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The paper aims to highlight the extent to which the institutional context of a country can inhibit entrepreneurial activity in clusters.

Case study method employing exploratory survey questionnaire and interviews administered to 78 firms in the Denizli textile cluster in Turkey.

Findings show that Denizli district firms nurture effectively only some of the features of an industrial district, that is flexibility, participative managerial structure and trust. However, there is limited availability of skilled workers, and limited co‐operation in the form of joint projects and investments for innovation owing to the weak institutional context in which these firms are embedded. Although this might be expected to discourage economic benefits, performance, particularly in terms of efficiency and relations with internal and external customers, is perceived to be high by the cluster firms.

It is not adequate to argue that policy makers of developing countries should take particular systems of organizing, such as cluster formation, into consideration for their industrialization efforts. One needs to consider the wider institutional context in which entrepreneurial activity is embedded that can limit the degree to which clusters can stimulate economic development. This has implications for the applicability of a cluster approach to foreign contexts, particularly where global value chain governance is of a quasi‐hierarchical form.

Although district firms can strategize on the basis of their flexibility, trust relations and managerial structures within the confines of a state‐organized institutional environment and a quasi‐hierarchical global value chain, further improvements such as relocation of production and equity participation are needed to meet the global challenge.

This study shows that the institutional make‐up of a country can discourage actors from changing patterns of organizing for innovation. Although a substantial number of studies have been carried out for more than a decade on the internal structure and formation of clusters, these pertain predominantly to operations in developed nations and, by and large, ignore developing countries. The paper argues that clusters may not generate the same economic benefits when embedded in weak, state‐organized institutional settings as when operating in strong collaborative institutional contexts. The study is of value particularly to policy makers.

Interactions between local people and guests/visitors are the main elements of tourism experience. And local festivals, considered as a significant part of festival tourism, are quite important in this context. Though many studies have been conducted about interaction between local residents and guests tourists, emotional solidarity remains as a concept which has not yet been studied much in tourism literature on local festivals. The aim of this study is to examine emotional solidarity in tourism festival literature and to determine the relationships between perceptions of local people related to social impacts of festivals and emotional solidarity they feel for guests/visitors.

In line with this purpose, a quantitative approach was adopted, and 19th weaving, culture and handicrafts festival held in Buldan was chosen to be studied as it is an important festival for local people dwelling in Buldan, Denizli province located in Aegean Region in Turkey. The study data were obtained through questionnaire method conducted with Buldan residents during the 19th festival (June, 28th–30th, 2019). The sample was determined with random sampling method.

The data were analyzed via factor and regression analyses. As a result of factor analysis, social impacts of the festivals were grouped under 6 factors (under 3 subfactors of social benefits: communal benefits, cultural–educational benefits, social unity benefits; under 3 subfactors of social costs: concerns related to social resources, concerns related to life quality and concerns related to social order).

Local people's perceptions of social impacts of festivals must be determined in order to find their impacts on emotional solidarity, and deficiencies must be remedied. Local governments who organize festivals to invigorate local economies usually try to attract more visitors with the purpose of maximizing economic impacts of festivals, and this is done without placing much importance on the social problems and social change that may arise in the future (Crandall, 1994).

Relationships were determined between emotional solidarity and residents' perceptions towards social and cultural–educational benefits as well as their concerns related to social resources and life quality.

Purpose – This chapter aims to explore and discuss how women paid and unpaid labor in weaving is positioned in the flexible production chain in the context of local development.

Methodology/approach – It is based on a research11Report on Effects and Results of the Relationships between Manufacturers and Local Weavers on the Local Social Structure: Cases of Mugla/Yesilyurt, Istanbul/Sile and Kastamonu in collaboration with Asuman Turkun-Erendil and supported by Mugla University Research Projects Unit, 2006 (unpublished project report). study, using mainly oral history methods, of three weaving centers in Anatolia in their attempts to achieve local development through the restructuring of their traditional craft.

