Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Intellectual ...

Ruth Alas et al.
During <strong>the</strong> 1930s <strong>the</strong> newly founded Republic pursued westernisation policies based on <strong>the</strong> principles
<strong>of</strong> modernisation, secularism and nationalism (Kabasakal and Bodur 2002). Import substitution
policies were pursued until <strong>the</strong> 1980s, which were a common aspect <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> socialist economies <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>
era. Industrialisation was limited to <strong>the</strong> Marmara region, an area under government protection.
Subsequent to <strong>the</strong> 1980s, structural reforms in <strong>the</strong> liberalisation process were carried out, thus
reducing state intervention. Integration into <strong>the</strong> conditions <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> global economy was achieved by
radical liberalisation policies in <strong>the</strong> domestic economy (Akyıldız ve Eroğlu 2004). Integration into <strong>the</strong>
European and common market was appreciated by industrialists (Pamuk 2007).
The research question deals with how attitudes towards changes influence organisational learning in
China and Turkey and where <strong>the</strong> similarities and differences lie. The authors apply <strong>the</strong> institutional
<strong>the</strong>ory when discussing <strong>the</strong> results.
3. Empirical study
Research was conducted in 29 Chinese companies in 2005-2006 with 1034 respondents. The
companies were from two areas: Peking and Jinan. From among <strong>the</strong> respondents, 46.4% were from
production companies, 7.2% from consulting companies, 5.2% from <strong>the</strong> retail and wholesale industry,
2.1% from telecommunications, 1.2% from transportation and <strong>the</strong> remainder were from <strong>the</strong> service
sector, including hotels and insurance companies. Of <strong>the</strong> respondents, 40.9% were men and 51.1%
women, and 79.4% were younger than 36 years.
Concerning <strong>the</strong> Turkish sample, 1126 respondents were from 40 hotels located throughout Turkey.
Male respondents constituted 64.7% and female respondents constituted 35.3% and89.4% were
younger than 36 years.
3.1 Measures
Respondents filled out a questionnaire about <strong>the</strong>ir attitudes towards changes and a questionnaire
about organisational learning. The questions were translated from English into Mandarin and Turkish
and retranslated into English. The retranslations were compared to <strong>the</strong> original English version. In
order to make <strong>the</strong> questions understandable to employees at all levels <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> organisations, specific
management terms were not used in <strong>the</strong> questions.
3.1.1 Attitudes towards changes
The authors used a questionnaire designed on <strong>the</strong> basis <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> statements about satisfaction with
leadership, with <strong>the</strong> job itself and with previous changes (Alas and Vadi, 2004). The entire
questionnaire contains 15 items on a 5-point scale, which forms four subscales.
Table 1: The results <strong>of</strong> factor analysis <strong>of</strong> change attitudes
Component
1 2
How satisfied are you with <strong>the</strong> top managers <strong>of</strong> your company? ,810 ,157
Have <strong>the</strong> general objectives and development plans <strong>of</strong> your
organisation been explained?
,799 ,156
How necessary in your opinion are <strong>the</strong> changes in <strong>the</strong>
organisation?
,758 ,122
How actively does your management solve company problems? ,699 ,228
Do you believe that <strong>the</strong> planned reforms influence <strong>the</strong>
performance <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> organisation positively?
,678 ,165
Do you trust <strong>the</strong> management and think that <strong>the</strong>ir decisions are
<strong>the</strong> best for <strong>the</strong> organisation?
,650 ,187
Do you have enough information about <strong>the</strong> reasons, content and
objectives <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> changes?
,192 ,744
How satisfied are you with your present position in this
organisation?
,169 ,738
Will your work conditions be improved after <strong>the</strong> changes? ,145 ,726
Two components are identified in <strong>the</strong> questionnaire according to <strong>the</strong> factor analysis. The first
component is named trust in changes and <strong>the</strong> second called interest in changes. These two
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