AN ANALYSIS OF THE SOCIAL CAPITAL, ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT AND PERFORMANCE IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR OF SOUTHEASTERN TURKEY.

• Author: Emhan, Abdurrahim

1. Introduction

   For this study, a Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was developed to analyze the relationships between social capital and organizational capital, and performance, and whether organizational commitment has a mediating effect on such relationships.

   If an organization is to succeed and reach its targets, its staff must consistently perform at a high level. To maintain high productivity, an organization must have a high degree of organizational commitment. One premise of this study is that the perceptions of the tax officers who participated in this study must exhibit a positive attitude toward performance, organizational commitment, and social capital to facilitate the collecting of a greater level of taxes to enhance the revenue of the country. To test this premise, we examined the amount of taxes collected in a particular area of Southeastern Turkey where a much lower than the average amount of taxes are collected compared with the rest of Turkey. Provinces like Diyarbakir, Batmanand Mardin collect a lower level of tax revenues compared with the other provinces of Turkey (Turkish Revenue Administration, 2013). If tax officials are to effectively explain to tax payers that the collected taxes are used to provide public services, and motivate and facilitate taxpayers to undertake their responsibilities in an appropriate and timely manner, tax officers must be committed to higher performance and have a sense of responsibility and duty to inform and help taxpayers. Such attitudes and performance may motivate more taxpayers to pay their taxes, which in turn, would provide the country with more capital for economic development.

   The provinces of Diyarbakir, Batman and Mardin are priority development areas in Turkey. However, this study was designed to be implemented in other provinces that are also priority development areas, especially in Southeastern Turkey, where there is a great deal of separatist activity. One of the goals of this study is to provide a successful demonstration of how the use of a SEM could be nationally generalized to acquire more reliable and valid scores for analyses that could be used to improve the decision-making process for changes to maximize profits in public sectors.

   Over the last several years, social capital and organizational commitment and performance, and their positive contributions to the productivity of organizations have been the key concepts of studies in public administration. These concepts have been the subject of more studies than ever before because their benefits and advantages in the efficiency and effectiveness of organizations have been explicitly seen and proven. These concepts have been studied individually or in different combinations; however, there have not been any studies in which all of these concepts have been examined for how they are associated with one another, especially in tax offices.

   This study analyzes the synergism between these concepts, and how it can increase the potential to bring greater development to organizations, thus increasing their profitability. Conceptually, this study is original and unique as it analyzes social capital and organizational commitment and performance all together. In this study, we tried to answer the question: Are there any differences in the perception levels of the study subjects from Diyarbakir, Batman and Mardin regarding social capital and organizational commitment or/and performance?

   The effectiveness of tax offices and how they relate to the level of social capital may have an important role in the economic development of the country. A sense of trust, sincerity, commitment to work, and attention to details by employees constitute the foundation for a higher level of organizational commitment. Officers, administrators and other management people in leadership roles, who demonstrate commitment to organizational norms, can have positive effects on other staff members and can encourage them to strive for a higher level of performance in their own positions. One assumption of this study is that if officers working in tax offices achieve higher levels of performance, the rate of tax evasion will diminish and awareness about the importance of taxpaying will be developed, resulting in a significant increase in the amount of revenue from taxes collected for the country. If this study produces reliable and repeatable data, it can make a positive contribution to the related literature and will assist public sector decision makers and other scholars studying these issues.

2. Social capital

   Although the concept of social capital has attracted a significant attention over the last few years, there is no commonly accepted definition. Some scholars accept that social capital has three dimensions that form internal and external connections (Adler and Kwon, 2002; Lin, 2001; Putnam, 2000). Cohen and Prusak (2001) define social capital as networks of people who create financial gains through cooperation based on trust, sharing and dynamic relationships. Nahapiet and Goshal (1998) studied the role of social capital as an intellectual capital developed within organizations, and define the concept as the total net of relationships formed by individuals and social groups. These scholars investigated social capital in three dimensions which are structural, relational and cognitive. In their work on social capital, Leana and Pil (2006) addressed it as internal and external constructs that have the same three dimensions. Internal social capital is the construction and content of relationships among organizational actors. External social capital is the entry of data from external sources (Burt, 2000).

   This study addresses how structural, relational and cognitive relationships affect organizational performance and the mediating effect of organizational commitment. The premise is that trust is derived from cooperation and is the foundation of the unity and effectiveness that lead to the development of organizational commitment (Toremen, 2002). In the literature, it is proven that strong intellectual capital has a positive effect on organizational performance and productivity. These studies have also proven that this positive effect facilitates organizational activities (Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 1998; Karagul and Masca 2005; Leana and Pil, 2006). Social capital enables the organization to take advantage of coordination and information sharing among different sectors that inspire innovations while reducing costs for the participating organizations (Ogut and Erbil, 2009). As seen in the literature, discussions and investigations on social capital mainly focus on communication networks, social norms and trust building, and how these aspects have infiltrated organizational culture and the climate that guides community (Karagul and Masca, 2005). Based on these sources, another assumption of this study is that structural, relational and cognitive social capital exert positive effects on organizational performance.

3. Organizational commitment

   Studies have indicated that employees with a higher level of organizational commitment have higher levels of performance and more success in achieving organizational goals. Organizations investing in human resources and retaining employees are more likely to see improvements in the level of employee commitment and achievement. Of particular importance is that employees are retained most often when employees have a high level of job satisfaction. These employees also have lower levels of absenteeism and turnover intention...