation, risk taking, and novelty seeking. Values are measured through a 37-item Likert-type scale. Business network dimensions are derived after a three-step factor analysis of fourteen business contacts and eighteen managerial routines. Organizational practices are measured through a 26-item scale measuring six bipolar orientations, results-process orientation, job-employee orientation, professionalism-parochialism, closed-open system, tight-loose control, and pragmatic-normative orientation. Values used in the study can be collapsed into four major dimensions. Low levels of confrontation, low individualism, and high paternalism observed among mean scores for values verify the collectivistic characteristic of the Turkish culture. As expected, paternalism is associated with conservatism and these orientations tend to decrease with education. Findings suggest that six practice dimensions are too robust to explain organizational practices in the firms sampled. Collectively, however, practices strongly predict regional differences in socioeconomic development. Firms in underdeveloped regions are characterized with closed-system, job orientation, and pragmatism. Integration with a local network, on the other hand, signifies conservatism and materialism.