Health tourism stakeholder analysis in Turkey: An implementation of social network analysis approach in Ankara

Turkey health tourism is a multi-actor dynamic sector which is involving different actors in the public sector, private sector and civil society organizations and the academy. According to the stakeholder theory, the definition of stakeholders in inter-organizational relations and the relations of stakeholders with each other are great importance in terms of sectoral stakeholder analysis. The main goal of this study is to determine stakeholder's roles and positions of Ankara health tourism which is involving all the actors of public sector, private sector and civil society organizations and the universities by using social network analysis (SNA) method in stakeholder analysis. The data used in the research were collected from 107 stakeholders of the network of health tourism in Ankara via a survey designed specifically for this study. The computer programs SPSS 22.0, PAJEK ve UCINET 6.0 were used to analyse all the data. As a result of this research, social network analysis has analysed the degree centrality, betweenness centrality and closeness centrality of each stakeholder; it has been determined that Ministry of Health. is the network leader composed of 107 stakeholder of health tourism sector. In addition, its determined that the positions of the network actors in the work flow arrangement and the level of relationship / cooperation among the stakeholders are the actors such as leader-star, central actors, broker, gatekeeper, broadcaster and isolated. As a result of the analysis, the central figures (actors) are Ministry of Health, Ministry of Culture and Tourism and Ministry of Economy and have been identified as the leader-star actor Ministry of Health. The role of the broker in the network is the General Directorate of Public Hospitals; gatekeeper role is undertaken by STK 8; the broadcaster role is undertaken by the Ankara Provincial Health Directorate. In addition, the most isolated actor in the network is identified as the health tourism assistance company 7. In the Ankara's health tourism social network, the work flow relations of the public sector, private sector and civil society organizations and the universities have also been determined comparatively and sectoral shortcomings and network obstacles have been revealed. As a result, the output of this study will contribute to Turkey by giving clues about the health tourism sector which are considered. With social network analysis methods of health tourism stakeholders constituting Turkey for health tourism is different, revealing the complex relationships and sectoral deficiencies and industry that the detection is the developer recommendations presented are expected to contribute to the literature and industry. This study's stakeholder analysis in the field of health tourism is first in the literatüre by using the SNA method. It is thought that defining and analyzing different, complex relationships and suggesting sectoral deficiencies and sector-specific developments will contribute to the literatüre and to the sector. In this thesis it is important that examining the network centrality measures between stakeholders' relationship in terms of drawing attention to the importance of cooperation in Turkey's health tourism is first in the literature. It is thought that this study will contribute to the theory of stakeholder theory, social network theory and resource dependency theory by evaluating the results based on these theories. Keywords: Social Network Analysis, Stakeholder Analysis, Health Tourism, Medical Tourism, Social Network Theory.