Foreign Ownership and Export Orientation : Evidence from Turkey

The aim of this study is to examine whether and how foreign ownership affects export orientation of large Turkish companies in alliance with the increasing internationalization trends. Empirical analysis is based on the annual data of industrial companies listed in the Istanbul Chamber of Industry for the period of 2003-2010. This study intends to contribute to the literature by i) presenting the static effects of foreign ownership on export orientation and by ii) introducing the dynamic nature of export orientation. Empirical results reveal significant positive effect of foreign ownership on export orientation. Findings prove the dynamic nature of the export orientation. Moreover, dynamic analyses confirm the findings of static analysis that foreign ownership has an effect on export orientation with a positive sign. Large Turkish companies seem to organize their ownership structures in favor of foreign ownership to strengthen their export oriented position. We believe that this finding will contribute to the improvement of corporate governance system and macro-economic dynamics of the country in the long-run