Owners and salaried managers in large Turkish enterprises

Official URL: https://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9780429031182-8

This chapter examines the nature of the relationship between owner families and high-level salaried managers in Turkish family business groups. The empirical material for the qualitative study comes from 44 memoirs, biographies and life-story interviews published between 1973 and 2016 written by or about founders and senior salaried managers. These sources pertain altogether to 19 family business groups, fourteen of which are among the largest in the country. Inductive analysis yielded three overarching themes. (1) Owners and salaried managers as distinct categories of actors. (2) Salaried managers in between family domination and pursuit of power and influence. (3) Owners in between domination and sharing power. The core argument that the chapter develops is that the Turkish family business group and the relationships between owner families and salaried managers have been and continue to be shaped by the interplay and tensions among the institutional logics of entrepreneurship, family and corporation. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the theoretical implications of the findings and their relevance for family business groups in other societal contexts.