How Business Values Determine Lack Of Innovation & Petty Entrepreneurship: The Case Of Turkey

Abstract

The role of innovation in capitalist development has long been identified. For late industrializing countries, it is indispensable for achieving sustained economic growth. Turkey, as a late industrializer, has also faced serious difficulties in this regard. This paper demonstrates the significance of cultural values internalized by individuals for innovation and business attitudes. In a structure-agency setting, it argues that not only regulation through institutions and social norms but also the way economic agents comprehend modern values determine the scope of business attitude that permeates economy and society. In the Turkish context, the blend of modern (rationalistic) values with traditional ones creates a dilemma between social commitment and blatant opportunism, in time leading to the dominance of short-term profit making in the economy at the expense of societal rules and norms. By conducting linear regression analyses over a sample of 150 executive, middle and owner managers, the article demonstrates how cultural values affect innovativeness. In so doing, it unveils the relations between personality traits underlying the adoption of innovations and different cultural value characteristics.