As an emerging area of research, nation branding is in urgent need for conceptual and theoretical development, and can benefit from the literature of organisation identity and organisation reputation. The purpose of this paper is to present a conceptual framework for the analysis of nation image. Built upon the original framework by Brown et al (2006), the framework includes two models: six key perspectives in nation image and gap analysis of their relationships

Fan, Y

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KEY PERSPECTIVES IN NATION IMAGE:A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR NATION BRANDINGYing FanBrunel Business SchoolBrunel UniversityUxbridge, MiddlesexUB8 3PH Englandying.fan@brunel.ac.ukAbstractAs  an  emerging  area  of  research,  nation  branding  is  in  urgent  need  for  conceptual  and theoretical  development,  and  can  benefit  from  the  literature  of  organisation  identity  and organisation reputation. The purpose of this paper is to present a conceptual framework for the analysis of nation image. Built upon the original framework by Brown et al (2006), the framework includes two models: six key perspectives in nation image and gap analysis of their relationships.Key words: nation image, nation identity, organisation identity, stereotype, gap analysis1KEY PERSPECTIVES IN NATION IMAGE:A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR NATION BRANDINGINTRODUCTIONOf all forms of organisations in the world, a nation is the largest and most complicated one. Many nations suffer from image problems but have no clear idea of how to address them. Nation  branding  could  provide  solution  to  these  problems.  Nation  branding  is  about  the management  of  a  nation’s  image and reputation.  As an emerging area  of  interest,  nation branding is driven more by practitioners than by academic researchers. There is an urgent need for conceptual and theoretical development of the subject. In this regard, nation branding can  benefit  from  the  literature  of  organisation  identity  and  organisation  reputation.  The purpose of this paper is to apply organisation identity theory to the context of nation image and present a conceptual framework for the analysis of nation image formation. Built upon the original framework by Brown et al (2006), the framework includes two models: in the first model, six key perspectives in nation image are identified; and in the second, gap analysis at four levels is adopted.DEFINITION OF KEY TERMSCountry, nation, and state, these three terms are commonly used interchangeably but have different  meanings.  A country means an area of land occupied by a  nation,  while nation generally refers to a large group of people of the same race and language. State, on the other hand,  considers  a  country  as  a  political  organisation,  i.e.  the  form  of  government: parliamentary democracy, constitutional monarchy or one party dictatorship.  In this paper, nation  will  be  used  to  represent  country,  its  people  and  the  government.  Among  many different definitions of the nation concept, one of the most influential definitions is provided by Joseph Stalin (1913) “a nation is a historically constituted, stable community of people, 2formed on the basis of common language, territory, economic life, and psychological make-up manifested in a common culture.”Identity, image, reputation, Nation  identity,  to  paraphrase  Albert  and  Whetten’s  definition  of  organisational  identity (1985), is the collective understanding by a nation’s people of the features presumed to be central and relatively permanent, and that distinguish the nation from other nations. National identity  embodies  the  characteristics  of  a  nation  that  its  people  perceive  to  be  central, distinctive,  and  enduring  (CED)  in  a  nation  when  past,  present  and  future  is  taken  into account. It refers to the essentially irrational psychological bond that binds fellow nationals together  and  which  is  supposed  to  constitute  the  essence  of  national  identity.  This psychological bond is usually termed “a sense of belonging” and such expressions point to the close  link  established  between each  individual  and  the  collective  self,  namely  the  nation (Triandafyllidou, 1998). More specially, national identity has the following key elements: an historic territory,  or homeland; common myths and historical memories;  a common, mass public culture; common legal rights and duties for all members; and a common economy with territorial mobility for all members (Smith, 1991:14).Image and reputation are a pair of interrelated constructs, i.e. image is what is projected to other while reputation is the feedback received from other (Whetten and Mackey, 2002:400). Image and reputation, which is the reciprocal of image, both are components of a symmetrical communications  process  between the  organisation (self)  and  relevant  stakeholders  (other) (ibid.).  