A stream of literature on the "born global" emerged in the early 1990s (McKinsey & Co., 1993; Knight and Cavusgil, 1996; Oviatt and McDougall, 1994). They conceptualise the idea of born global (BG) small-medium firms who derive significant competitive advantages through the deployment of resources to foster international development. Although the interest in "born global firm" concept increased notably over the past two decades, there has been numerous issues yet to be researched. Definition of the concept and role of the entrepreneur are on the top of the list. Likewise, many characteristics of the born global companies such as time lag to start exporting, the sectors that are most likely to allow for the emergence of born global companies or the factors urging companies to be born "global" differ considerably across countries and regions.

With regard to Turkey, although born global firms have been researched to some extent, number of up-to-date and detailed academic work specifically focusing on the subject is limited. Therefore generating models that explain and help increase the number of born global firms is essential for Turkey, particularly in terms of reaching Turkey's long term targets.

In this respect a survey is conducted with the aim of defining the structure of born global firms in Turkey. Prior to the survey study, conceptual and theoretical context of the born global firms is drawn out in the first section. In the following section, development of born global firms in various countries is investigated. In the final section, the results of the survey,the purpose of which was to determine the characteristics of born global firms in Turkeyare discussed.

Survey questions are distributed to exporting companies in 26 different sectors and managers from top 1.000 exporter companies from 11 different sectors (textile, machinery, electric, electronic and informatics, iron, steel and non-ferrous metals, herbal products, cereals, grains and cereal products, wood, forestry products, chemicals and chemical products, automotive industry, minerals, jewelry, aquacultural and animal products, cement, glass, ceramic and soil products) who are also board members of Exporter Associations responded to the questions. The scope of the survey study aims to uncover the structure of the firms and characteristics of founders & managers of the firms.