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The paper argues that institutions, particularly those that are region-specific, play a prominent role in the different pathways to entrepreneurship. Empirical evidence based on primary data on four different regions in Türkiye and a scale measuring the dimensions of institutions developed for this study allow for understanding the role of institutions in defining different entrepreneurial profiles. The findings reveal the critical role of normative and culture-cognitive institutions, while also showing that the impact of government rules and measures to promote entrepreneurship may not be positive in all regions, and may even act as obstacles to innovative entrepreneurship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the twists and turns that characterise the political reactions of some 'left-behind' places. Offering a situated, context-sensitive and temporal analysis of Turkey's once extractive heartland, we unveil a volatile and particularly fragile political terrain and throw light on its contingency on changing modes of state intervention and power-laden strategies responsive to disaffection and discontent. We suggest that this power-laden mechanism that plays down, if not eradicates, the ability of places to transform and thrive precludes conceptions that invariably position left-behind places as 'vengeful' and invites dynamic and context-sensitive comprehensions of discontent and agential and processual reconceptions of left-behindness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are substantial differences in the entrepreneurship levels of different regions. Recent studies have shown that supply- and demand-side determinants fall short of explaining the level and type of entrepreneurship of a region, and have emphasized the critical role of region-specific institutional factors in regional entrepreneurship. This paper aims to contribute to understanding how region-specific institutions encourage or inhibit regional innovative entrepreneurship, concentrating particularly on the less studied normative and cultural-cognitive institutions. The study, based on face-to-face semi-structured in-depth interview data from four regions of Turkey with different innovative entrepreneurship patterns, reveals the significant role of normative institutions in defining different regional innovative entrepreneurship pathways, as well as those of some regulative and cultural-cognitive institutions. It highlights further that policies and regulations that alleviate bureaucratic procedures facilitate access to financial resources and strengthen coordination between local government agencies are encouraging regional entrepreneurship in general, while policies aimed at eliminating discrimination in society, supporting tolerance and openness, encouraging individual freedom and enhancing the skills and experience of entrepreneurs through new role models are critical for alleviating the disadvantages of regions and supporting innovative entrepreneurship. We contend that these policies are essential for improving the entrepreneurship environment and altering the perception of society regarding entrepreneurship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of GRID - Architecture, Planning & Design Journal is the property of GRID - Architecture, Planning & Design Journal and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

A study was conducted to investigate the importance of policy networks compared with other widely recognized factors of competitiveness to the economic performance of settlements in the Izmir region in Turkey. The importance of policy networks in administrative reform processes and economic development policies is also discussed.

Copyright of Megaron is the property of KARE Publishing and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper examines growth machine politics operating in shrinking cities. Instead of de-growth politics logics emerging in shrinking cities, the paper finds, through an empirical study of Zonguldak, a shrinking mining city in Turkey, a politics that is better described as another variant of growth machine politics. Invigorated by the difficulties encountered in the implementation of state-driven growth agendas, and the subsequent reactions of local stakeholders, Zonguldak's emerging policy agenda maintains a distance from the discourse of growth and instead adopts such themes as ecology, industrial heritage, quality of life and liveability when reframing and deploying a variety of conventional practices to make the city attractive for investment. In so doing, a broad coalition of diverse local interests are effectively brought together, and this paper suggests that these dynamics characterise a politics that is better described as adaptive response to align with growth machine politics. To explore this, the paper builds on an exploratory research design that complements secondary and documentary data analysis of the city's economic and population trends and key policy and planning documents with an analysis of unstructured interviews with local policy makers and focus groups with local stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The roles of social networks in regional economic development and factors which influence differentiated network structures are evaluated by focusing in Turkish industrial development.

