Megafirms as Economic, Social, and Geopolitical Actors in Emerging Multipolarity

Organized in partnership with the SMS Practitioner Strategy Committee, this extension on mega firms serves as a springboard for the strategic management community to focus on the nature and implications of mega firms that are more than corporations and less than governments. There are various descriptions of what one looks like. Some argue that they employ at least 10,000 employees, while others focus on the percentage of the GDP it generates. Interestingly, scholarly perspectives on the perils of market power combined with the regulatory pursuit of anti-trust policies make these mega firms’ existence and proliferation a mega puzzle of the 21st century.

Received wisdom in organizational economics and management, going back to Knight (1933), Coase (1937), Penrose (1959), and Williamson (1967), assures firms cannot grow their size uninterrupted. Diseconomies of scale due to the managers’ bounded rationality and the increasing cost of control and coordination in growing bureaucracies constrain the growth of the firm size. Yet, firms like Apple annually increase their employees by 10,000, and like Amazon, can hold steady over one million employees in competitive markets. What changed in the 21st century to facilitate this uninterrupted growth? Are managers less boundedly rational? Are bureaucracies less costly to control and coordinate? Would these changes imply that a firm can grow like the proverbial beanstalk that could reach the moon?

Most of these megafirms are also multinational corporations. Their large employee base combined with market capitalizations in the billions and trillions of dollars suggests that their strategies can be a source of seismic turbulence in the global economic (and world) order, social fabric, and even in geopolitics. One can argue that the US-led unipolar world order enabled and, and in turn, supported by the globalization of Western megafirms. Then, does the globalization of non-Western megafirms like Alibaba depend on and facilitate the weakening unipolarity and the emergence of multipolarity in the world order?

Panels’ topics of exploration include but are not limited to the following:

1. How did we end up with megafirms given contestable markets, innovation, and anti-trust regulation?
2. Can we explain these megafirms’ investment choices (e.g., market entry/exit) using only the existing theories of competitive advantage and industrial organization?
3. Do we need to incorporate political economy and international relations paradigms?
4. What is the impact of new technologies on firm size?

5. For finance and investment planning, are these firms investing like governments? What’s their time horizon? How will the market react to mega projects these firms undertake?

1. Given that megafirms have global, political, and societal impacts and economic and financial outcomes, how should their performance be defined and measured?
2. What is the relationship between megafirms and the emergence of a multipolar world order?
3. Are the megafirms agents of their home countries or principal actors in the global competition for world order?
4. Should megafirms be regulated? Can they be regulated?
5. Should we revisit concepts like market power and price control considering the persistence of megafirms’ dominance in primary and critical sectors of the economy?

The organizers invite the strategic management community of academics and practitioners to participate actively in this day-long extension in two parts. The first part includes a panel of top executives of Koç Holding, a megafirm of Turkiye in the Global Fortune 500, to get an insider’s view on its organization, management, and growth trajectory at the cusp of its second century. There will be four moderated panel discussions throughout the day that allow ample time for audience participation and bring together academics and practitioners. Look out for future announcements about the extension with further details.

We expect the participants of the event to gain new insights into the operations of mega organizations, from their HR policies to project selection and investment decisions. In addition, there will be opportunities for networking. For academics, the event presents an opportunity to extend their research on mega firms and to explore new theoretical and empirical paths. It is likely that scholars will come away with more questions than answers about existing management theories, empirical approaches, and the field’s understanding of the origins and implications of mega firms.

Speakers:

• Sharon Alvarez (University of Pittsburgh) (addition)
• Alvaro Cuervo-Cazurra (Northeastern University)
• Christos Pitelis (University of Cambridge)
• Subramanian Rangan (INSEAD)
• Myles Shaver (University of Minnesota)
• Alain Verbeke (University of Calgary)
• Yan Anthea Zhang (Rice University)
• Executives from Koc Holding
  • Bige YücelLead–Country General Counsel & Board Member of Siemens Tuerkiye AHK Tuerkiye Vice President
  • Kumru Bektas–Strategic Planning and Efficiency Management Director (Yapı Kredi Bank)
  • İlker Erden–Strategy and Business Development Coordinator and Co-leader of the Strategy Department, (Koç Holding)
  • Arif Emre Keleş–Executive Director of Strategy (Beko)
  • Çağatay Ölken–Executive Director, Strategy and Sustainability (Tüpraş)
• Cristina Caffarra (Economist, Anti-trust expert, Honorary Professor at University College London)
• Emre Karter, CEO and Board Member of Citi Turkiye
• Burak Ayken–Strategic Planning Director (Eczacibasi Holding)
• Adam Job–Director of the Strategy Lab (Henderson Institute, BCG)

