Organizational Imprinting and Narrative Memory in Historical Turkish Businesses: Insights from Asırlık Lezzetçiler Documentary

This study examines how century-old family businesses construct and reproduce organizational imprints through retrospective narratives, using digital documentary sources as a form of organizational memory. In this context, the study focuses on how century-old family businesses narrate their founding past and embed these narratives into contemporary organizational identities. The study drew on a qualitative thematic analysis of 26 episodes from TRT’s Asırlık Lezzetçiler (Century-Old Gourmets) documentary series. The research analyzes these publicly available audiovisual materials featuring long-established businesses across Türkiye. The results reveal that organizational imprints are narratively reproduced through recurring themes of passion for profession, loyalty to profession, and professional excellence in century-old businesses. These narratives function as symbolic anchors through which organizations link founding values to present-day practices, shaping how tradition, quality, and continuity are interpreted rather than causally enforced. By conceptualizing imprinting as a form of narrative memory rather than a deterministic mechanism, this study contributes to organizational imprinting research by highlighting its interpretive and retrospective dimensions. Methodologically, the article demonstrates the potential of digital documentary sources as public historical data for qualitative research in business history and organization studies.