Early Years of Modern Management in Turkey: Factories, Industrial Schools and Foreign Specialists in the Late Ottoman Period

Abstract

The aim of this study is to demonstrate how developments during the Ottoman Empire's 19th century industrialization epoch, especially following the Reorganization (Tanzimat) Period, influenced the fabric of modern business administration in Turkey. In this context, we will attempt to determine how the establishment of public and private factories; the foundation of industrial and commercial schools; and the arrival of foreign engineers and management specialists, affected the early development of Turkish industry. To this end, we will present documents retrieved from the Prime Ministry's Ottoman Empire Archives, along with findings from secondary sources. Based an examination of these developments, it possible to assert that the emergence of modern business administration in Turkey, which was traditionally considered to be limited to the period of the Republic, could be reframed by also including the later years of the Ottoman Empire.