Organizational elites in Turkey: Re-evaluation of elitism within the context of differences and effects of elites

The dissertation study was performed for the purpose of creating a new dimension to the Management and Organization field of study in general and organizational field of study in particular from the perspective of organizational elites. It is aimed at clarifying what kind of difference the organizational elites, whose impact on the organization literature is often ignored, contribute to the discussions ongoing in the concept of social network theory. Turkey was selected as the context for implementation and the findings to be obtained will reveal the dynamics of Turkey context through testing social network mechanisms. The basic elements generating the difference of the study and its contribution to literature are the polarizations based on the Islamic and secular ideology the effects of which have increased in Turkey particularly after 1980 and their effects on organizational life. Starting from this point, the implementation part of the study is made up of the organizational elites gathered in the axis of two different ideologies (organizational elites that come together around Islamic thought axis and secular/liberal organizational elites) and social networks belonging to them. Therefore, the unit of analysis of the study is composed of the individuals.A list of 445 elite candidates was prepared based on the American Forbes Magazine?s list of the wealthiest families that was used in several studies on elites and the list of 500 large private firms prepared based on the financial turnover of the firms by the Capital Magazine every year. In order to determine who the organizational elites are in this list of elite candidates of 445 people, a data set of ten variables that is collected under four headings (family capital, graduation from reputable education institutes, limited ? selected individual characteristics and Islamic network relationships) was generated. As a result of the scoring process performed over these variables, the organizational elites were determined. 48 actors (24 secular/liberal organizational elite, 24 organizational elite gathered together around the Islamic thought basis) the majority of which are from different families were chosen among the determined organizational elites and research practice was made by means of these people. For the purpose of identifying the network relationships of these 48 organizational elites, who have an important place in the country?s economy, the mutual acquaintance data were collected by means of investigating the secondary data sources and hypothesis regarding seven special cases that are put forth by the social network theory peculiar to Turkey context were tested.