Structural differenciation depending on national business systems: Koç Holding and General Motors cases

In this study, I analyzed how and why large corporations in Turkey and the United States have similarly followed diversification strategy, although two countries have had considerable different business systems characteristics, but have ended up with different organizational forms, i.e. family holding and multidivisional structure. To this end, I first compare family holding and multidivisional form in terms of strategy and organizational form. Second, I attempt to find out the antecedents of the strategic and structural differences between two forms by comparing national business systems characteristics of Turkey and the United States from the historical institutional perspective. Third, analyzing qualitatively two large corporations, Koç Holding and General Motors, as the representative cases of Turkish and American business environments, I attempt to explore the historical conditions that led two corporations to adopt similar strategies but different organizational forms. The findings of the study indicate that the unrelated diversification strategy adopted by Koç Holding and General Motors differs in terms of scope and quality. The study finding also showed that the adopted organizational forms family holding and multidivisional forms fulfill different functional expectations for the study cases. Additionally, findings of the study revealed that the antecedents of both the adopted strategy and the structure differs for Koç Holding and General Motors.