Management Practices, Firm Performance, and Work-life Balance in Turkiye

The central hypothesis of this research is that there is a strong, positive correlation between good management practices and firm performance, for which we find strong evidence in a survey on management practices of Turkish manufacturing firms. To better understand this relationship, we investigated the drivers of firm heterogeneity in management practices. We find that product market competition and firm-level factors such as size, multinational status, work effort in the workforce, the level of managerial hierarchy, and ownership are significant determinants of management practices. We also find that family ownership and management are significant deterrents to good management practices and are strongly associated with declines in firm performance. Through this study, we also explored whether the adoption of better management practices comes at the expense of a good work-life balance. In this regard, we find that better-managed firms, in addition to attaining higher performance levels, provide better working conditions for their employees, resulting in improved employee well-being.