Thus, a nation’s image is what a nation’s people want the world to understand is most central, enduring and distinctive about their nation while reputation is a particular type of feedback received by the nation from the outside world, concerning the credibility of the 3nation’s identity claims. Identity, image and reputation are all mental associations generated by knowledge and past experience. Although national identity is a popular area for research, there is still  no agreement about what the concept actually is. Some would even argue that it is such an elusive concept, it may never exist  (Anonymous,  2007).  Contrary to  commonly held assumptions,  the concept  of national identity based on widely agreed associations about the nation may never exist –this is because the nation is not a unitary entity in which all members think, feel, and act in the same way. Instead, each individual engages in many different ways in making sense of the nation and national identities (Thompson, 2001)Perception, stereotypePerception is a kind view, belief and opinion about oneself and the external world. There are self perception and other perception. Stereotyping is a term coined by Lippman (1922) to describe “pictures in our heads”. To Wilson and Rosenfeld (1990), stereotypes are clusters of preconceived notions. Stereotyping means assuming that all the objects in some category are similar in ways other than the one used to categorise them. Though some stereotypes are positive,  most  of  them  are  not.  Stereotyping  produces  prejudice,  an  unreasonable prejudgement of people who are different from one’s own group. Perceptions about a nation and its people are often no more a set of stereotypes that are either inaccurate or outdated.A nation as an organisationA nation is a complex organisation, and many nations are multicultural and multi-ethnic. Like a conglomerate, a nation is diversified in many different “businesses” and has many different stakeholders.  Although parallels  can be drawn between nation and organisation,  there  are 4important differences. For example, to what extent, can a country’s citizen be treated like employees in an organisation?  A nation as a brandNation  branding  refers  to  the  application  of  branding  and  marketing  communications technique to promote and manage a nation’s image. A nation brand can be defined as the total sum of all mental associations about a nation in the mind of international stakeholders (Fan, 2006).  A  nation  brand  can  take  the  form  of  one  of  three  sub-brands:  political  brand, economic/ commercial brand, and cultural brand. A nation brand exists with or without any conscious efforts in nation branding, as every country has a current image to its international audience, be it  strong or weak, clear or vague. Nation brands can be treated as corporate brands (Balmer and Grey, 2003; Riel and Balmer, 1997), but there are significant differences between the two. The change of a nation brand is far more complicated than the change of a corporate brand.KEY PERSPECTIVES IN NATION IMAGENation  image  is  a  nebulous  concept  that  has  various  meanings  and  interpretations.  The formation of nation image is a complex process in which different perspectives interact with each other, while self perception, i.e. how a nation sees or believes itself, takes a dominant role.  In  their  original  framework of  organisation image,  Brown et  al  (2006)  studied  four central “viewpoints” of organisation. In this paper, two new viewpoints are added. In total, six viewpoints or key perspectives in nation image are identified. (Insert Table 1 and Figure 1 here)5Each of the perspective is expressed in forms of a single or pair of questions.1. How does Nation A see itself? (Who are we as a nation?)According to Social Identity Theory (Tajfel and Turner, 1985), the self concept is comprised of  a  personal  identity  component  that  includes  idiosyncratic  characteristics  and  a  social identity component that includes salient group classifications. In the case of nation identity it has  a  distinctively  unique  national  component,  i.e.  the  national  character  or  so  called “nationalishness”, such as Britishness, and a range of group identifications, European, EU, developed country, English speaking, etc. A nation can classify itself and other nations into various categories or groups. National  identity,  like  organisation  identity,  is  not  constant.  Identity  is  neither  fixed, unalterable, nor wholly fluid and amenable unlimited reconstruction (Parekh, 2000). For those nations  experiencing  or  having  experienced  fundamental  changes,  it  is  high  time  to  re-examine  their  national  identity.  