A qualitave research about the effect of financial system as central i̇nstitutions and government policy and practices on export performance of small and medium size enterprises

The main aim of our thesis was to try to find out "what kinds of effects the state and financial system, that are two central institutions, have on export activities and performance of the companies in Turkey". For this purpose, the study consist of three parts. In the first section, it was aimed to perform a rich literature review on institutional theory and to provide general information about institution, institutionalization, basic theory of institutional theory, old and new institutional theory, the concept of environment, uniformity mechanisms and institutional elements that provide a basis for institutional theory. After a general infrastructure was created in the first section, "the institutional structure of business system" was discussed, and the relationships between the state, financial systems, skill development and control system, trust-authority, that are called as "national business system" by Whitley, were examined in detail under four main headings in the second section that would constitute the basis of our research questions. From fundamentally of these "the state" and "financial systems", which are directly related with our topic, is emphasized. After these systems were examined, it was focused on the way these systems are implemented in Turkey in particular, and their effectiveness. Our third and the last section is the empirical part of the thesis. For the purposesof the study, interviews with senior managers of firms in export activities in turkey were carried out and the data were callected. In this section, at first, what kinds of effects the state and its institutions have on export activity was examined, and it was focused on to what extent financial systems have effects on export activities and performance of the companies. Then, after explaining to what extent intermediary institutions are effective, the effect of foreign policy on export activities was investigated, and finally, some inferences were made using the inductive method based on the data obtained. According to the findings of researhes and data analysis, it is seen that the foreign policy of state, foundations and the state directly or indirectly affect the state and financial systems are an important factor on the export performance of firms. ıt has been concluded that some companies benefit from brokerage effectively and some companies do not use any brokerage