The purpose of this study is to evaluate how Qatar Airways’ sponsorship of FC Barcelona affects Qatar’s sports diplomacy and brand awareness. It focuses on the sponsorship’s…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to evaluate how Qatar Airways’ sponsorship of FC Barcelona affects Qatar’s sports diplomacy and brand awareness. It focuses on the sponsorship’s demand strategy and takes into account the opinions and attitudes of Spanish nationals toward Qatar and Qatar Airways.
Design/methodology/approach
To assess this, a survey of 434 Spanish nationals from 17 different regions from four zones (North, South, Center, and East) in Spain between November 3, 2022 and November 21, 2022 was conducted using a strata sampling method.
Findings
We argue that Qatar Airways’ sponsorship of FC Barcelona serves to improve Qatar’s recognition and national reputation in Spain. We also found that there is a need for consistent sponsorship and marketing efforts in sports diplomacy to better fulfill public diplomacy aims. Overall, this paper concludes that Qatar Airways’ sponsorship of FC Barcelona positively contributes to the country’s sports diplomacy despite significant challenges.
Originality/value
The major contribution of this study to the literature is the discussion of the role of sports sponsorships in the recognition of the sponsor, which was assessed through conducting a quantitative analysis of public opinion in the sponsored team’s host country.
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Patrycja Matusz, Eirini Aivaliotou and Sylwia Przytuła
In 2015, Europe faced an unprecedented inflow of refugees and migrants. Political instability at the continent's peripheries contributed to an accumulative exodus. This resulted…
Abstract
In 2015, Europe faced an unprecedented inflow of refugees and migrants. Political instability at the continent's peripheries contributed to an accumulative exodus. This resulted in large immigration waves fleeing mainly from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq as well as from other North African countries. Europe was confronted with an increasing number of asylum applications and had to accommodate over a million people (Clayton, 2015). The crisis in Europe has been framed both as a migration crisis and as a crisis within the European Union (EU). The Dublin Regulation, of 2013, requires only one Member state to process the asylum applications. During the pressing period of 2015, the notion of responsibility sharing resulted in heated debates between South and Central and Eastern European states. Several countries like Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary expressed openly antimigrant opinions, which resulted in even more confusion and mismanagement of the migration crisis in the EU. Analyzing the crisis from the macro, meso and micro level, it was evident that the crisis was multifaceted.
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Selçuk Gürçam, Emrah Konuralp and Selcuk Ekici
This study was carried out in Igdir, where Turkey’s urban air pollution is at the highest level, and the population is among the smallest. Thus, the study aims to determine the…
Abstract
Purpose
This study was carried out in Igdir, where Turkey’s urban air pollution is at the highest level, and the population is among the smallest. Thus, the study aims to determine the effect of air transportation on air pollution in the most polluted city in Turkey.
Design/methodology/approach
The approach includes six stages: choosing the airport, accessing the flight information for the airport, classifying the aircraft that operated at the airport, determining the aircraft engines, calculating the emission amounts, calculating the landing and takeoff-based emissions.
Findings
Rather than devoting the resources disproportionally to the aviation sector within the scope of economic globalization, as a policy recommendation, to realize its production potential, Igdir, which has a great agricultural production capacity, considering its microclimate, fertile soil and arable land, should be urgently integrated into neighboring markets and the national market via railways.
Practical implications
It is inferred from the research that Turkey has to consider implementing the emissions tax policy, while the Turkish aviation sector is to realize new regulations for aircraft-engine matching to take public health and the impacts of the airports on their surroundings into consideration more seriously.
Originality/value
This study is an original one, as it puts the increasing pollution caused by the aircraft into a historical and political-economic perspective. Also, it is an example of an interdisciplinary work that combines environmental science and political science.
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Guler Aras and Filiz Mutlu Yildirim
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the conformity of the impact of corporate finance decisions on market value with the basic theoretical approaches in the two emerging…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the conformity of the impact of corporate finance decisions on market value with the basic theoretical approaches in the two emerging economies, which show great similarities in terms of the economic structures, and to examine the results obtained by determining how these decisions affect market value comparatively.
