Zafer Development Agency in the context of networks, governance and regional development: A social network analysis study

The main focus of this thesis is to determine the collaboration between institutions in the TR33 Region through social network analysis, and to reveal the effectiveness of Zafer Development Agency (ZKA) in establishing inter-institutional cooperation and network relations with interview data. In this thesis, questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were conducted with 43 institution managers or officials related to the ZKA, consisting of the members of the Board of Directors of the Agency and the latest Development Board members, located in the provincial centers of the TR33 Region (Afyonkarahisar, Kütahya, Manisa, Uşak). In order to reveal their collaboration network relations, the officials of these institutions were asked with which institutions they have contacted regarding regional development, exchanged information and resources, made projects and which institutions they trust. The data obtained from the questions were analyzed in UCINET 6 and Gephi programs and the cooperation network relations of the region were analyzed. Collaboration networks analyzed as communication, information, resource, project and trust subnets. Social network analysis was used as a data analysis technique. The data obtained from the semi-structured interview forms reflecting the perceptions and views of the institutions in the background of the collaboration networks of the region were analyzed thematically and compared with the data of the social network analysis. According to the results of the research, ZKA is located in the center of the networks in terms of the degree centrality, Governorships, Chambers of Commerce and Industry and Special Provincial Administrations in terms of betweenness centrality in all collaboration networks. Public and local governments institutions are outnumbered in all of the analyzed networks. Institutions prefer to collaborate with institutions in their own provinces rather than cooperating with institutions in other provinces of the region. While there is limited collaboration among institutions in Afyonkarahisar, Kütahya and Uşak provinces, institutions in Manisa mostly do not collaborate with other provinces of the region. Institutions and organizations in the industry and education sector mostly collaborate in the region. Since the members of the Public-Industry-University Cooperation (KUSI) platform are the institutions that interact most closely with the Agency, these institutions collaborate with the Agency. Institutions mostly interact with the Agency to benefit from the its project grants. The agency is perceived by many of the regional actors as grant giving organizations. While actors located at the center of collaboration networks can easily access the agency, actors at the periphery of the networks have difficulty interacting with the agency. The agency does not have a network strategy to develop regional governance and collaboration. The agency provides coordination between institutions in establishing a collaboration network of actors directly or indirectly related to the industrial sector in the region. Regional development is not achieved based on regional governance structures that encompass all actors in the region. Although the agency provides the regional governance mechanism in terms of certain sectors, it cannot achieve success in carrying out a governance process that covers all public, private and non-governmental organizations.