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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]

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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]

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]

Some cities and regions grow faster than others and they increase their relative shares in the global economy. The literature offers a wide list of factors of competitiveness, most of which define individual capacities of cities. Recently, however, there has been an increasing focus on the importance of network governance and the policy networks formed between different cities. This paper examines the importance of policy networks compared with other widely recognised factors of competitiveness to the economic performance of settlements in the Izmir region and investigates the importance of classical competitiveness indicators and network relations on their economic performance with the use of econometric methods. In conclusion, it discusses the importance of policy networks in administrative reform processes and economic development policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of this paper is to explore relations between competitiveness and social cohesion in Istanbul. It mainly questions whether it is possible to expect a positive change in socio-spatial inequalities if increasing competitiveness generates not only international business and high-level services, but also traditional low-cost production activities. The findings show that competition in different types of activities has generated large numbers of jobs, but has not been able to overcome existing income disparities. The increasing income differences, however, do not mean an increase in socio-spatial segmentation, since the non-market processes and policies related to education, gender and the urban land and housing markets have played important roles in the redistribution of different social groups within urban space, in addition to the endogenous dynamics of labour markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The regional-growth literature emphasises the importance of positive network externalities as determinants of the long-run competitiveness of region, highlighting their role in reducing spatial transaction costs and facilitating collective learning and innovation. In this paper we contribute to this literature by presenting new evidence from a firm-based survey within three Turkish industrial centres about the causes of differentiated network activity. Using multivariate analysis, we show that locational rather than sectoral differences explain local-linkage intensities, but this is not the case for global links. Second, there is an important relationship between firm size and local-linkage and global-linkage densities; the density of local networks decreases with increasing firm size, whereas the density of global networks increases with firm size. Third, there is a positive relation between global-network density and firm productivity. We argue that the comparative and quantitative analysis we employ is a useful adjunct to case-study analysis, which could help avoid misconceptions and lead to a more realistic theory. [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]