Agency problems in the private pension system of Turkey: pension sector employee perspectives
Qualitative Research in Financial Markets
ISSN: 1755-4179
Article publication date: 18 August 2022
Issue publication date: 17 January 2023
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine how the governance structure of the private pension system of Turkey affects the extent of agency problems through a qualitative exploratory analysis of the pension sector employees’ perspectives.
Design/methodology/approach
This study is based on qualitative exploratory research, which includes semi-structured interviews with 13 pension sector employees to investigate their perspectives on agency problems within Turkey’s private pension system. Data from interviews are analyzed by using the thematic content analysis method.
Findings
This study shows us that agency problems are prevalent in Turkey's private pension system, especially in the relations between pension company employees and participants. This study highlights four vulnerabilities of governance structure: the incapacity of governance structure to prevent pension companies as institutional agents from risky operations and transactions, the ability of local capital groups to use their controlling power for effecting fund management operations, the incapacity of the governance structure to prevent the employment of agents with inadequate qualifications, the lack of proper legal and regulatory framework for ensuring sufficient information disclosure to participants during contract-making and fund selection processes.
Originality/value
Previous research on the agency problems in the private pension schemes mostly investigated the issue from the viewpoint of participants. Thus, exploring agency problems from the agents’ point of view will be a contribution to the literature while illuminating the underlying structural problems within the system.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
First and foremost, I am grateful to my advisor Dr Volkan Yılmaz for supervising this research and to Bogazici University Social Forum for providing a space for this research. I would like to also thank the anonymous reviewers for their comments. Lastly, I want to express my appreciation to Sanser Guz, Ozge Pehlivan, and Beste Gun Aslan for their valuable feedback.
Funding statement: This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Ethical considerations: This study was approved by The Ethics Committee for Master and PhD Theses in Social Sciences and Humanities at Boğaziçi University in July 2019. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in this study. The participants have consent to the submission of this article to the journal.
Conflict of interest: The author has no relevant financial or nonfinancial interests to disclose. The author has no conflicts of interest to declare that are relevant to the content of this article. The author certify that they have no affiliations with or involvement in any organization or entity with any financial interest or nonfinancial interest in the subject matter or materials discussed in this manuscript. The author has no financial or proprietary interests in any material discussed in this article.
Citation
Aslan, R.G. (2023), "Agency problems in the private pension system of Turkey: pension sector employee perspectives", Qualitative Research in Financial Markets, Vol. 15 No. 1, pp. 142-159. https://doi.org/10.1108/QRFM-07-2021-0120
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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