Findings – This study shows how a flexible production process is organized in ways in which women's labor is almost always positioned as cheap and insecure. In this process, through production of hegemonic discourses, symbolic capital of secure women's work is drastically decreased and that of the production activity itself (weaving) is increased. It also discusses how the state as the main carrier of symbolic violence, plays an important role in expansion of flexible production and informality directly (with its policies applied in its own enterprises) or indirectly (with its policies in general).

Originality/value of paper – By focusing on the mechanisms through women's labor is kept cheap or unpaid in the organization of the entire production process and also on the relationships between women's labor and the state in local development context, critical points for future discussion and policy-making are raised.

The purpose of this paper is to scrutinize three different points: How safe haven properties of precious metals (gold, silver, platinum and palladium) differentiate in two recent major crises such as the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and the COVID-19 pandemic? How safe haven properties of precious metals change by the severity and the duration of shocks? and whether precious metals have hedge properties or not in normal conditions against different stock markets.

To analyze the time-varying behavior of precious metals with respect to stock market returns, the authors used the rolling window approach. After obtaining the time-varying beta series that way, the authors regressed the beta series on different severities of stock market shocks.

The findings show that the number of safe haven precious metals increases in the COVID-19 pandemic period compared to the GFC. Furthermore, the number of safe haven precious metals increases as the severity of shocks increases and the duration of them extended. Finally, in the absence of an extreme market condition, only gold has strong hedge asset properties.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first that examines the safe haven and hedge properties of all tradable precious metals against seven major stock markets. Besides this, it presents a comparative analysis for the safe haven properties of precious metals in terms of two major crises.

This chapter aims to provide the recent developments on the supplementary education system in Turkey. The national examinations for advancing to higher levels of schooling are believed to fuel the demand for Supplementary Education Centers (SECs). Further, we aim to understand the distribution of the SECs and of the secondary schools across the provinces of Turkey in order to evaluate the spacial equity considerations.

The evolution of the SECs and of the secondary schools over time are described and compared. The provincial distribution of the SECs, secondary schools, and the high school age population are compared. The characteristics of these distributions are evaluated to inform about spatial equity issues. The distribution of high school age population that attend secondary schools and the distribution of the secondary school students that attend SECs across the provinces are compared.

The evidence points out to significant provincial variations in various characteristics of SECs and the secondary schools. The distribution of the SECs is more unequal than that of the secondary schools. The provinces located mostly in the east and south east of the country have lower quality SECs and secondary schools. Further, the SEC participation among the secondary school students and the secondary school participation among the relevant age group are lower in some of the provinces indicating major disadvantages.

The review of the most recent developments about the SECs, examination and comparison of provincial distributions of the SECs and of the secondary schools are novelties in this chapter.

The aim of this study is to analyze which socioeconomic factors (economic, demographic, and political) most commonly affect the social expenditure of the European Union (EU) and Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries.

A panel data fixed-effects model is employed for 34 OECD and 23 EU countries between 2000 and 2020.

Results indicate that, in all country groups, economic factors have the most significant influence on social expenditures, with income being the primary determinant, particularly in EU countries. The negative impacts of unemployment and inflation underscore the importance of counter-cyclical measures adopted by countries to maintain stability in their social expenditures. The most influential demographic factor is found as the old-age-dependency ratio. While the rule of law affects social expenditure positively, government effectiveness and female labor force participation affect it negatively. The positive effect of Konjunkturforschungsstelle (KOF) indexes shows the globalization effect, which can be attributable to the compensation hypothesis.

Governments enforce inclusive and sustainable policies to boost economic activities and GDP, thus combating inflation and unemployment and regulating the labor market and socioeconomic problems about aging populations and women’s economic participation to control social expenditures. The rule of law and institutional quality will also boost economic growth.

