Sustainability in the Turkish business environment

Abstract

This thesis aims to find out and explain how firms in Turkey perceive sustainability, why and how do they get engaged in sustainability activities/reporting, while at the same time evaluating the hypothesized relationships based on institutional, legitimacy and stakeholder theories. Three-tiered mixed method study was employed to reach a deeper understanding about sustainability in the Turkish business environment. It was found that sustainability is well captured and understood with a positive connotation, however there is still more room for improvement. Organizations feel isomorphic pressures for sustainability, and see it as an instrumental tool to buffer these pressures. On the other hand, they strive for improving their sustainability initiatives and manage their efforts substantively. Studies on sustainability generally concerns performance outcomes of sustainability practices within the organizations, this study contributes to the literature by providing a richer understanding about the antecedents of sustainability through using qualitative and quantitative research together. Besides, it sheds light to the situation in a developing country Turkey, in which sustainability is overlooked and underresearched to date.