The power of internationalization models in explaining the trends of internationalization of Turkish firms based on the role of social networks in internati̇onalization

There are two main purposes of this study. The first purpose out of these is to determine whether there is a common tendency when Turkish firms' internationalization tendencies are taken into account and to determine which model's arguments can explain the current trend. The second purpose of the research is to reveal the findings that which social network approach explains the way Turkish firms use social network by starting from the shaping effect of Turkish firms' internationalization activities. The directional questions of the research, general characteristics and the intention of the research lead the researcher to use interview as a data collection method. Within the framework of these research questions interviews were conducted with 8 internationalized Turkish firms. The analysis of the data collected by the interviews is done with the help of MAXQDA program. Based on the results of the analysis the propositions are formulated. The first group of propositions suggests that Turkish firms have a common set of internationalization trends and that the arguments of the Network approach to internationalization have a higher degree of clarity with regard to the tendency of Turkish firms to become internationalized. The second group of propositions suggests that social networks play an active role in the internationalization of Turkish firms and that The strength of weak ties within the social network approaches has the higher power in explaining the use of social network in Turkish firms.