CITIES COMPETITION, PLACE MARKETING AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN SOUTH EUROPE: THE BARCELONA CASE AS FDI DESTINATION

The aim of the article is to focus on the especially interesting area of South Europe and to present and points out the strategic development process, in one of the most representative examples of its successful implementation, which is the city of Barcelona. Barcelona, which in the last 20 years, managed to increase its competitiveness becoming one of the most attractive investment destinations on international level. The city?s economic dynamism, its strategic position in the South of Europe and a clearly-consolidated international projection have turned the economic area of Barcelona into an international platform of economic activities, a driving force behind development in Southern Europe, especially oriented towards new, emergent, competitive and international sectors with an uninterrupted growth of their foreign markets.Cities competition, economic development, strategic planning, Barcelona.

THE ENTREPRENEURIAL CAPACITY OF LOCAL AUTHORITIES IN SOUTH-EASTERN EUROPE - AN ENTERPRISE PERSPECTIVE

The article is looking into whether the management ability but also the inspection of development policies on the part of local city authorities influences the competitiveness of firms. Origin of this survey has been various approaches of the last decades which point out the significance of entrepreneurial capacity and the ability of local authorities to manage policies on local level. The analysis uses data from 310 small-medium size firms of Southeastern Europe. Through exploratory factor and cluster analysis the article concludes that the ability of Local Authorities to implement development policies, to develop co-operations with the private sector and to manage natural and human resources are important for firm competitiveness. At the same time it brings out the significance of these factors for the respective firms in the wider southeastern zone of Europe.local authorities; firm competitiveness; management and control; cluster analysis; Southeastern Europe

Shaping the vision, the identity and the cultural image of European places

European regions and cities have been, especially during the last twenty years, characterized by a plurality of efforts to define their vision, to construct their identity and to shape their images, in order to become more attractive and, consequently, competitive, and also to increase their market share in a globalized economy. Following this option, places have been elaborating and implementing particular competitive policies and strategic plans in order to attract the potential target markets (new investments, tourists, new residents etc). Shaping the vision concerns the identification of the sustainable development objectives that each place sets up in a long-term horizon. Furthermore, the vision is the first step of strategic planning implementation that a place has to follow in order to construct its identity and to produce its image as a ‘final provided good’. This paper investigates the relationship between vision, local identity and image, focusing on culture and tourism. The international bibliography shows several cases, mainly of European places, that support their competitiveness through cultural and tourism development. In addition, the majority of the implemented place marketing policies relate with culture and tourism. The primary aim of the paper is to present the ways with which the cultural image of a place as a ‘final provided good’, could be produced, supported and promoted effectively to the external environment. The secondary aim is to show under what conditions the promotion of this image could induce anticipated profits for a place in a long-term base. The data for this paper are provided by the INTERREG IIIc CultMark project (Cultural Heritage, Local Identity and Place Marketing for Sustainable Development, an project) that has been in operation in five European places during the last year: Nea Ionia/Magnesia/Greece, Paphos/Cyprus, Chester/UK, Rostock-Wismar/Germany and Kainuu/Finland – it has to be noted that the last four places relate directly with water. The main aim of the project is to create a final successful image for each place and for the study area as a whole. The paper presents a structural analysis of the project methodology and uses the available data in order to produce the ‘final provided good’ of each place.

Regional investments in Southern European cities

The article examines the capacity of four medium-sized cities in Southern Europe, concerning the current situation of their assets (agglomeration economies, urban infrastructures, factors of labor and cost, etc.), the degree of development policies implementation and effectiveness by local authorities and finally the level of local authorities capacity to plan and implement particular policies and partnerships with the private sector in order to shape a favorable and attractive magnitude investments supporting through this way cities development and firms competitiveness. The analysis uses primary data from 310 small and medium sized firms in Southern Europe. At the end, the article provides some important conclusions especially for the studied cities, but also for similar cities in the wider zone of Southern Europe

Territorial Competition: Theories, arguments, policies and lessons of the last 25 years

Much of the current policy and scientific debate regarding territorial development focuses on territorial competition, which is a result of the outspread of competition (the centerpiece in classical and neoclassical political economy) over many aspects of other disciplines except economics, including geographical science. Territorial competition as a concept takes place among territorial units (states, regions or cities) in order to have the highest profits (mainly, economic) for the ¡winner¢ territorial unit. There are many scholars who have participated to the scientific discourse regarding territorial competition, some of them defending it and others dealing with it in a critical way. The basic difference and disagreement between these approaches is whether competition is a concept which is meaningful on both territorial and firm level or only on firm one and whether territories compete in the same way as firms do. These conflicting approaches differentiate in many issues including, among others, whether the determinant factors of firm performance are internal or both internal and external to the firm, whether the territory aims at development for its own sake or for competing to others and whether a territory can bankrupt like a firm. The debate over this issue is quite important since territorial policy over the last 20 years has focused on territorial competition. However, there are doubts regarding the extend to which this policy results in an equal way of territorial development, i.e. whether there is divergence or convergence. So, this situation, of the territorial competition existence in the centerpiece of territorial development policy, largely increases the significance of this study. This paper aims at studying the concept of territorial competition in depth by extensively reviewing the last 25 years of its development. In the first part this paper quotes the different approaches and their related arguments in an effort to investigate the theoretical context that the concept is introduced in the scientific and policy affairs. In the second part this study focuses on the way that territorial competition is applied on territorial development policy and its results in the territorial inequalities. In such a way it indicates the lessons that we could consider over this period, participating in the same time to the scientific dialogue regarding territorial competition

“TERRITORIAL UNITSâ COMPETITIVENESS: A SELF-RELIANT CONCEPT OR A DERIVATIVE CONCEPT OF FIRMSâ COMPETITION?”

