Institutionalization of family business: A study on determining Mersin based family business about their attitudes and thoughts toward institutionalization

Family businesses are becoming one of the major study areas of privateorganizations. A sustainable growth and continuous existence for these organizationsdepends on a set of long lasting goals and formalization of their structure.Within this thought, we intended to analyze family businesses in the greater areasof Mersin city. The selections of companies were done from a list of firms registered toThe Chamber of Commerce & Industries of Mersin. The research population was about120 family firms which represent different sectors and businesses. Out of this 120, 59 ofthem responded to the questionnaires and the responses were seen as an enough numberin which a statistical tool can be implemented. Based on various analyses, the researchfindings indicate that: family businesses in Mersin carry some main characteristics offamily businesses which exist in all over world. The main difference seems to be thedegree of impact of values that effect family business in Mersin. It seems that mostfamily businesses reflect value systems of ?Clan? culture that is a common practice inmost organizations in the southern part of Turkey. Family members are seen responsibletoward each other in maintaining their economical existence. For this reason, mostlyfamily members are employed though they do not have the skills and abilities which arerequired by the work. Other findings also indicates that institutionalization oforganization is a difficult process because of the dominant family value. The valuesystem again mandates that family should be a responsible entity for meeting economicneeds of each family business. This is the one of basic problems faced by almost everyfamily owned business in Mersin.Key Words: Family, family owned business, institutionalization