If  people  believe  that  their  nation’s  identity  needs  to  be altered either  in  content  or  in  its  evaluation,  people  are  likely  to  modify  their  behaviour (Dutton, et al, 1994:256). The degree of self identification and classification determines the behaviour  of  the  nation  both  of  its  government  and  people.  Subsequently  this  change in national identity needs to be communicated to the outside worlds.The relationship between identity and image can be summarised simply as below:(Self) Identity  Positioning /Nation branding  Image (held by other)A nation has multiple identities and has to decide what core or prime image it want to project to the outside world. Should a nation present a single consistent image or different images to 6different audiences? As a nation’s image is context and situation based, it is impossible for a single image to work under all different circumstances. 2. How does Nation A see Nation B? (How do we see the outside world?)This new perspective is an important addition to the understanding of nation image. National identity and nation image are relative constructs in which other nations (or more precisely, how a nation sees other nations) play an important part. The quest for uniqueness of identity is  inseparable  from the  conception  of  others.  National  identity  becomes  meaningful  only through the contrast and comparison with other nations (Gellner, 1964: 167-171; Kedourie, 1992:44-55;  Trandafyllidou,  1998:596-599).  National  identity  is  shaped  not  only  by  the nation’s  people  themselves,  but  also  by  the  environment  surrounding  them.  Among  the environment  influences,  there  are  “significant  others”,  a  term  coined  by  Trandafyllidou (1998:599) to refer to another nation or ethnic group that is territorially close to, or indeed within, the national community and threatens, or rather is perceived to threaten, its ethnic and /or cultural purity and /or its independence. A nation’s identity at a specific time is influenced by its world view, especially by how it sees other nations. This perception and knowledge of others provide the nation a context or reference point in defining its own identity. The whole argument of nationalists seems to be reduced to the fundamental question of defining the “we” and the “they” (ibid, 596). As a nation may have several different significant others at any time, and each of them needs to be treated separately: this is shown in Figure 1 as Nation B; there could also be Nation C, Nation D, and so on. 3. What does Nation A believe Nation B thinks of it?(What do we believe our image in the world?)7This perspective refers to what a nation’s people believe about how their nation is perceived by others. This construed image is subjective, together with a nation’s views of others, has a crucial influence on a nation’s self perception. It can be argued that a nation’s identity is shaped by the twin factors: how it sees others and how it believes being seen by others.4. How is Nation A actually being perceived by Nation B?A real image of a nation held by another nation is the nation’s reputation that captures the set of associations that people outside believe are CED to the nation (Brown, et al, 2006). In an ideal situation, subjective construed image should be the same as objective actual image. But in reality, the two images would never be the same. There will always be a gap between the two. The problem is that it is very difficult to find out accurate actual image, 5. How is Nation A promoting itself to Nation B?6. How does Nation A want to be perceived by Nation B?In the framework by Brown, et al (2006), there is only one viewpoint termed as “intended image”. However, it is important to distinguish the image being projected now from the image planned in the future. Perspective 5 is currently projected image while Perspective 6 desired future image. Both perspectives are concerned with the positioning of a nation in the minds of target international audience in order to create an intended image; but they differ in terms of time dimension. For a nation has yet to embark on nation branding, there is perhaps no current projected image except actual image held by the outside world which often is no more than outdated stereotypes. To improve a nation’s image, it may be easier to create new positive associations than try to refute old ones (Kotler and Gertner, 2002).8Gap analysisThe relationships between six key perspectives are illustrated in Figure 2. (Insert Figure 2 here)Among these relationships, three are especially important: self perception and perception of other, self perception and actual image, and self perception and desired