5th Equality Diversity and Inclusion Conference ...

5th Equality Diversity and Inclusion Conference 201223-25 July, Toulouse, FranceStream 6: “Operationalizing diversity management in organizations around the globe – Managing the organization, strategy and culture of difference to achieve genuine outcomes”

Iris Ersoy Doctoral student, Social and Economic Sciences Doctoral Program, Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU), Austria [email protected] GENDER DIVERSITY DISCOURSES: A CASE STUDY OF THE BIGGEST 12 COMPANIES IN TURKEY Abstract Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore gender diversity discourses hidden in the corporate reports and web-sites of the biggest companies in Turkey and explore the gap between the practice and theory of diversity management on a developing country contex. Design/Methodology/Approach: The paper investigates gender discourses in web-based company reports and web-sites. It assumes that these discourses reflect the general state and orientation of gender equality in Turkey. Findings: My sample consists of the 12 Turkish companies that are the highest ranked in Forbes Global 2000. Woman employment proportion disclosure rate is 25 % and woman in management is 17 %. When it comes to pay gap and turnover rates, only 1 company disclosed each information. Research limitations/implications: Further research with a larger sample will be conducted to identify if recent developments have increased reporting on gender diversity.

Iris Ersoy [email protected]

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Originality/value: Many studies explain changing disclosure practices on gender diversity particularly with reference to the changing social and economic context. The present research is the first study focuses on gender issue with an interest of corporate social reporting in Turkey. Key

Words:

Equality,

Discourse,

Gender

Diversity,

Turkey,

Corporate

Social

Responsibility. 1. Introduction Diversity describes internal and external qualities that make a person similar to or different from others (Surgevil, 2010). As a US-based context, diversity management has gained international recognition in recent years (Ozbilgin, 2008). Turkish companies have been aware of the significance of diversity not for so long. Gender, age and disability have been considered as the dimensions of diversity in Turkey (Surgevil, 2010). Due to legal improvements through EU accession, the diversity concept started to disseminate in Turkey (Ozbilgin, Syed and Dereli, 2010).

2. Literature Review 2.1.

Diversity Management in Turkey

The first examples of diversity management practices could be observed in the Ottoman Empire. Diversity in the Ottoman Empire was due to many different factors, like ethnicity (Arabs, Kurds, Laz, Tckerkess, Greek, Albanians), language and religion (Orthodox, Jewish, Catholic..etc.) Major criteria for defining different groups was religion. NonMuslims enjoyed the same liberty and rights like privacy of residence, liberty of religion, liberty of education, right to have access to public utilities and employment rights as Muslims (Surgevil et al). Iris Ersoy [email protected]

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Diversity management has gained importance in Turkey only a short time ago mainly with Turkey`s candidacy of the EU. According to the new Labor Law 4857, which came into force 2003, Article 5 states: “No discrimination based on language, race, sex, political opinion, philosophical belief, religion and sex or similar reasons is permissible in the employment relationship”. Turkey has also signed international conventions and declarations and one of the most important of these is the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). Besides the Directorate General on the Status and Problems of Women was established in the late 1980s (UNDP, 2007). So far, it has come mainly through the international non-governmental organizations working on promoting and strengthening CSR standards in developing countries (Ertuna and Tukel, 2010). A significant government attempt to promote CSR was undertaken by the Capital Markets Board of Turkey in 2003 by publishing Corporate Governance Guidelines. The guidelines list “employees, creditors, customers, suppliers, trade unions, various non-governmental organizations and potential investors” as examples of stakeholders (Ararat et al.). This comprehensive list excludes governments and local communities. According to these guidelines, listed companies in Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE), have to comply these guidelines or explain in their annual reports why they have not complied and what measures they have taken to improve. The guidelines include a stakeholders section with seven headings. I have selected only one of them which is directly related to my research questions; According to Human Resources Policy measures must be taken to prevent race, religion, language and sex discrimination among the employees, to respect the human rights and to protect the employees against physical, spiritual and emotional mistreatments”. Iris Ersoy [email protected]

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Furthermore in order to ensure a participative working environment, informative meetings must be organized with the employees on the subjects like company`s financial opportunities, wage, career, training, health where opinions can be exchanged. This compliance with the guidelines became effective in 2004. In 2005, the Associations Act was amended under the influence of EU accession process. Limitations on the rights of civil servants to join associations was removed and student associations were given equal rights as the others (Ararat, et al.) ISE started a Sustainability Index Project in cooperation with the Business World and Sustainable Development Association (ISE, 2011). The preparations of the index have finished at the end of 2011and expected to make significant contribution to the identity and brand equity of the ISE. Although social reporting is not mandatory, CSR practices of multinational companies, regulations by international agreements, EU membership process and academic research are the main driver forces of CSR reporting in Turkey. The efforts of Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) which is a global sustainability reporting standard has had its efforts to encourage CSR reporting. Coca-Cola Icecek has published the first CSR report sanctioned by GRI (ISE, 2011). 2.2.

