Studies concerning the activities of foreign-owned firms in developing countries generally conclude that these firms act differently from their local counterparts in the way of handling their labour relations. In order to find out if this is the case, we have compared the employment generation activities, pay and benefit practices, manpower utilisation, education and training activities, and industrial relations applications of foreign-owned and domestic firms operating in Turkish manufacturing. The major implication of our findings is that foreign-owned and indigenous firms, generally speaking, do not behave differently. The employment generation activities, wage and benefit systems, human resource management, and industrial relation practices of these two sets of firms do not differ significantly. This, we believe, can be attributed to several factors. First, unlike many other studies in this field, we controlled certain variables, such as size, industry, and geographical location. It is found that these variables have enormous effect over existing differences. The second implication of our findings is that the structure of local capital and its relations with foreign capital exert great influence over the patterns of the operations of foreign-owned subsidiaries. The majority of the local firms which are included in our sample belong to a few large 'economic groups'. These economic groups have strong ties with foreign capital, and therefore have the opportunity to develop a strategy of adapting production techniques and managerial behaviour of their foreign partners. This tactic further reduces the possibility of acting these two sets of firms differently. Third, in certain areas governmental policies and legal environment appeared the most important factors determining foreign and local firms behaviour. The detailed nature of Turkish labour and trade unions laws force the firms, regardless of their nationality, to behave similarly. Overall, this study suggests that apart from 'firm-specific factors', equally important are the 'country-specific factors' which have influence over the characteristics of the operations of foreign-owned subsidiaries. Governments' attitudes towards foreign capital, the economic development level of host economies, the structure of domestic industry, and the ability of local firms to deal with their foreign counterparts significantly affect the nature of foreign operations.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:674506 |
| Date | January 1996 |
| Creators | Coskun, Recai |
| Publisher | University of Leicester |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://hdl.handle.net/2381/35473 |
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