Melsa Ararat

• PhD
• Retired at Sabancı University

This paper examines the impact of workforce gender diversity on the relationship between female board and managerial representation and bank performance. Using panel data on Turkish banks from 2006-2020, we find that while female directors and executives alone correlate negatively with credit growth, likely due to being more risk-averse, there are...

The 2011 Egyptian revolution was associated with significant political and social upheaval, followed by societal changes and attempts by policymakers to reduce the marginalisation of women and promote their inclusion in the economy. Drawing on this background, the authors compare the effect of board gender diversity before and after the revolution....

We study the relationship between female representation on boards and firm value and profitability in Turkey from 2011 to 2018, relying on hand-collected data covering the vast majority of listed firms. We build several proxies of female representation on boards and find no evidence that female directors predict firm value and profitability using b...

In this paper, we show how corporate governance reforms and research have been mutually reinforcing in emerging markets and propose a research agenda going forward. Acknowledging the by now broad recognition of corporate governance as a key development driver, we show how work on corporate governance in emerging markets has led research globally by...

Turkey, frequently referred to as a bridge between the East and the West, has a long history of women struggling for equality. Part 2 of this book provides an overview of this rich history from multiple lenses. In this part, we briefly turn the spotlight to the most recent developments in which the BADV Project evolved.

The 2030 Development Agenda, adopted unanimously by the 193 United Nations (UN) member countries on September 25, 2015, is a universal call to action for transforming the world to one that is free from poverty, inequality, violence, manmade natural disasters, and resource depletion for the current and future generations. The 2030 Agenda sets 17 Sus...

This book addresses the Business Against Domestic Violence (BADV) project launched by the Corporate Governance Forum of Turkey (CGFT), a research center at Sabanci University School of Management. The goal of BADV is to mobilize companies to combat intimate partner violence (IPV) in Turkey. The project was made possible by a collaborative partnersh...

This paper investigates the impact of corporate boards’ gender diversity on voluntary public disclosure of climate change risks in an emerging economy context in which environmental regulations are weak and markets are ineffective. The investigation relies on data from the CDP (formerly known as the Carbon Disclosure Project) as a corporate sustain...

This paper analyzes the relationship between Business Groups as a distinct way of organizing economic activities and their relation to the public good. We first analyze the phenomenon of Business Groups and discuss some of their core features. Subsequently, the paper moves to analyzing the existing literature on Business Groups and corporate social...

We study the corporate governance practices of Turkish public firms from 2006 to 2012, relying on hand-collected data covering the vast majority of listed firms. We build a Turkey Corporate Governance Index, TCGI, composed of subindices for board structure, board procedure, disclosure, ownership, and shareholder rights. TCGI predicts higher market...

The report presents the status of women on corporate boards in Turkey in 2015 and present the trends from 2012. The results of the investigation into women on Turkey’s corporate boards in 2015 indicate that the percentage of female directors in BIST companies has been increasing since 2012 but only marginally, although the rate of increase in 2015...

Manuscript Type Empirical Research Question/Issue We investigate the indirect effect of a board's demographic diversity on firm performance via board monitoring in a context where boards are relatively homogeneous with respect to structural diversity, using data from Turkey. We contextualize our investigation by exploring the influence of ownershi...

The survey conducted by CGFT, in cooperation with IPSOS, focused on white-collar workingwomen employed by companies that are signatories of business networks (UN Global Compact Turkey Network and Equality at Work Platform), aimed at achieving gender equality at the workplace. All the companies that are associated with these networks were invited to...

Business groups play a large, sometimes dominant economic role in many countries. A number of studies find an association between firm-level corporate governance and market value, but none study the role of business group identity in firm level corporate governance or the value of “group governance.” We begin to fill that gap through a case study o...

This paper is a sequel to the “Sustainable Investment in Turkey, 2010” report (IFC, 2011). The original report provided a review of the then current state of the sustainable investment (SI) in Turkey and analysed the institutional prerequisites and interventions that would encourage better allocation of financial capital to sustainable firms. This...

Statutory CG standards in Turkey have improved, but highly concentrated ownership structures and the inadequacy of the enforcement framework would continue to constitute serious obstacles. In this article, we examine new evidence to ascertain the extent to which improvement in corporate governance quality can be related to the emergence of a rule-b...

What determines the tendency of international institutional investors to participate in the general assemblies of companies they invest in and cast their vote? Using a sample of 62 countries, we show that measures of investor protection, better disclosure, stronger property rights protection and judicial efficiency positively affect these tendencie...

Bu tanımlayıcı çalışmada İMKB’de işlem gören bankaların kamuya açıklama yoğunlukları, halka açık diğer şirketlerle ve uluslar arası referans grupta yer alan bankalarla karşılaştırılmış, kamuya açıklama yoğunluğunu etkileyen etmenler gözlemlenmeye çalışılmıştır. Yönetişim özellikleri ise Avrupa’nın piyasa değeri en yüksek 25 bankası ile karşılaştırı...

The Second International conference on corporate Governance in emerging Markets is one in a series of academic events organized by the Emerging Markets Corporate Governance Network (EMCGN). The Global Corporate Governance Forum (GCGF) at the IFC endorses and supports the Network, which was first convened by Professor Stijn Claessens in 2001. The bi...

Sermaye Piyasası Kurulu 30 Aralık 2011 ve 11 Şubat 2012 tarihlerinde yayınladığı Seri IV, No: 56 ve 57 sayılı tebliğlerle 2003 yılında ‘uy yada açıkla’ yaklaşımı ile yayınladığı Kurumsal Yönetim İlkeleri’ni yeniledi ve ilkelerin bir kısmını 654 sayılı kanun hükmündeki kararnamenin kendisine verdiği yetkilere dayanarak halka açık şirketler için uyul...

