We Also Build Trust: Institutionalisation and Reputation at Sinpaş

Sinpaş was founded in 1974, during a period of rapid and largely unregulated urbanisation in Türkiye, by a young engineer from a well-known family of a central Anatolian city. The founder’s phrase — when we build buildings, we also build trust — has served as the group’s operating philosophy for half a century. This practice describes how a construction company became an ecosystem of seventy- three companies operating in industry, energy, finance, and tourism while keeping real estate development as its core expertise, and how that expansion was managed without displacing family values. It gives particular attention to four themes. The first is the institutionalisation process, whose stated aim was to strengthen professional governance while preserving family values rather than trading one for the other. The second is reputation, which the author treats as a starting point rather than an outcome, and as the one form of capital that cannot be rebuilt after loss. The third is corporate memory, sustained by a senior management team with tenures exceeding twenty years. The fourth is the Boğaziçi Foundation, through which the founder’s understanding of social responsibility became an institutional structure receiving a defined share of group profit. The practice concludes with the author’s assessment of what secures the future of family businesses.