Design/methodology/approach
In this study, the effect of corporate finance decisions on market value is tested empirically with panel data analysis method by using data of 274 real sector firms traded in BIST and 249 firms in BOVESPA industry index, between 2010 and 2014.
Findings
The analysis results show that the increase in the borrowing level of firms operating in both countries reduces the market value; the increase in the level of profitability in the firms has a positive effect on the market value. In addition, it is possible to say that the effect is different in terms of investment decisions for Turkish and Brazilian firms.
Research limitations/implications
The limitations of the study are that the non-financial sectors between 2010 and 2014 in Turkey and Brazil including the company data, and the companies with missing years are removed from the data set. The findings show that more effective and balanced management of the variables by the financial manager affects these rates and have an impact on increasing the market value.
Originality/value
In this study, a fundamental subject in finance is addressed by analytical methodology and comparative tests for countries are conducted.
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Turkish mothers’ interactions with medical authorities during pregnancy and childbirth have developed in a context of risk discourses produced by biomedical experts with…
Abstract
Turkish mothers’ interactions with medical authorities during pregnancy and childbirth have developed in a context of risk discourses produced by biomedical experts with surveillance justified by these discourses. Giving meaning to pregnancy and childbirth through the search for the reduction of risks is a reflexive part of Turkish mothers’ everyday life.
This research paper aims to discuss a study examining how pregnancy and childbirth are socially constructed, how increased medicalization is experienced by Turkish mothers, and how they assign meaning to pregnancy and childbirth. A phenomenological research was designed using depth interviews with 10 Turkish mothers with children aged 0–6 years, living in Istanbul who had high education and welfare levels.
The findings shed light on Turkish mothers’ subjective experiences and how medicine as a profession shapes these experiences. With the medicalization of pregnancy and childbirth, how the trust toward the experts, the knowledge of preparation for maternity in an appropriate and responsible manner have become functional for Turkish mothers to create a sense of ontological security are examined.
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What are the causes and consequences of Turkey’s intervention in Syria? The purpose of this paper is to explore this question by focusing on the time frame from 2011 to 2016, i.e…
Abstract
Purpose
What are the causes and consequences of Turkey’s intervention in Syria? The purpose of this paper is to explore this question by focusing on the time frame from 2011 to 2016, i.e. prior to Turkey’s strategic U-turn from uncompromising enmity toward Russia and Iran.
Design/methodology/approach
Process tracing is used as the main methodological guideline.
Findings
Turkey’s intervention in Syria has been driven by a mutually reinforcing interaction of geopolitical, geo-economic and geo-cultural factors. Turkey’s neo-Ottomanist geo-strategy has been militarized in the context of the Arab Spring, perceived decline of US hegemony, increasing Kurdish autonomy and Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi’s (AKP) electoral setbacks. Second, Turkey’s intervention has been triggered by the converging motivations for energy security, easily gained profits from the black energy market and economic integration with Arab-Gulf countries in the face of a stagnating Western capitalism. A third set of factors speaks to the AKP’s instrumental use of Sunni sectarianism and Kurdish ethnopolitics.
Originality/value
The research aim is to provide a systematic and multi-causal explanation of Turkey’s involvement in Syria.
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Umur Bucak, Mahmut Mollaoğlu and Mehmet Fatih Dinçer
Considering the human factor, the quality of the personnel is vital to ensure especially the value creation in the ports. Therefore, employee quality stands out for withstanding…
Abstract
Purpose
Considering the human factor, the quality of the personnel is vital to ensure especially the value creation in the ports. Therefore, employee quality stands out for withstanding the pressures that stem from global trade on its operational speed felt by ports in recent years. Accordingly, the selection of the qualified personnel at the ports is very critical and a tool based on dynamic capabilities is needed to manage this process well. The aim of this study is to develop a model based on dynamic capabilities for recruitment process of ports.
Design/methodology/approach
Port personnel should have dynamic capabilities detected from the literature. These capabilities were approached as criteria. In this study, Buckley's proposed fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (AHP) method was employed for weighting the whole criteria. After that, weights of the criteria were used to prioritize alternatives with the fuzzy TOPSIS method.