Discourses on Gender Diversity

Corporations can gain a competitive advantage by being receptive to woman work-force which could allow them to deal with diversity more efficiently (Bernardi, Bean and Weippert, 2002). Although diversities can vary in many types such as race, colour, disability, national origin etc., the term “diversity” has been commonly used to refer to "gender diversity" throughout the history. Sex and gender have always been considered the same concepts. In fact, while gender means social, political, economical and every aspect of feminity, sex means only the Iris Ersoy [email protected]

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biological difference (Mills, 1988). Women are argued to be dependent on men and their primary duty is defined as to meet the needs of her husband and children, which has been reinforced with religious, political and social foundations. The difficulties which women run into in social life come up in different forms such as ‘stereotypes’, ‘tokenism’, ‘sexual harassment’, ‘mommy track’ and ‘glass ceiling’ in business life. (Karsten, 1994) Corporate web sites and annual reports can be understood as artifacts of organization culture (Bellard and Rülling, 2001). I argue that text analysis of corporate reports enlighten diversity discourses. Following Foucault (e.g., 1989) I assume that discourses systemically create and shape the objects of which they speak. Discourses form social reality actively and since large companies play a leading role in the development of management practices, I investigated the gender diversity discourses in the largest companies of Turkey. I anticipate that their discourses reflect the general state and orientation of gender equality in the sample country. Therefore, I address the following question: 

What are the gender diversity discourses of major Turkish companies?

3. Data and Methodology My sample consists of the 12 Turkish companies that are the highest ranked in Forbes Global 2000 as of March 11, 2011 (Forbes, 2011). My focus has been on the largest firms, as these are the largest employers and are considered more likely to offer voluntary disclosure (Adams et al.). The latest annual reports, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Corporate Governance Compliance (CGC) reports from the year 2010 were downloaded between December 2011 and January 2012. Moreover, the company websites were investigated to find further details. I studied related reports and company websites in Turkish and English. Company reports not only contribute to the social reality but Iris Ersoy [email protected]

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they can also represent stakeholders’ expectations of an organization’s human resource practices (Fiol, 1989). Gender related data on employment, promotion, turnover, equal pay and full/part-time employment (Grosser and Moon, 2008) were searched with a focus of as much for what they do not reveal as for their actual content, since social importance of the CSR reports stresses its potential to be influential (Adams and Harte, 1998).

4. Initial Findings Of the biggest 12 Turkish companies, 7 report on their web-sites, 5 out of these 7 have CGC reports and 3 of them have CSR reports. 2 of the biggest 12 companies have no separate reports, but the sustainability information is included in the annual report. Of the 2 which have CSR reports adopted GRI and provided GRI content table. Company websites report broadly on matters such as culture and arts activities, educational and environmental sponsorships, sports tournaments and fewer companies include disability. Descriptive finding illustrate that more Turkish companies tend to report information on CSR on their web-sites than they do in their CGC, CSR or annual reports. However, with regard to reporting gender diversity related information they report more in their CSR reports than in their CGC or annual reports. All companies with CSR reports have adopted GRI, published GRI index and fully reported either the indicator LA 13 (“composition of governance bodies and breakdown of employees per category according to gender, age group, minority group membership and other indicators of diversity) and the indicator LA 14 (“ratio of basic salary of men to women by employee category”). Information on the percentage of women in the workplace was provided by three companies (25%). When we check the percentage of women in management, this rate decreases to 17 % by only two companies in twelve.


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Another way to increase transparency and comparability is to report on the percentage of the pay gap between men and women. In the absence of disclosure of such information, it remains hard to make reliable comparisons. Like pay gap, turnover rate by gender was also reported by only one company. Akbank reports turnover rate in such details, indicating by location, age group and gender in its CSR report. Information on the percentage of part-time workers employed was disclosed by three Turkish companies. The overall percentage of part or full-time workers is as equally significant as women part-time workers while women often make up the majority of the part-time workers because of their household duties (Grosser et al). Trend in Turkey shows us that Turkey is in a transformation process from adopting UNGC to GRI.

