Preaching, Teaching and Researching at the Periphery:Academic Management Literature in Turkey, 1970—1999

Abstract

Internationally accessible academic literature in management has been dominated very largely by contributions originating from the USA. Although this state of imbalance has attracted some discussion, little systematic research exists on scholarly activity in a large majority of countries that have limited presence in international academic outlets. To this end, we investigated the academic literature produced in Turkey over the last three decades, as an example of a country located at the periphery of management scholarship and where the management discipline developed under strong US influence. Based on a content analysis of articles published in local and international academic journals, cluster-analytic results indicated that the predominant form of scholarly output comprised a practice-oriented, nonempirical, de-contextualized literature, which served to transport American theories and practices to domestic audiences. The limitedly adopted scientific model manifested marginally greater interest in the local context. Further analysis showed that the type of university in which scholarly activity was carried out was highly significant. Academics working in American-modeled public and private universities were more likely to base their work on the scientific model imported wholesale from the USA. The post-1980 change in the institutional regime geared towards bringing Turkish higher education closer to American models and driving international publications, however, did not appear to have altered the overall panorama of scholarly activity in management, at least over a period of 15 years.