The Effect of Business Owners’/Leaders’ Cultural Values on The Strategic Behavior In Condition of Crisis: A Research on Small Enterprises In Istanbul Chamber of Industry

Authors

  • Binali Doğan Marmara University, Ressam Namik Ismail Sok. No:1 Bahcelievler ISTANBUL 34180, TURKEY
  • Ata Özdemirci Marmara University, Ressam Namik Ismail Sok. No:1 Bahcelievler ISTANBUL 34180, TURKEY

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18533/ijbsr.v2i2.188

Keywords:

Cultural values, strategic orientation, crisis management, uncertainty avoidance, internal orientation, external orientation

Abstract

During the last era in business strategy area, some theoretical and empiric studies were made about the role of culture on adopting strategies. These studies are mostly based on Miles and Snow’s strategy typology and Hofstede’s value groups. While in some of these works, culture is found as an important factor with other different factors on strategy formulation and adoption, some works defends that culture has a limited effect. The perspective of these works were based on the relationship between strategy and national culture or business culture and because of this difference, they have reached different results.

 

This study assumes that, “cultural values of business owners or leaders” effects “the perception difference of crisis as opportunities or threats” and also their “strategic behavior in the condition of crisis”. As he said, Hofstede’s uncertainty of avoidance scale is for multicultural researches, we preferred Voich’s “Uncertainty Avoidance” scale for focusing individuals. We also used Rotter’s “Internal/External Orientation” which is used by Trompenaars on the management area, are taken as dimensions of cultural values. We strongly assume that if the uncertainty avoidance of business owners or leaders is high and they are external oriented, they will perceive the condition of crisis as a threats because of its uncertain nature, and also they will choose defensive strategies (decreasing the costs, economizing, strengthening the cash flow, staying stabilized in the market, etc.). If the uncertainty avoidance of business owners or leaders is low and they are internal oriented, they will perceive the condition of crisis as an opportunity and also they will choose proactive strategies (making investment, increasing the market share, penetration into new markets, etc.).

 

The hypothesis which are about the relationship between cultural values of “Uncertainty Avoidance” and “Internal/External Orientation and strategic behavior are tested on the small enterprises of Istanbul Chamber of Industry.

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Issue

Vol. 2 No. 2 (2012): April

Section

Article

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