Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
IGU CDES Conference - Asia in the Transforming Global Economy, Beijing, Çin, 21 - 22 Haziran 2024, (Yayınlanmadı)
In economic geography, two different approaches have emerged since 1990s to explain the relationship between institutions and urban/regional economic development and also effects of institutions on industrial development: dominant and new. The dominant approach has considered the institutions sometimes as the formal and informal rules and sometimes organizations or untraded interdependencies (Storper, 1997). However, this view has received various criticism for failing to conceptualize institutional change and not produce a holistic theory of institutions. On the other hand, the new approach has claimed that criticisms can be eliminated by abandoning this plurality. The pioneers of this approach developed an alternative view in which institutions are considered as behavioral patterns based on mutual expectations and sanctions (Bathelt and Glückler, 2014). This approach conceptualized institutional change in a discipline-specific way through the interactions between the building blocks of institutional context. Adopting the approach of Bathelt and Glückler, this study aims to understand how institutional change affects the development of Turkish shipbreaking industry. This sector was established in the 1920s in the Golden Horn (İstanbul). Five decades later it was moved to Aliağa shipbreaking industrial park in İzmir. Based on the industry's relocation history, this study assumes that institutional change in this case begins with a bottom-up causality triggered by changes in the organizational field. To test this assumption, 30 interviews were conducted with different actors selected through snowball sampling. The coding technique was used for the thematic analysis of the interviews. According to the findings, temporary employment, subcontracting and succession were observed as three institutions that affect the development of this industry. The temporary employment was especially effective in Haliç and continued its effects in Aliağa for a while after the industry moved. However, due to changes in the organizational field, it turned into the subcontracting institution over time. The typology of this transformation alligns with the framework of the new approach. The subcontracting institution has two sub-typologies: outsourcing and insourcing. In the first sub-typology, the case of institutional death has been observed as changing regulations have circumvent the social practice. The second sub-typology still exists in some firms today, but it is estimated to die in the future for the same reasons. Introducing a new case of both institutional change that begins with bottom-up causality and that institutions may die over time, constitutes the original value of study. Finally, no change has been observed in the succession institution directed by family logic and it still exists in Aliağa since the 1990s. In conclusion, this study contributes to the conceptualisation of institution and institutional change developed by Bathelt and Glückler in the field of institutional economic geography.
Keywords: institutions, institutional change, shipbreaking industry, institutional economic geography, Turkey.