Key words: competitiveness, territorial unit, firms, bankruptcy, Greece, Dubai In the modern globalized economy there are some concepts which are very important for the current socio-economic system. One of them is competition. Though in classical political economy, the economic realm, with competition as its centerpiece, seems to be carrying it over all other fields, today competition appears as the sole immanent category imbuing all aspects of everyday life. So, in current globalised economic background, competition has been extended in fields of education, health, wealth fare and among them, the spatial sciences and economic geography - competition among territorial units (cities, regions or states) in order to attract financial and human capital. The concept of territorial competitiveness was introduced in scientific and policy affairs almost 30 years ago and mainly during the last 15 years it has been the basis of territorial development policy. The scientific discussion regarding this concept is very rich since many authors, councils and organisations have put forward an opinion having articulated three particular approaches: the defending one which supports it, the critical one which disputes it and the neutral approach. The deep review of the three approaches and the role of territorial competitiveness in current territorial development policy contribute to a global view of the concept. This paper makes efforts to examine thoroughly the concept of competition in its relationship with space, if it direct or not, evaluating the existing theoretical propositions, participating in the discussion which takes place about territorial competitiveness with many interesting opinions expressed by economists, planners and geographers, exercising influence in decision making. It first focuses on the question whether territorial units¢ competition is a self-reliant concept or a concept which is derivative of firms¢ competition. Secondly, one of the basic aspects regarding territorial competitiveness is the comparison between the way that the firms and the territories behave mainly in case of bad economic performance and even bankruptcy. Within this context the cases of Greece and Dubai present remarkable interest regarding their behaviour after their bad economic performance.

Corporate social responsibility in Greece: A comparative analysis of the three major energy companies (Case study)

The case of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has become one of the most widespread business topics in the academic community. Various issues like environmental pollution, economic crisis, corruption, poverty are of major importance these days and besides governments and politicians’ responsibility it is obvious that corporations are also part of these problems. The concept of CSR is about the commitment of business to an ethical behavior which will contribute to the economic development, the improvement of the quality of life of the local communities and the society. In this paper we will present how Greek companies adapt CSR practices to their business strategy and the outcome of these activities. The companies and their CSR practices which are going to be analyzed in this paper belong to the energy production sector

Shaping the vision, the identity and the cultural image of European places

European regions and cities have been, especially during the last twenty years, characterized by a plurality of efforts to define their vision, to construct their identity and to shape their images, in order to become more attractive and, consequently, competitive, and also to increase their market share in a globalized economy. Following this option, places have been elaborating and implementing particular competitive policies and strategic plans in order to attract the potential target markets (new investments, tourists, new residents etc). Shaping the vision concerns the identification of the sustainable development objectives that each place sets up in a long-term horizon. Furthermore, the vision is the first step of strategic planning implementation that a place has to follow in order to construct its identity and to produce its image as a 'final provided good'. This paper investigates the relationship between vision, local identity and image, focusing on culture and tourism. The international bibliography shows several cases, mainly of European places, that support their competitiveness through cultural and tourism development. In addition, the majority of the implemented place marketing policies relate with culture and tourism. The primary aim of the paper is to present the ways with which the cultural image of a place as a 'final provided good', could be produced, supported and promoted effectively to the external environment. The secondary aim is to show under what conditions the promotion of this image could induce anticipated profits for a place in a long-term base. The data for this paper are provided by the INTERREG IIIc CultMark project (Cultural Heritage, Local Identity and Place Marketing for Sustainable Development, an project) that has been in operation in five European places during the last year: Nea Ionia/Magnesia/Greece, Paphos/Cyprus, Chester/UK, Rostock-Wismar/Germany and Kainuu/Finland – it has to be noted that the last four places relate directly with water. The main aim of the project is to create a final successful image for each place and for the study area as a whole. The paper presents a structural analysis of the project methodology and uses the available data in order to produce the 'final provided good' of each place

FDI in Peru and Uzbekistan: A comparative analysis in brief

The majority of the developing economies worldwide use foreign capitals inflow so as to achieve economic growth. The host countries proceed to economic and political transformations so as to improve their attractiveness and to become top foreign direct investment destinations. In addition, the foreign inflows enable the host country’s productivity rates and improve the standard of living. A significant amount of these capitals are directed in the developing economies of the Latin American and the Post – Soviet Central Asian countries. The cases of Peru and Uzbekistan are chosen among these developing economies of the regions so as to investigate the impact of the foreign inflows on the economic growth of these countries