This paper examines the discourses and practices of central and local governments, as related to the issues of urban governance and diversity, and the emergence of new governance arrangements in different fields of Istanbul's diversity. The paper claims that current diversity discourses and policies in Turkey are being increasingly used as a rhetorical device to promote the economic development of the city, and to circumvent the different demands of people of diverse cultural, ethnic and religious backgrounds. In such processes of politicising diversity, governance initiatives undertake an important mission in coming up with pragmatic and non-discriminatory solutions to diversity-related issues. Through an examination of recent changes in the diversity policies of Istanbul and the emerging governance arrangements, this paper uncovers the conflicts and the mismatches that exist between the highly politicised discourses, policies and practices, and explores how different types of governance arrangements bring new arenas of expression to the diverse groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban plans and projects that aim to initiate the redevelopment and gentrification of urban areas create social and ecological pressures on urban environments and thereby stimulate urban movements. These movements have a lifespan, which evolves in interaction with planning authorities under local or central governments and may be marked by institutionalization and co-optation, as well as fragmentation among the people involved in them. Fragmentations are usually based on conflicting individual and collective interests, but may also be the result of different political perspectives in groups. This article is based on a case study conducted in two adjacent gecekondu neighbourhoods of Istanbul, Gülsuyu and Gülensu, where urban politics have played an important role in efforts to resist plans for urban transformation. It shows that fragmentations are very likely to occur in urban movements during planning processes in a neoliberal era, owing to the different perspectives in the movement on what the just city is. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Regional Studies is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article aims to discuss the importance of the different policies and measures defined by governments in the resilience of regions, besides their connectedness to the global economic system and their endogenous capacities. The article explores the importance of different attributes in the resilience of Turkish regions (26 NUTS II regions) in the last two recessionary shocks and in the following recovery periods. By analysing the role of regional policies in the resilience of regions in two distinct periods, the article concludes that the existing policies have made only a limited contribution to the building of resilient regions, and emphasises the need for a new perspective in the developing of policies for regional resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last few decades, the term urban shrinkage has come to be accepted as a valid concept in international academic circles, and has gradually gained importance, with its causes the subject of well-documented discussion. While previous discussions of urban shrinkage have directed attention to cities shrinking as a whole, recent research started to recognize the case of shrinkage in growing cities and regions. As such, recent discussions of urban shrinkage indicate that patterns of shrinkage vary considerably from city to city, and from sub-region to sub-region, with the importance of local dynamics in responding to changing economic pressures given much consideration. Recent studies have tended to disregard the role of government policies and strategies put in place to facilitate the adaptation of the urban economies to the new conditions. Taking Izmir as an example, being a fast-growing metropolitan region in Turkey, this paper presents evidence of government policies and strategies aimed at enhancing the development of peripheral areas that have led to shrinkage of the metropolitan core. This paper focuses on this experience and discusses its implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper grapples with the state's response to contemporary urban movements. In light of recent debates on the changing nature of urban movements, it presents an overview of the responses of states in different modes of regulation, ranging from a Keynesian regime to sequential stages of neoliberalisation. Examples of authoritarianism and the entrepreneurial roles of the state are drawn from the Turkish experience to show how economic liberalism can be combined with increasing social control, restrictions, penalisation and exclusion. Reviewing Turkish urban policies and practice, the urban mobilisations against them, and the varying positions of the state will shed light not only on what is happening in Turkey but also on the transformative nature of neoliberalisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT The economic restructuring and the new economic conditions that arose out of the waves of globalisation has resulted in significant impacts on the labour markets, which in turn have led to social transformation. The characteristics of the new economic structure and the changes in demand for labour are important in the dispersal of the benefits of competitiveness among the different social groups. Several issues that shape the labour markets, such as education, gender, division of labour and the social organisation of work, are important in redefining the impacts of economic restructuring on the income and well-being of the different social groups. The aim of this paper is to discuss the role of social capital in the adaptation of individuals to the conditions imposed by the recent economic changes and restructuring while also revealing other impacts of this process on the people. In order to find out to what extent social capital contributes to the challenges posed by the ongoing economic transformation and the continuing economic crisis on the people and households, an empirical work based in Izmir (Turkey) is presented