Title: A taxonomy of manager/owner characteristics: case study research on Turkish born global firms

Authors: Ece Konaklioglu; M. Mithat Uner

Addresses: Faculty of Tourism, Gazi University, Golbasi, 06830, Ankara, Turkey ' Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Incitas Sok. No. 4, Besevler, 06500, Ankara, Turkey

Abstract: A new phenomenon, against the process approaches of internationalisation, born globals show that firms can be global short after their inception attracts most of the researchers' attention in the last two decades. The most denominators in born global research are probably the importance of the entrepreneur and managerial characteristics. Researches on born globals stress the role of managerial characteristics as influences on the export behaviour of the firm. Therefore, the objective of this study is to identify and analyse the common characteristics and behaviours of entrepreneurs and managers that affect the establishment of born global firms in Turkey. The study was designed to be qualitative in nature. It provides empirical qualitative data through case studies so that insights can be obtained directly from the entrepreneurs/managers. The samples consist of six born global firms from Ankara-Turkey. Obtained characteristics presented in a tree diagram, were classified through taxonomy. When the results of this study compared with the previous studies, there were both common and some different characteristics about entrepreneurs of born global firms of Turkey as an emerging economy in Asia. In this respect, we suppose that, the study contributed critically to the born global literature.

Keywords: internationalisation; born globals; owner-manager characteristics; case study; taxonomy; Turkey; qualitative research; tree diagrams; entrepreneurs; entrepreneurship; managers.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBG.2014.059463

International Journal of Business and Globalisation, 2014 Vol.12 No.2, pp.218 - 236

Published online: 16 Jun 2014 *

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