image. Gap analysis is a formal study in identifying discrepancy by comparing the current status with intended future status. Four potential gaps need to be examined in these relationships: Gap 1: Self perception v External perception/Actual imageGap 2: Construed image v Actual imageGap 3: Projected image v Actual imageGap 4: Current image v Future imageThis  model  provides  researchers  and  practitioners  with  a  useful  tool  to  understand  the complex relationships between different perspectives in the formation of nation image. It is the task of nation branding to identify and analyse the gaps, and hopefully to reduce these gaps through new communications.ConclusionThe purpose of this paper is to present a conceptual framework that helps to achieve a better understanding  of  the  formation  of  nation  image.  The  framework  identifies  six  key perspectives in nation image,  and more specially, the relationship between a nation’s self perception  (identity)  and  other  perspectives.  The  introduction  of  “significant  other”  as  a reference point to the formation of nation image is a contribution to the literature. The gap analysis model provides a useful tool in repositioning nation brands. Future research is needed to test the framework empirically. It is hoped that this paper will facilitate further theoretical development in nation branding field.9ReferencesAlbert, S. and Whetten, D. A. 1985. Organisation identity, in Cummings L. L. and Staw, B. M. (eds). Research in Organisational behaviour, Vol 7, 263-269, JAI Press, Greenwich, CTAnonymous, 2007 “What is Britishness?” Daily Telegraph 18/11/07Balmer, J. M. T. and Grey, E. R. 2003. “Corporate brands: What are they? What of them?” European Journal of Marketing, 37:7/8, 972-997.Brown, T. J., Dacin, P. A., Pratt, M. G. and Whetten, D. A. 2006. Identity, intended image, construed image, and reputation: an interdisciplinary framework and suggested terminology, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 34:2, 99-106Dinnie, K. 2007. Nation branding: concepts, issues, practice, Butterworth HeinemannDutton, J. E., Dukerich, J. M., and Harquail, C. V. 1994. “Organizational images and member identification”, Administrative Science Quarterly, 39:2, 239-263Fan, Y. 2006. “Nation branding: what is being branded?” Journal of Vacation Marketing, 12:1, 5-14.Gellner, E. 1964. Thought and Change, London: Weidenfeld &NicholsonGioia, D. A., Schultz, M. and Corley, K. G. 2000. Organisational identity, image, and adaptive instability, Academy of Management Review, 25:1, 63-81Kedourie, E. 1992. 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A social actor conception of organisational identity and its implications for the study of organisational reputation, Business & Society, 41:4, 393-41410Table 1 Key perspectives in nation imageKey perspective Definition Typical question1 Self perceptionIdentityMental associations about the nation held by its peopleWho we are as a nation?2 Perception of significant other(s)Perceptions that a nation has of other nations, Reference point, world viewHow do we see the outside world?3 Construed image Perceptions that a nation’s people believe that other nations hold about their nationWhat do we believe our image in the world?“Mirror on the wall”4 Actual imageReputation, stereotypeReal perceptions about a nation held by other nations How is our nation actually  being perceived by others?5 Currently projected imageImage currently being created and communicated to the world that might not reflect reality of the nationHow is our nation currently promoting itself to the outside world?6 Desired future image (Gioia, et al, 2000)Positioning Visionary perception that a nation would like other nations to hold about it in the futureWhat do we want to be perceived by the outside world?11Figure 1 The Six Key Perspectives of A Nation’s ImageNation A Nation B123461 Nation A self-perception: i.e. .National identity?2 Nation A’s perception of Nation B: Reference point3 What Nation A believes Nation B perceives it as: Construed image4 How Nation A is actually perceived by Nation B: Reputation /Actual image5 How Nation A is promoting itself to Nation B: Currently projected image56 How Nation A wants to be perceived by Nation B: Desired future image12Figure 2 The Relationships between Key Perspectives in Nation Image1SELFPERCEPTIONGap analysisGap 1: Self perception v External perception (1v4)Gap 2: Construed image v Actual image (3v4)Gap 3: Projected image v Actual image (5v4)Gap 4: Current image v Future image (5v6)GAP 15 PROJECTEDIMAGE3 CONSTRUEDIMAGE2 REFERENCEPOINT6  DESIRED  FUTURE IMAGEGAP 2GAP 3GAP 44 ACTUAL IMAGEEXTERNAL PERCEPTION13

Key perspectives in nation image: a conceptual framework for nation branding

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