RESPONSIBLE ENTREPRENEURSHIP VISION DEVELOPMENT AND ETHICS

454 RESPONSIBLE ENTREPRENEURSHIP
reduced with more strategic human capital management during a pivotal time in economic
history with Romania and the BSEC. Therefore, contemporary advancement in Turkish integration
in Romania with additional foreign investor support should focus on innovation and
partnerships in the rapidly developing technology sectors (Cetindamar and Ulusoy, 2008).
However, on the other hand, Romania’s focus on market and investment innovation has been
viewed by some economists as less active than Turkey’s metric for growth and future partnership
prospects (Yamazaki, 2012). Romanian business activities have pointed to a greater
motivation in the distribution and logisitics sectors, rather than investing in research and development
(Yamazaki, 2012). The noticeable inactivity in technology transfer in the Romanian
markets may hinder the additional foreign support needed in order to ensure the positive influence
of Turkey’s alliance is increased, as expressed by Armeanu’s (2013) stock exchange correlation
study, mentioned earlier in this segment.
The unexplored gap in research on how Islam and Turkish culture affects
ethical business marketing by Turkish companies in Romania
Despite the 97.8% of Turkish citizens being Muslim (Konda, 2007) and driving their investments
evermore prominently in Romania’s economy, there is little research on how Islam and
Turkish culture has behaved during the historical political and economic partnerships. Even
though it is widely accepted that religion is a stable driver of human behavior in terms of
ethical conduct in almost all societal domains, it is unknown how this is persevered within
a nation that holds very different cultural norms and religious beliefs. Islamic societies are
significantly absent from contemporary marketing theory debates, which raise a question on
whether Turkish trading in Romania has omitted the expected influence of religion on marketing
activities. According to Sacks (2001), one of the most important laws of Islam that
resonates among Muslims irrespective of their nationality is the consumption of Halal meat
and avoidance of alcohol. Halal, in terms of its Arabic origin, means lawful under the allowance
of Allah (God). Consuming non-Halal meat such as Pork is deemed as Haram, in other words
‘forbidden’. Sacks argued that this fundamental law has direct influence on the consumer
behavior among Muslims in the food and beverage market. This may be a confounding factor
for Turkish involvement in market trading in Romania, however, the extent to which this
has been compromised over the years is worth investigating. At the same time, it can also be
argued that the compromising of certain religious and cultural values when Turkey and Romania
have worked closely with each other may not necessarily be a negative behavior. This
may instead be a demonstration of mutual business partnerships putting aside particular differences
as a means to showing tolerance in the other’s culture if a certain trading activity
requires such a compromise. However, this notion can be scrutinized by arguing that intercultural
tolerance should never allow traditional religious beliefs being compromised at the
expense of the other.
The need for research on religion influencing marketing, particularly due to the increasing
number of Muslims on a micro level in Romania, has yet to be reflected in applications
for business strategy and segmentation, and it is unclear how Turkish citizens utilize Islamic
principles in their trading activities. According to Delener (1990), the level of devotion an
individual has to a particular faith is arguably one of the most powerful dictatorships to an
individual’s purchasing decisions. However, the extent to which this notion is correct, is one