This study focuses on the effects of social expenditures in a broader view within the framework of the three main factors (economic, demographic, political) and attempts to determine the key factors that account for the differences in social expenditure between the OECD and EU countries.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-05-2023-0384

Numerous studies have looked at why people attend events which engage in conspicuous consumerism, but they have neglected the fear of missing out on these event-based experiences. This study aims to look at the impact of sensation seeking on conspicuous consumption within the event-based activities. Moreover, the developed model examined the mediating role of the fear of missing out in this impact.

A questionnaire survey was conducted, and a conceptual framework was performed to test hypothesized links between the three variables.

The findings show that sensation seeking affects conspicuous consumption, and fear of missing out has a mediating effect on this relationship.

The results of the study give some theoretical and practical implications to practitioners and researchers about aspirational class as elite consumers and high-level attendees of one-off events.

Previous research has been unable to provide a comprehensive method for measuring environment-based experience and its outcomes although it is an essential determinant of the museum experience. Therefore, this paper aims to present a measurement method for exploring how visitors’ servicescape experiences affect their positive word-of-mouth intention (PWOM).

Data were collected by surveying 810 visitors to 3 museums (i.e. Louvre, Pera and Key) representing different museum types. The research model was validated by using partial least squares structural equation modeling.

The predicted associations between sensory, spatial and social experiences, and PWOM were confirmed for Pera. In the Louvre and Key, however, only sensory and social experiences were positively associated with PWOM. In addition, the moderating effect of building type on the relationship between spatial experience and PWOM was demonstrated.

This paper contributes to the servicescape, customer experience and museum literature in several ways. Firstly, this study proposes a measurement method for servicescape experiences. Secondly, this study introduces servicescape experiences as new types of customer experience. Thirdly, this study provides insightful implications for the museum literature and professionals by highlighting how servicescape experiences affect PWOM across different types of museums.

This study aims to determine the attitudes of Turkish consumers toward Islamic mobile shopping apps and discuss whether these apps will need to be designed in accordance with Islamic rules in Muslim countries or not in the sample of Turkey.

A descriptive study was used. The data was collected online through a questionnaire form. The one-sample t-test and univariate analysis of variance were used to analyze the data obtained from 379 individuals.

The results show that Turkish customers have mostly positive attitudes toward Islamic mobile shopping apps and demand that the pictures, videos and advertisements used on mobile shopping apps be in concordance with Islamic rules. As a result of this study, consumers do not mind the colors or lean toward the use of models on Islamic mobile shopping apps. Furthermore, there are differences between gender with regard to using Islamic mobile shopping apps, showing that male consumers have a more positive attitude toward Islamic mobile shopping apps compared with female consumers.

Like many previous empirical studies, this study has limited its context to capture a particular geographical area. Moreover, in this study, the data are obtained by judgmental sampling as a nonrandom sampling method. The contributions of the current study are restricted to Islamic mobile apps for the hijab clothing sector in Turkey.

The results obtained can become a yardstick to measure consumer attitudes toward Islamic mobile apps’ attributes.

The primary benefit is to call the attention of mobile app designers to the design features of mobile shopping apps aimed at Muslim users. The second benefit is to determine the expectations of Muslim users regarding the design of Islamic mobile shopping apps, and eventually establish the fundamental Islamic design features needed to be available on new Islamic mobile shopping apps.

This study aims to examine the effects of industrial production (IP), inflation and investment on suicide mortality in Turkey as a developing country over the 1988–2018 period.

Fourier cointegration test and dynamic ordinary least square regression were used in this study.

IP and investment have a statistically significant and negative impact on suicide mortality, whereas inflation has a statistically significant and positive effect on suicide mortality.

The results of this study have important implications for policymakers and potentially the creation and implementation of suicide prevention policies. Not only do investment promotion, IP and disinflation policies in developing countries have a significant effect on economic growth but they also have a substantial impact on mental health.

Although previous studies have investigated the impact of economic growth and unemployment on suicide deaths in Turkey, no research has probed the effect of economic factors, except for unemployment and gross domestic product, on suicide. Thus, given the hidden unemployment and informal sector in developing economies, it is vital to examine the impact of IP, inflation and investment on mental health.