Turkey’s New Company Law paved the way for its national stock exchange to be the first in the world to require the issuers change their company statutes in order to allow electronic participation and voting at their general assemblies. A recent regulation mandated all listed companies to use a single electronic portal to allow shareholders to parti...

The Third International Conference on Corporate Governance in Emerging Markets is one in a series of academic events organized by the Emerging Markets Corporate Governance Network (EMCGN). The Global Corporate Governance Forum at IFC endorses and supports the Network, which was first convened by Professor Stijn Claessens in 2001. The biannual acade...

Emerging markets play an increasingly important role in the global economy, given their high economic growth prospects and their improving physical and legal infrastructures. And they can offer an attractive opportunity for investors. At the same time, investors face multi-faceted risks in emerging markets, at both country and individual-company le...

IFC launched a series of sustainable investment country reports covering major emerging capital markets attracting global portfolio investors: Brazil, India, China, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), and Turkey. “The State of Sustainable Investment in Key Emerging Markets” provides a snapshot of the findings of these count...

This report has been prepared as a part of the Sustainable Investment Program of IFC’s Sustainable Business Advisory Department. The main objectives of this report are as follows:1. To understand and provide a review of the current state of the Sustainable Investment (SI) market in Turkey.2. To identify the drivers and obstacles for sustainable inv...

The Group brings together staff from investment support and advisory operations into a single, global team. This unified team advises on all aspects of corporate governance and offers targeted client services in areas such as increasing board effectiveness, improving the control environment, and family businesses governance. The Group also helps su...

A large number of empirical studies in the U.S. report that there is no cross-sectional relationship between board composition and firm performance. On the other hand, a relatively small but growing literature on boards in emerging market corporations shows that a higher level of board independence is associated with both firm actions which are con...

The fi ndings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this publication should not be attributed in any manner to the International Finance Corporation, to its affi liated organizations, or to members of its board of Executive Directors or the countries they represent. The International Finance Corporation does not guarantee the data included...

In many developing economies with emerging markets, liberalisation efforts overlap with corporate governance reforms to attract international capital to domestic firms. In general, reformers tend to adopt a soft law approach which is characterised by a voluntary corporate governance code and mandatory disclosure of compliance. One apparent aspect o...

Bu makale yönetişim sistemleri ve ülkelerin ekonomik performansı arasındaki ilişki konusunda yapılan araştırmaların bir sentezini oluşturmaya çalışmaktadır. Makalede yönetişim sistemlerinin çerçevesinin belirlenmesinde önemli rol oynadıkları düşünülen sahiplik yapıları, yönetim kurulları ve hukuk sistemleri incelenmekte ve bu yapılardan bazılarının...

The main objective of this paper is to investigate the impact of board diversity on the financial performance of the ISE-100 index firms traded in the Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE). We use gender and generation differences as observable attributes and directors’ educational and nationality backgrounds as proxies of non-observable attributes of valu...

In this article, we examine issues with respect to the adoption of a voluntary code of conduct, addressing the social standards in the garment sector in Turkey. We try to shed some light on the following critical question: does the adoption of voluntary CoC cause the marginalization of the role that unions play in a developing country context? We d...

We compare the objectives, processes and outcomes of different approaches adopted by BOVESPA and ISE (Istanbul Stock Exchange) for differentiating better governed firms listed on their respective boards. Novo Mercado of BOVESPA, launched at the end of December 2000, was able to attract over 30 companies within 5 years, whereas ISE CG Index, announc...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to take a snapshot of corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices in Turkey by exploring the role of the economy, state and societal culture. It aims to focus on the impact of cultural values on the role stakeholders play in driving corporate behaviour. Design/methodology/approach The paper is based on a re...

This paper attempts to synthesise the reports prepared by various authors, who live and work in their homeland in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), on the notion of "corporate social responsibility" ("CSR"). The reports are prepared as a prologue for a workshop organised by the World Bank (MDF5) which took plavece in Beirut in 2005. The auth...

Recent work on corporate governance has highlighted the effects of corporate governance quality on macroeconomic crises, especially in the context of South-East Asian economies. However, the possibility of reverse causation from macroeconomic performance to corporate governance has been overlooked. This paper aims to address this issue by examining...

This report aims to provide an assessment of Turkey’s corporate governance regime and practices with a view to identify key issues and obstacles to investments and growth. We will focus on two aspects of CG framework in Turkey; (i) legal and regulatory protection offered to outside investors against the abuse and expropriation by the controlling sh...

In this chapter, we examine new evidence to ascertain the extent to which the quality of CG standards can be related to the emergence of a rule-based economic policy framework and the subsequent reduction in macroeconomic instability. The analysis below suggests that the positive impact of the change in the economic policy framework is still eviden...

This contribution summarises the roles of economy, state and society in Turkey with respect to societys attitude toward business and attempts to explore how cultural characteristics of society may have an impact on CSR. We argue that the cultural characteristics combined with the economic fundamentals of Turkey do not encourage socially responsible...

Both international and domestic developments have combined to bring the corporate governance (CG) debate to the fore in Turkey. Given this increased interest in CG matters and the significance of Turkey as an emerging market, we provide an overview of the Turkish CG framework with two objectives in mind: (i) contributing to the growing CG literatur...

In the 1990s, macroeconomic instability went hand in hand with low corporate governance quality in Turkey. There is an extensive literature on the relationship between the legal/institutional environment as the independent variable and corporate governance quality as dependent variable. However, the relationship between macroeconomic instability an...

We examine the implications of imperfect information for corporate governance quality and stakeholder loyalty. We establish that imperfect information is conducive to lower levels of corporate governance quality and/or stakeholder loyalty compared to the benchmark of perfect information. Under imperfect information, stakeholders (shareholders, cons...