Executives from Koc Holding:

Bige Yücel

Lead Country General Counsel & Board Member of Siemens Tuerkiye AHK Tuerkiye Vice President

As the Lead Country General Counsel and Board Member at Siemens Tuerkiye, Bige brings nearly two decades of legal expertise, having previously worked at prominent law firms such as Bıçakcı & Tanverdi and Hergüner Bilgen Özeke. She has held key roles in litigation, dispute resolution, and corporate consultancy, showcasing her versatile legal acumen. A graduate of Istanbul University School of Law with an LL.M in Business Law from Istanbul Bilgi University, Bige also serves as the Vice President of the German-Turkish Chamber of Industry and Commerce. Her deep understanding of the legal landscape, combined with her leadership in international business, makes her an invaluable legal professional.

Kumru Bektaş
Strategic Planning and Efficiency Management Director – Yapı Kredi Bank

During 27 year-career in banking, Kumru Bektaş accumulated a wide range of experience in Strategy Management and Corporate & Commercial Banking.
She started her career in banking in 1997. She worked in various departments under Corporate and Commercial Banking for 9 years including financial analysis and marketing.
Yapı Kredi career started in 2006 as a Corporate Sales Manager in Head Office. She managed a team which was responsible for budgeting and performance monitoring of corporate branches as well as coordinating credit underwriting and monitoring processes of large Corporates with Credit Management. During this period, she also dealed with cash management and trade finance requirements of customers in coordination with Treasury Management.
In 2012, she became a Business Performance Manager under CFO team. She actively participated in the establishment of the Strategy Department in Yapı Kredi and she has been working in this area for 12 years.
As a Strategic Planning and Efficiency Management Director, she is responsible for evaluating future trends and the operating environment to define long term strategic initiatives of the Bank and following up related strategic projects in coordination with business units to ensure successful execution.
Furthermore, she is responsible for determining short term tactical focus areas to increase efficiency and productivity under constantly changing macro and regulational environment.
Kumru Bektaş graduated from Boğaziçi University Business Administration Department in 1997. She completed a modular Strategy program organized by UniCredit in 2005 in Milan, and a Managerial Finance program in London School of Economics in 2019.

ARİF EMRE KELEŞ
Executive Director of Strategy at Beko

Arif Emre Keleş is the Executive Director of Strategy at Beko, where he oversees corporate strategy, M&A, business development, post-merger integration, transformation programs, and PMO.
Before joining Beko, Arif worked at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), leading corporate strategy projects for Turkey’s leading conglomerates and the industrial goods sector.
Prior to BCG, he was with Actera, Turkey’s largest private equity firm, managing assets exceeding $3.3 billion. At Actera, he screened over 60 transaction opportunities, led numerous due diligences on potential investments, and drove the transformation of portfolio companies.
Arif holds an MBA from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan and a B.S. in Electrical & Electronics Engineering from Koç University.

İLKER ERDEN
Strategy and Business Development Coordinator and Co-leader of the Strategy Department at Koç Holding

İlker Erden graduated from Bosphorus University with a Business degree in 2005. He earned an Executive MBA from Koç University Graduate School of Business in 2020 and completed his executive education – HBS Program for Leadership Development (PLD) from Harvard Business School in 2024. Starting his career at Ernst & Young Corporate Finance, İlker Erden spent two years involved in various financial due diligence and valuation projects in Turkey and internationally. He worked for FinansInvest, a local investment bank, for two years, advising on M&A and privatization transactions. Over the next nine years, he served in private equity roles at HSBC Principal Investments, Invest AD (Abu Dhabi Investment Company’s direct investment arm), and Global Investment House (a Kuwait-based GP). During this period, he actively participated in investments, board-level portfolio management, exits, and fundraising activities.İlker Erden’s professional journey at Koç Holding began in 2017 as a Strategy and Business Development Manager. He currently holds the position of Strategy and Business Development Coordinator and Co-leader of the department at Koç Holding A.Ş.

Çağatay Ölken
Executive Director, Strategy and Sustainability at Tüpraş

Bio: After receiving BsC in Mathematics and BA in Finance, Çağatay spent almost 20 years in various positions in leading international banks / PE-Pension funds and was responsible from project financing, investment banking and strategic planning. He held various management and board positions in different portfolio companies before joining Koç Holding in 2017, covering Energy Group strategy. Currently, Çağatay is the Executive Director of Strategy and Sustainability at Tupras, the leading energy company in Turkey. He is responsible from long term strategic transition and business development in new investment areas including but not limited to green hydrogen and biofuels while maintaining sustainability and carbon neutrality as two key pillars of this transition.

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• Non-Members: 125 USD

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