Revisiting the convergence hypothesis for tourism markets: Evidence from Turkey using the pairwise approach

This paper empirically revisits the tourism markets convergence hypothesis (Narayan, 2006) for the case of Turkey by employing the newly developed pairwise approach to the analysis of stochastic convergence ( [Pesaran, 2007] and [Pesaran et?al., 2009]). This new approach allows for unit root tests to be conducted on all possible pairs of tourist arrival differentials across Turkey’s 20 major tourist source markets, thus avoiding the need to choose a base source market or total tourist arrivals figure as the benchmark. Using monthly data over the period January 1996 to December 2009, the main finding is that despite considerable ‘co-movement’ of international tourist arrivals in Turkey, there is no evidence of long-run ‘convergence’ among Turkey’s major tourism markets. Cluster-based club convergence analyses alongside bivariate pairwise estimations confirm the lack of convergence and highlight specific tourist source markets with considerable untapped potential. These findings have profound policy implications for Turkey’s inbound tourism planning and promotion.     

Gender diversity in the hospitality industry: An empirical study in Turkey

This paper, an investigation of gender diversity in the Turkish hospitality industry, focuses on two primary objectives: (a) exploring the potential relationships between gender and several demographic factors, and (b) examining the possible existence of a gender effect regarding employees’ perceptions of recruitment and earning potential decisions. Results, based on 682 surveys, show that, in the male-dominated Turkish hospitality industry, there is a significant gender effect for two of four demographic variables and with respect to recruiting efforts and earning potential. These findings could have some important managerial implications for addressing gender diversity in the (Turkish) hospitality industry.     

土耳其GAP项目对中国西南地区水资源开发的启示

2010西南旱灾暴露出当地水利建设的缺失,加快西南水资源开发刻不容缓。但开发西南水资源面临水源分布不均、环保难度大、资金短缺及国际水权争端等四大难题。土耳其两河流域GAP工程积累了解决类似问题的成功经验,可以为中国在水利建设、环境保护、工程融资和化解国际水权争端四方面提供借鉴,继而构建西南水资源综合开发模式。     

Financial reporting transformation: the experience of Turkey

From the viewpoint of a developing country which is in need of foreign capital and foreign investments to finance its economic growth, the need for high quality financial information has vital importance. The need for IFRS in Turkey was brought up by the same reasons as a developing country and as an emerging market. With the internationalization of capital markets and the increased volume of international investments, companies functioning in Turkey needed to provide high quality financial information to access financial resources. Furthermore, internationally accepted and reliable financial information is also needed for the overseas customers of the domestic companies. Another reason facilitating the need for IFRS is Turkey's candidation for European Union membership.This paper attempts to explain the development process of accounting standards around the world and its practical results in a developing country: Turkey. Within this context, brief information is given about the structure of International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), and adoption process of IFRS in Turkey. During this adoption process, Turkey encounters several complications such as complex structure of the international standards, potential knowledge shortfalls, and difficulties in application and enforcement issues. This paper explores these difficulties and shares the Turkish experience from a viewpoint of a regulator and an academician, and discusses the proper and consistent way implementing a “Principle Based” IFRS in Turkey.     

Socio-economic evaluation model for sustainable solar PV panels using a novel integrated MCDM methodology: A case in Turkey

Due to the increasing awareness of environmental, social and economic factors, solar photovoltaic (PV) system planning requires strategic decision making process for socio-economic development in many countries. The main objective of this paper is to propose a new Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) approach that is flexible and practical to the decision makers (DMs) in governments for solar PV panel manufacturer evaluation based on qualitative and quantitative factors. Accordingly, a novel two-stage MCDM model integrating Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Multiplicative Multi-Objective Ratio Analysis (MULTIMOORA) methods under Interval Valued Pythagorean Fuzzy (IVPF) environment is presented, and applied to select the most appropriate solar PV panel manufacturer for solar power plants in Southeastern Anatolia Region of Turkey. As a result, the proposed novel Integrated IVPF-AHP&MULTIMOORA method produces consistent and reasonable results to select the most appropriate solar PV panel manufacturer for the solar power plants in the cities of Southeastern Anatolia Region of Turkey considering some socio-economic sustainable indicators such as cost, environmental, efficiency and technical indices. Furthermore, sensitivity analysis and comparative analysis are also applied to prove the robustness and verification of the results of the proposed approach.     

EU Requirements for Food Safety and Quality Systems in Turkey: Determinants of Perceptions

Abstract

The European Union (EU) is one of Turkey’s most important trade partners. A large number of Turkish agri-food processors, however, are still unable to produce in accordance with the EU specifications. Furthermore, it is uncertain how Turkish food producers perceive the EU regulations. Based on a questionnaire survey of 99 Turkish agri-food enterprises from various industry subsectors and a conceptual framework including knowledge, personal and economic perspectives, this article assesses perceptions of the EU requirements regarding food safety and quality systems in the Turkish agri-food industry. The results indicate that those perceptions vary widely among the processors depending on education level, firm size, and legal form of ownership. Moreover, subjective information related to the perceptions regarding advantages, requirements, and costs of food safety and quality practices significantly contributes to the perceptions examined. The findings have manifold implications which should be taken into account when adapting Turkish legislation to reflect EU regulations.     

A cross cultural investigation of airlines service quality through integration of Servqual and the Kano model

This paper examines the service quality attributes of airlines with regard to their effect on customer satisfaction in a cross-cultural context. The applicability of a modified Servqual instrument as a means of measuring customers' perceptions and expectations is explored using respondents from USA and Turkey. The study is unique as it integrates the Servqual scale and the Kano model in a complementary way. The findings reveal that the Servqual gap scores are negative in both USA and Turkey, in all areas of service quality, indicating that customers' perceptions fall far short of their expectations. For the Kano model, it is demonstrated that the general structure of the scale is the same for both countries. However, the two countries differ in certain service quality attributes as far as prioritization. This has implications for the formulation of airline marketing strategies. While some degree of standardization is necessary for certain service elements, especially if the airline is catering for the international market, there are certain service attributes that should be designed to meet local needs and expectations.