Findings
This model reflects port managers' priorities and port customers' evaluations. Thus, the model can also reflect the level of integration of ports' related department managers into the recruitment process. The analyses allow the evaluation of the attitudes of the human resources department in the related port while fulfilling the personnel recruitment function. As a result of analyses, differences between perceptions of port managers and customers served as a feedback to the human resource management department of the ports.
Originality/value
One of the originalities of this study was derived from its customer-oriented perspective. This is a unique study that gathers common personnel capabilities related to the operation, planning and customer relationship departments and evaluates the success of these capabilities from the customer perspective.
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This study aims to apply new modifications by changing the nonlinear logarithmic calculation steps in the method based on the removal effects of criteria (MEREC) method. Geometric…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to apply new modifications by changing the nonlinear logarithmic calculation steps in the method based on the removal effects of criteria (MEREC) method. Geometric and harmonic mean from multiplicative functions is used for the modifications made while extracting the effects of the criteria on the overall performance one by one. Instead of the nonlinear logarithmic measure used in the MEREC method, it is desired to obtain results that are closer to the mean and have a lower standard deviation.
Design/methodology/approach
The MEREC method is based on the removal effects of the criteria on the overall performance. The method uses a logarithmic measure with a nonlinear function. MEREC-G using geometric mean and MEREC-H using harmonic mean are introduced in this study. The authors compared the MEREC method, its modifications and some other objective weight determination methods.
Findings
MEREC-G and MEREC-H variants, which are modifications of the MEREC method, are shown to be effective in determining the objective weights of the criteria. Findings of the MEREC-G and MEREC-H variants are more convenient, simpler, more reasonable, closer to the mean and have fewer deviations. It was determined that the MEREC-G variant gave more compatible findings with the entropy method.
Practical implications
Decision-making can occur at any time in any area of life. There are various criteria and alternatives for decision-making. In multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) models, it is a very important distinction to determine the criteria weights for the selection/ranking of the alternatives. The MEREC method can be used to find more reasonable or average results than other weight determination methods such as entropy. It can be expected that the MEREC method will be more used in daily life problems and various areas.
Originality/value
Objective weight determination methods evaluate the weights of the criteria according to the scores of the determined alternatives. In this study, the MEREC method, which is an objective weight determination method, has been expanded. Although a nonlinear measurement model is used in the literature, the contribution was made in this study by using multiplicative functions. As an important originality, the authors demonstrated the effect of removing criteria in the MEREC method in a sensitivity analysis by actually removing the alternatives one by one from the model.
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Semen Son-Turan and Wim Lambrechts
The purpose of this paper is to explain the extent and content of the sustainability disclosure of public and foundation (private but not-for-profit) universities in Turkey.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explain the extent and content of the sustainability disclosure of public and foundation (private but not-for-profit) universities in Turkey.
Design/methodology/approach
Subsequent to a systematic literature review of six academic databases and the National Thesis Center, a content analysis using a combination of Global Reporting Initiative and campus assessment tools from previous studies is conducted on stand-alone sustainability reports and websites of a purposive sample of eight universities in Turkey.
Findings
Infrequent and unsystematic sustainability practice done through websites seems to be more prevalent than formal reporting through international initiatives. Research and practice diverge by focusing on different sustainability indicators. Sustainability needs to be integrated into teaching and curriculum through university policies and regulations. Foundation universities show greater effort in sustainability reporting than public universities.
Research limitations/implications
The research is limited by the availability of mostly self-reported, dispersed and unaudited data by foundation universities in addition to framework-imposed specificities. Furthermore, there is only one public university with a formal sustainability report in the sample.
Practical implications
The findings offer suggestions for developing extra sustainability indicators and may assist local policy-makers and researchers in their efforts to improve sustainability reporting by local universities.
Originality/value
This comprehensive research effort is one of the few studies from a non-Western country perspective and the only study on Turkey in relation to universities and sustainability reporting.