To determine and analyze factors providing competitive advantage to Turkish foundation universities

Abstract

Son yıllarda Türkiye'de yüksek öğretim dünyadaki yeni gelişimler paralelinde yeni bir döneme girdi denilebilir. 1984'te yalnızca 1 vakıf ve 27 devlet üniversitesi bulunan ülkemizde bugün 108 devlet 70 vakıf üniversitesi bulunmaktadır. Üniversite sayısındaki bu artış dünyadaki gelişmelerin de etkisiyle yüksek öğretim alanında daha rekabetçi ve daha dinamik bir ortamı da beraberinde getirmiştir. Dolayısıyla, böyle bir ortamda `rekabet avantajı` kavramı yüksek öğretim kurumları için de önem kazanmıştır. Bu nedenle, çalışmamız, Türkiye'deki vakıf üniversitelerine rekabet avantajı sağlayacak olan unsurların tespit edilmesi ve analizine yönelik hazırlanmıştır. Bunu yaparken stratejik yönetim yazınının en önemli iki teorisinden faydalanılmış olup, Kaynak Temelli Yaklaşım, rekabet avantajı unsurlarının belirlenmesi ve analizinin yapılabilmesi için kullanılmış; Porter'ın Beş Güç Teorisi ise akademisyen algısı ölçmek için incelenmiş ve bulgular analizlere destek olarak ortaya konulmuştur. Elde edilen sonuçların, gerek Türk yüksek öğretimine şekil veren devlet yetkilileri gerekse üniversitelerin yönetim kadrosundaki kişiler ve akademisyenlerimiz için faydalı olacağı kanısındayız.

With new challenges, Turkish higher education system has entered a new period with a phase of numerical enlargement and transformation. While, only 1 foundation and 27 state universities in 1984, the higher education system today have turned into a broad system with 108 state and 70 foundation universities. The growing rate which has brought with it competition and dynamism to the higher education has offered many alternatives to students in Turkey. In such higher education area, to identify and analyze the factors providing competitive advantage among universities is very important. There are two main ideas in strategic management literature that discuss the concept of competitive advantage. One of them is Industry-Based View that is generally presented by Porter Theory. It says that the source of competitive advantage of a firm should be investigated within industrial factors. The second one is Resource-Based View. It underlines strategic resources and capabilities of a firm as the main source of competitive advantage. As the goal of this dissertation is to determine and analyze the factors that provide competitive advantage to foundation universities, research is conducted to: (a) Determine the external competitive forces of higher education in the context of literature. (b) Identify the internal resources affecting to higher education in the context of literature. (c) Specify the performance indicators to obtain competitive advantage in the context of literature. (d) Show the perception of academics about the effect of external environment tools on higher education performance. (e) Show the perception of academics about the relationship between internal resources and higher education performance. (f) Analyze relationship between internal resources and higher education performance.The impacts of external forces and internal resources on university performance are examined through the perception of academics. In addition to perceptional views, the relationship between internal resources and university performance is examined through obtaining data from Turkish foundation universities. The thesis concludes the competitive advantage models, which explain the relation to internal resources and performance of higher education. As the external forces are only examined by using academics' perception, they cannot be included in models of study. The results of study can be used by government policy-makers and universities' managers to improve their strategy in achieving competitive advantage.