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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships between employees’ perceptions of high-involvement human resource (HR) practices, their levels of work engagement and learning goal orientation, and their proactive behaviors. Design/methodology/approach – The sample of the study included 240 employees who work in Istanbul, Turkey, chosen from the major industries that represent the economic profile of this city. The hypotheses were tested with structural equation modeling procedure. Findings – The results revealed that apart from perceived recognition, all the perceived high-involvement HR practices were positively related to employees’ work engagement, which in turn predicted their learning goal orientation. Besides, the results indicated that work engagement affected both individual innovation and feedback inquiry significantly, whereas learning goal orientation predicted only feedback inquiry. Finally, the findings revealed that only perceived empowerment and competency development practices were linked to feedback inquiry through work engagement and learning goal orientation. Research limitations/implications – The generalizability of the findings is limited. The data are based on self-report and the use of cross-sectional data does not allow any definite conclusions to be drawn about causality. Practical implications – Organizations that aim to increase employee proactivity need first to identify the means of increasing work engagement. One way of increasing engagement levels among employees is to invest in various kinds of supportive, high-involvement HR practices, such as competence development and information sharing. Originality/value – This study explores the notion of high-involvement HR practices with employee proactivity in an integrative way by viewing work engagement as a latent mechanism that links high-involvement HR practices to proactive behaviors both directly and indirectly via increased learning goal orientation.

Purpose – This study aims to shed light on women’s entrepreneurship in Turkey by focusing on the profile of women entrepreneurs, key drivers behind their decision to establish their own business, challenges they face while initiating and running their business and support mechanisms for women entrepreneurs. Design/methodology/approach – Semi-structured interviews were conducted by ten successful women entrepreneurs in Turkey. Survey forms were also sent to the representatives of four different organizations that support women entrepreneurship. Three completed survey forms were received back from these organizations. Four key areas that originate from the research question (i.e. profile, drivers, problems and support mechanisms) have constituted the basis of the semi-structured interview guide and that of thematic analysis. Findings – The results have revealed that there are important similarities among Turkish women entrepreneurs with respect to their personality traits or characteristics. Successful women entrepreneurs in Turkey were described as being persistent and determined, patient, mentally strong and visionary and innovative. The interviews also revealed that exploiting unique opportunities in the business environment, working for the good of society and being independent in one’s decisions and actions are the major factors behind Turkish women entrepreneurs’ decision to become entrepreneurs. On the other hand, finding and managing capital emerged as the most important problem for women entrepreneurs in Turkey despite the existence of various support mechanisms. Finally, the findings showed that the majority of women entrepreneurs in Turkey use traditional ways (i.e. governmental and non-governmental support mechanisms and banks) to get financial support. Family members and business partners are the other sources of financial support, which may also provide moral support to women entrepreneurs. Research limitations/implications – The generalizability of the findings is limited, as the study is exploratory, rather than causal in nature. Practical implications – This study provides certain recommendations to the interested parties, such as policymakers, to create a proper economic, social, political, cultural and legal environment for women in which they can freely and willingly go into and run business. Originality/value – The paper fills an important gap in the literature by systematically reviewing the extant literature on women entrepreneurship in Turkey and combining and comparing the prior findings with qualitative data derived from the interviews with ten successful women entrepreneurs.

Arıkan, Esra (Dogus Author), Kantur, Deniz (Dogus Author), Maden, Ceyda (Dogus Author), Telci, Emine Eser (Dogus Author)In today’s highly volatile environment, companies strive to leverage the perceptions of their multiple stakeholders more than ever before with the aim to build a sustainable competitive advantage. Accordingly, corporate social responsibility and corporate reputation concepts are of vital importance for both academicians and practitioners, concerning their potential impact on internal and external stakeholders. Recognizing the intensified significance of a multi-stakeholder perspective, the current study attempts to contribute to the literature through examining the mediating role of corporate reputation on the relationship between corporate social responsibility and various outcomes of customers, employees, and investors as the key stakeholders. Based on a reputational ranking of companies conducted by a national magazine since 2001, nine companies were selected from service and manufacturing industries and an online questionnaire was conducted to a multi-stakeholder sample consisting of customers, employees and investors. The results showed that corporate reputation fully mediates the relationship between corporate social responsibility and organizational commitment, employee satisfaction, investor loyalty, purchase intention, and intention to seek employment. On the other hand, there existed partial mediation on the relationship between corporate social responsibility and customer perceived value, customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, customer switching cost, customer commitment, turnover intention, intention to invest, and intention to spread word-of-mouth. The results have important implications for practitioners who seek to manage their relationships with multiple stakeholders through their engagement in corporate social responsibility activities and efforts to enhance their companies’ reputational status

The concepts of organizational learning and learning organizations have gained popularity in recent organization theory literature as complementary subjects. So far majority of studies on these issues focused on the relationship between organizational learning and its ultimate consequences such as increased innovative capacity, increased productivity, and higher competitive advantage of organizations. Nevertheless, many researchers examined the processes of organizational learning from the standpoint of private enterprises, paying little attention to the dynamics of organizational learning in public sector. This paper is aimed to fill this gap by introducing and discussing the basic constituents of a novel conceptual model which demonstrates the relevant steps in transforming of public organizations into learning organizations.