Managerial Jacobinism and performance in the private sector: Evidence from the Turkish shipyards for a vertical frame

Abstract

Long‐lasting euphoria of the private sector managerialism has begun to be questioned even by its ardent advocators in recent years. Substantiating a distinct concern, this paper sheds light on what one might call ‘managerial Jacobinism’ through unstructured interviews conducted in Turkey's shipyards. As its most defining characteristics, the undervaluation of managerial work by the companies and the punitive treatment of good practices by the mediocre superiors provoke ill‐concealed defensive reactions among the managers to their insecurity at work while undermining both employees' productivity and the firms' performance in the midst of regulatory deficiencies. Managerial Jacobinism also spirals around a vertical frame by being more apparent and survival‐driven in the case of immediate managers whereas more ambition‐driven and detrimental when it comes to top managers resonating with their higher influence. Empirical findings further indicate that results are officiated by the intersecting variations in age, gender, ethnicity, occupations, administrative divisions and establishment size.

Mutual interests management with a purposive approach: Evidence from the Turkish shipyards for an amorphous impact model between (subjective) well‐being and performance

“…Perhaps, one of the biggest challenges in advocating the company‐level explorations, nonetheless, is the inadequacy of progressive cultures among the managers in Turkish shipyards, and they may prefer the status quo to eschew the perceived threats of ‘new tricks’ to their interests, even if the change may, in effect, turn out to be beneficial for the institutions and employees alike (Cam & Palaz, 2021). For that reason, the mainstreaming polices led by the proactive engagements with the business communities may become vital for the infusion of MIM practices.…”

“…The insufficiency of health and safety precautions occasionally features the headlines with the news of fatal accidents at work. Employees mostly have limited or no accesses to the social security and fringe benefits largely for the statutorily omitted prerogatives in the ‘contingent hiring contracts’—by the end of work‐in projects (Cam & Palaz, 2021). The on‐going mushrooming of engineering schools has been commensurate with that of unemployed graduates and long working hours at the expense of work‐life balance.…”

“…A nationally representative survey in the United Kingdom (Bryson et al, 2017) and a cross‐national analysis in Europe (Addison & Teixeira, 2020) have particularly produced sanguine upshots. Crucially, the relevance of JS/SWB to the institutional performance was also asserted to be resilient to the conventionally influential intermediary factors such as establishment size, industrial/sectoral variations and the national differences (Cam & Palaz, 2021; Mahy et al, 2011).…”