Locational Preferences of Transnational Corporations in Turkey: From the Last Period of the Ottoman Empire to the 2000s

Transnational corporations (TNCs) have played an increasingly significant role in the world economy particularly throughout the last four decades. TNCs’ crucial significance makes them a subject of great concern to consumers, producers, nation states, and international organizations within the context of globalised economy. Locational preferences of transnational corporations, on the other hand, have always been deeply affected by changes in the economic and political structures, i.e. policies, institutional, and legal frameworks for foreign direct investments. From this point of view, the aim of this paper is to unravel the ways in which locational preferences of transnational corporations have changed throughout different historical periods in Turkey. For this aim, a historical analysis by way of giving reference to fluctuations occurred in the economic and political structure of the country is carried out from the host country perspective starting with the last period of Ottoman Empire to the 2000s. In this context, a historical account of the various factors that affect the location selection decision of transnational corporations, home countries of these companies, sectors these companies invested in, their investment capital, policies related to foreign direct investment in the host country, accessibility to markets, infrastructure in the host country, and other resources were enquired in the Turkish context