Beyza Oba

Antecedents of trust in industrial districts: an empirical analysis of inter-firm relations in a Turkish industrial district

Structural features and institutional settings of industrial districts, rather than contracts as a co-coordinating mechanism, promote trust in exchanges between firms in industrial districts. Based on this assumption, the paper explores the antecedents of trust in a Turkish industrial district at three levels: institutional environment; institutional arrangements; and inter-firm exchanges. In relation to institutional environment, dominant institutions of the Turkish economy – mainly state and finance – and their policies that undermine the role of SMEs in economic development are studied. In this context a third institution, the ‘district association’ that has a vital role in promoting trust-based governance has been analysed. At the second level, formal and informal institutional arrangements that govern the web of exchanges between firms are surveyed. The third level of analysis is directed at entrepreneurs and their attitudes towards family, friendship, expertise and reputation are studied. The research site is the Merter textile district in Istanbul. Data for second and third levels of analysis has been collected through structured interviews and is analysed quantitatively. For institutions and institutional environment, data has been collected mainly by in-depth interviews and is supported by secondary data. Research findings show that informal institutional arrangements are more important than formal arrangements and reputation and expertise of the other firm is more important than family-friendship connections as antecedents of trust.

Power in the boardroom: a study on Turkish family-owned and listed companies

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to understand the power dynamics of the boards of directors in family‐owned and listed Turkish companies. Power and dominance in the boardroom can be studied in relation to three variables: the institutional environment in which the firm is embedded; the structural configurations of the board; and the top managers propensity to exercise his/her power resources. Focusing on the board level, this paper aims to conceptualize power dynamics as being composed of structural attributes, roles assumed, responsibilities, dependency and representation.Design/methodology/approach – The research domain of this exploratory study is family‐owned and listed companies operating on the Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE). The data for the study were collected from three different sources: a survey administered to members of the boards of directors; discourse analysis of corporate governance compliance reports of the same companies; and in‐depth interviews conducted with board members.Find...

Organising the digital commons: a case study on engagement strategies in open source

In this paper we develop a conceptual framework for understanding the co-evolution of a virtual community and a hybrid governance regime. The research site is the Eclipse software development community led by IBM and based on data collected from activities of community members, we examine the attempts of participants to construct and refine a hybrid governance structure while developing and expanding the community. Drawing on strategy-as-practice approach and institutional theory, we bring arguments at two instances of this co-evolution process: the initiation and enactment. For the initiation of the community we argue that, beyond market-driven considerations, tensions and polarisation in the existing proprietary regimes, governance structures, and philosophies promote new practices. For the establishment process we emphasise the role of member-driven horizontal and vertical structural adjustments, and the maintenance of open-source developer spirit.

Board structure in listed firms: evidence from an emerging economy

Purpose – This paper aims to understand the determinants of board structure of listed firms at institutional, industry and firm levels within an emerging economy. At the institutional level, the paper explores laws, managerial culture and the role of state in instituting and endorsing corporate governance practices. At the firm level, ownership patterns (family and non-family), experience in the capital markets, age and size of the firms are studied to find out the relation between these variables and the board structure. Design/methodology/approach – The research domain of the study is listed firms operating on the Istanbul Stock Exchange. The data for the study are collected at two phases; at the first phase, compliance reports, annual reports, articles of association and annual shareholders’ meeting reports of each firm in the sample are analyzed. At the second stage, secondary data are used for understanding the dynamics of Turkish institutional context. Findings – The results of this study reveal tha...

Perceptions on F/OSS Adoption

This paper aims to reveal results of a survey run by the tOSSad1 project. The majority of survey variables devised to capture perception of public administrators around Europe regarding the importance they attach to the factors such as F/OSS product quality, availability of support, expertise and documentation, TCO, vendor lock-in, political influence, administrative attitudes, productivity, and training costs, all of which intermingle with financial, technical, legal, and personal issues. The analysis consist of depiction of respondents’ administration profile in terms of their F/OSS usage and adoption, descriptive summary and analyses of factors mentioned above, and statistical inferential analyses of survey items. Some valid statistical tests are conducted to understand, to discuss and to see the extend and significance of any F/OSS adoption generalizations for Europe based on the findings of this particular survey.

Organization of Internet Standards

In this study we look at a body of standards documents in RFCs(Request For Comments) of IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force). The cross references between these documents form a network. Approaches from social network analysis are deployed to assess centrality of artifacts in this network and identify cohesive subgroups and levels of cohesion. Our results demonstrate major groups centered around key standard tracks, and application of network metrics reflect different levels of cohesion for these groups. As application of these techniques in such domains is unusual, possible uses in open source projects for strategizing are discussed.

Taming of 'Openness' in Software Innovation Systems

In large-scale open source software OSS innovation ecosystems that incorporate firms, a variety of measures are taken to tame the potentially chaotic activities and align the contributions of various participants with the strategic priorities of major stakeholders. Such taming rests on the dual desires of this emergent community of firms to unleash the innovation potential of OSS and to drive it to a certain direction, and it emerges in the form of various organizational activities. By drawing on a sample of large-scale OSS ecosystems, the authors discuss that methods employed for taming are isomorphic, and overview the emerging strategic pattern for establishing systems of innovation. This pattern involves a related set of practices to balance virtues of OSS community while introducing corporate discipline. In contrast to approaches such as open innovation, which favor isolated reasoning, they present a systemic and historical perspective to explain the continuum in emergence and establishment of strategic patterns.

Open Innovation Ecosystems in the Software Industry

Computers have an increasing variety of uses in virtually every aspect of our personal life and work-related activities. Children from early ages play games on tablets, Grandma uses a small digital device to track her blood pressure, and parents work with smartphones and laptops during their commutes. A common characteristic of computers is that, for the most part, they rely on software to accommodate different uses.