in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, it is claimed that the dynamics that enabled the emergence of city regions as new places of globalization brought about significant changes and restructuring in these areas in the early years of neo-liberal policies. Subsequently, from the 1990s onwards a new neo-liberalist agenda, in reply to the problems of the early period of globalization, defined new relations and new dynamics for city regions. The aim of this paper, with the help of earlier Istanbul case studies, is to discuss the changes taking place in city regions, including the outcomes of the neo-liberal policies induced by the competitiveness of the 1980s, especially those related to the distribution of welfare and social cohesion, which forced the nation state to reconfigure its neo-liberal project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Important differences have recently become apparent in the forms of governance being implemented in different metropolitan regions, even among those within the same country. A number of theoretical debates attempt to explain the nature of these differences, emphasizing the importance of structural factors as well as embedded economic and social characteristics. This article aims to show that existing theoretical debates are linked by three issues that act as interfaces among them: institutions, flows in the form of material resources and regulatory power, and governance capacity and coalitions. This article explores the emerging forms of governance within the two largest metropolitan regions of Turkey, Izmir and Antalya, taking into consideration these three issues. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

While it is quite common in studies of diversity to focus on its negative aspects, this paper specifically aims to emphasize the contribution of immigrants to the urban economic performance. By exploring different kinds of social integration, this paper discusses how immigrant groups can be important agents of urban economic growth and competitiveness by liberating creative forces and enhancing the competitiveness. Immigrant entrepreneurship is defined as the most important means of social inclusion and sustained economic performance in two different cities, with different features yet hosting considerable number of immigrants with diverse characteristics, namely Antwerp (Belgium) and Izmir (Turkey). The findings of our two case studies reveal that different kinds of diversity play an important role in urban economic performance. Immigrants contribute to the growth of different forms of production and services, not only because of their talents and skills, but also because of their social connections. Social capital enables immigrants to survive in a recipient country, and integrate into an economy as active agents. They can fill the gaps in an economy as entrepreneurs or the skilled labour, which are the most important assets for the cities aiming sustained economic growth in volatile economic conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to discuss the importance of different types of global services for industrial firms and clusters in terms of their economic competitiveness and innovative performance. The theoretical debates argue that globalization, deregulation and the new production organization make it necessary to use global services that are supplied easily with the help of new telecommunication technologies. The existing empirical studies provide some supporting evidence. However, they also indicate that global service firms can be attained by only smaller numbers of industrial firms and clusters. Still, in-house services besides temporal and informal mechanisms are important to meet the needs of the specialized services, even for the firms that try to become a part of the global production system. The paper focuses on three main questions: "What types of global services are becoming crucial for manufacturing firms and what type of services are still local and national? Is there a significant difference between the characteristics of firms that use the same type of services? To what extent is having access to global services important for the innovativeness of industrial firms and clusters? This paper looks for the answers to these questions based on existing case studies as well as this study of three industrial clusters in Turkey. The findings indicate that there is not a perfect match between theory and empirical evidence and there is a need for more refined theoretical discourses on industry-service relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Elaborating on the literature on industrial districts, this paper suggests that innovation and networking are the two key issues, which provide the new generation industrial clusters’ competitive capacity in the globalization process. The paper presents the findings on the innovative and networking capabilities of the three important industrial clusters of Turkey based on the data collected from the sample firms in each of these industrial clusters through in-depth interviews. The findings clearly show the importance of local and national networking as well as global linkages and confirm the positive relation between intensity of local networking and innovativeness. Moreover, the paper provides evidence that firms within global networks have higher numbers of innovations than firms with higher intensity of locally embedded linkages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT For many industries, a new production system characterised principally by flexibility has become one of the key means of achieving competitive advantage in world markets. In traditional industrial sectors flexibility in the organisation of production is based upon subcontracting, within which female labour is of undisputed importance. In this article, research on female labour in the Istanbul clothing industry is used to investigate these processes of industrial restructuring. Particular attention is drawn to changes in women's attitude to work and in their responses to working conditions, which have important consequences for the industry itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]