Examples of Reporting on Gender Diversity Discourses “Our Bank adopted a balanced and equal-opportunity distribution of staff, without any discrimination based upon gender or age. Percentage of women among our senior and mid-level management staff is higher than that in a number of companies and banks outside Turkey.” Although Akbank reports that women’s representation at different levels of management is higher than in a number of foreign companies or banks, no quantified information about this compared data is revealed. It is also contradictory that there is no information reported on gender profile neither on its web site nor in annual reports although it was disclosed that Gulay Sabanci who is the chairperson of the Holding has been ranked as the 7. most powerful woman in global business by Fortune in 2010 on the company web-site.


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“At THY, the woman rate is not only important by means of total workforce but also as of management staff.” Despite this information, no quantified information on the percentage of women in management was not reported in its annual report.

References Adams, C.A. and Harte G. (1998), “The Changing Portrayal of Women in British Banks’ and Retail Companies’ Corporate Annual Reports”, Accounting, Organizations and Society, Vol. 23 No. 8, pp. 781-812. Bernardi, R. A., Bean, D. F. and Weippert K. M. (2002), “Signaling Gender Diversity through annual pictures: A research Note on Image Management”, Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal Vol. 15 No. 4, pp. 609-616. Akbank

(2010),

Sustainability

Report

2010.

Available

http://www.akbank.com/en/content/Akbank_sustainability_report_2010.pdf

online

at:

(Accessed

03.12.2011) Ararat, M. and Gocenoglu C. (2005), “Drivers for Sustainable Corporate Responsibility, Case for Turkey”, The International Journal of Business, http://www.gocenoglu.net/ (05.01.2012). Ertuna, B. and Tukel, A. (2010), “Traditional versus International Influences: CSR Disclosures in Turkey”, European Journal International Management, Vol. 4 No. 3, pp. 273-289. Fiol, C. B. (1989), “A Semiotic Analysis of Corporate Language: Organizational Boundaries and Joint Venturing”, Administrative Science Quarterly 34, pp.277-303. Foucault, M. (1989). Archaelogy of Knowledge. London: Routledge.


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Forbes

(2011),

Forbes

Global

2000

List.

Available

online

at:

http://www.forbes.com/global2000/list/#p_1_s_arank_All_All_Turkey (Accessed 01.12.2011) Grosser, K. and Moon, J. (2008), “Developments in Company Reporting on Workplace Gender Equality? A Corporate Social Responsibility Perspective”, Accounting Forum, No. 32, pp. 179-198. Holton, V. (2005), “Diversity Reporting: How European Business is Reporting on Diversity and Equal Opportunities”, Women in Management Review, Vol. 20 No. 1, pp. 72-77. Ozbilgin, M. F., Syed, J. and Dereli, B. (2010), “Managing gender diversity in Pakistan and Turkey: a historical review”, in Klarsfeld, A. (Ed.), International Handbook on Diversity Management at Work, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, UK, pp. 11-25. Ozbilgin, M. F. (2008), “Global Diversity Management”, in Smith P., Peterson M. F. and Surgevil, O. (2010), “Is diversity management relevant for Turkey? Evaluation of some factors leading to diversity management in the context of Turkey”, in Syed, J. and Ozbilgin, M. (Ed.), Managing Cultural Diversity in Asia a Research Companion, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, UK, pp. 373-392. THY (2010), Corporate Governance Principles Compliance Report. Available online at: http://www.turkishairlines.com/download/investor_relations/annual_reports/2010_Faaliyet_ Raporu.pdf (Accessed 14.01.2012) Thomas D. C., (Ed.), The Handbook of Cross Cultural Management Research, Sage Press, London, pp. 379-396. UNDP (2007), Baseline Study on CSR Activities in the New EU Member States and Candidate

Countries.

Available

online

europeandcis.undp.org/uploads/public1/files/BASELINE_STUDY_ON.pdf

at:

http:// (Accessed

04.01.2012) Iris Ersoy [email protected]

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Tables



Annual Report CSR Report CGC Report





Web-site









GRI Index

Ford Oto

  



Turkish Airlines

Enka Holding

Turkcell

Vakifbank



Turk Telekom

Akbank



Sabanci Holding Halkbank

Koc Holding

Isbank

Garanti Bank

Table 1: Forbes Global 2000 Companies















Isbank

Koc Holding

Akbank

Sabanci Holding

Halkbank

Turk Telekom

Vakifbank

Turkcell

Enka Holding

Turkish Airlines

Ford Oto

Garanti Bank

Table 2: Gender in Workplace Profile

Women as % of total workforce

-

-

+

+

-

-

-

-

+

-

+

-

Women as % of management

-

-

-

+

-

-

-

-

+

-

-

-

Turnover rate by gender

-

-

-

+

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

Pay gap between men and women

-

-

+

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

% of all part/fulltime employees

-

-

+

+

-

-

-

-

+

-

+

-


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