Nation brand: A systems approach to the creation and management

Abstract

A nation brand impacts on a country’s economic development, stimulating or, contrarily, limiting people and organisations’ readiness to invest various resources within a particular jurisdiction. Simultaneously, a nation brand originates in all activities of organisations operating in the country’s territory. The paper aims to develop theoretical foundations of the nation brand management as a system. The methodological basis of the study is the concept of nation branding and the systems approach. A set of general scientific methods of analysis, synthesis, systematisation and generalisation are used. As a result, the paper provides and describes a system for the nation brand management that comprises input (existing perception of a country), transformation processes (creation of an image), and output (the image shaped). The value of the developed system lies in its ability to coordinate the interests of diverse stakeholders. The article presents a vision of 7-S model implementation for the nation brand based on the understanding of the relationships that lead to the formation of nation brand as well as the representation of external and internal dynamic processes that evolve over time, etc. The findings contribute to grasping the essence of the nation brand management using the principles of the systems approach, which potentially enhances the country’s economic development.