IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hbs/wpaper/15-035.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Entrepreneurship and Business Groups: An Evolutionary Perspective on the Growth of the Koç Group in Turkey

Author

Listed:
  • Asli M. Colpan

    (Kyoto University, Graduate School of Management)

  • Geoffrey G. Jones

    (Harvard Business School, General Management Unit)

Abstract

This working paper examines the origins and development of the Koç Group, which grew to be the largest business group in Turkey. This enterprise was an important actor in the emergence of modern business enterprise in the new state of the Republic of Turkey from the 1920s. After World War II it diversified rapidly, forming part of a cluster of business groups which dominated the Turkish economy alongside state-owned firms. This study shows how the founder of the Group, Vehbi Koç, formulated his business model, and analyzes how his firm evolved into a diversified business group. The research supports prevailing explanations of business groups which identify the role of institutional voids, government policies and contact capabilities, but it also builds on and extends earlier suggestions in both the management and business history literatures that entrepreneurship needs incorporating more strongly as an explanatory factor. This working paper argues that Koç acted as both a Kirznerian and Schumpeterian entrepreneur to build his business group, both in its formative stages and later in its subsequent growth into a diversified group.

Suggested Citation

  • Asli M. Colpan & Geoffrey G. Jones, 2014. "Entrepreneurship and Business Groups: An Evolutionary Perspective on the Growth of the Koç Group in Turkey," Harvard Business School Working Papers 15-035, Harvard Business School.
  • Handle: RePEc:hbs:wpaper:15-035
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/pages/download.aspx?name=15-035.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jones, Geoffrey, 2000. "Merchants to Multinationals: British Trading Companies in the 19th and 20th Centuries," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198294504.
    2. Merih Celâsun & Dani Rodrik, 1989. "Turkish Experience with Debt: Macroeconomic Policy and Performance," NBER Chapters, in: Developing Country Debt and the World Economy, pages 193-211, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Geoffrey Jones, 2013. "Entrepreneurship and Multinationals," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 15079.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Teresa da Silva Lopes & Mark Casson & Geoffrey Jones, 2019. "Organizational innovation in the multinational enterprise: Internalization theory and business history," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 50(8), pages 1338-1358, October.
    2. Andrew David Allan Smith, 2014. "A successful British MNE in the backyard of American big business: Explaining the performance of the American and Canadian subsidiaries of Lever Brothers 1888-1914," Business History, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 56(2), pages 135-160, March.
    3. Apicha Chutipongpisit, 2022. "The Siamese rice trade during the interwar years: Trade pattern, crisis and business survival," Australian Economic History Review, Economic History Society of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 62(3), pages 211-233, November.
    4. Andrew Dilley, 2010. "‘The rules of the game’: London finance, Australia, and Canada, c.1900–14," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 63(4), pages 1003-1031, November.
    5. Hinh T. Dinh, 2017. "Jobs, Industrialization, and Globalization," Books & Reports, Policy Center for the New South, number 22, October.
    6. Mahdi Tajeddin & Michael Carney, 2019. "African Business Groups: How Does Group Affiliation Improve SMEs’ Export Intensity?," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 43(6), pages 1194-1222, November.
    7. Asli M. Colpan & Takashi Hikino, 2016. "Diversified Business Groups in the West: History and Theory," Harvard Business School Working Papers 17-035, Harvard Business School.
    8. Aldunate, Felipe & González, Felipe & Prem, Mounu & Urzúa, Francisco, 2020. "Privatization and business groups: Evidence from the Chicago Boys in Chile," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    9. Erdal Karagol, 2002. "The Causality Analysis of External Debt Service and GNP : The Case of Turkey," Central Bank Review, Research and Monetary Policy Department, Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey, vol. 2(1), pages 39-64.
    10. Yan-Jie Yang & Jungpao Kang & Ruey-Ching Lin & Joshua Ronen, 2016. "Auditor selection within a business group: evidence from Taiwan," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 46(2), pages 195-215, February.
    11. Miguel Á. López-Morell & José M. O'kean, 2014. "Rothschilds' strategies in international non-ferrous metals markets, 1830–1940," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 67(3), pages 720-749, August.
    12. Ryo Izawa, 2018. "Corporate Structural Change for Tax Avoidance: British Multinational Enterprises and International Double Taxation between the First and Second World Wars," Discussion Papers CRR Discussion Paper Series A: General 33, Shiga University, Faculty of Economics,Center for Risk Research.
    13. Len J Treviño & Jonathan P Doh, 2021. "Internationalization of the firm: A discourse-based view," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 52(7), pages 1375-1393, September.
    14. Stephen C. Nelson & Geoffrey P. R. Wallace, 2017. "Are IMF lending programs good or bad for democracy?," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 12(4), pages 523-558, December.
    15. Peter J. Buckley, 2016. "Historical Research Approaches to the Analysis of Internationalisation," Management International Review, Springer, vol. 56(6), pages 879-900, December.
    16. Barnard, Helena & Luiz, John M., 2018. "Escape FDI and the dynamics of a cumulative process of institutional misalignment and contestation: Stress, strain and failure," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 53(5), pages 605-619.
    17. Croucher, Richard & Rizov, Marian, 2015. "MNEs and flexible working practices in Mauritius," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 26(21), pages 2701-2717.
    18. Geoffrey G. Jones, 2015. "Business Groups Exist in Developed Markets Also: Britain Since 1850," Harvard Business School Working Papers 16-066, Harvard Business School.
    19. Maria Carmela Schisani & Francesca Caiazzo, 2016. "Networks of power and networks of capital: evidence from a peripheral area of the first globalisation. The energy sector in Naples: from gas to electricity (1862-1919)," Business History, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 58(2), pages 207-243, March.
    20. Michael Aldous, 2017. "Rehabilitating the intermediary: brokers and auctioneers in the nineteenth-century Anglo-Indian trade," Business History, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 59(4), pages 525-553, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    business groups; Turkey; Entrepreneurship in emerging markets.;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hbs:wpaper:15-035. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: HBS (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/harbsus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.