Conceptualisation of Nation Brands to Attract Foreign Direct Investment: An Integrated Model

Abstract

A nation brand is defined as a brand of a country. Nations are not only political and sovereign entities, but also business entities that conduct foreign trade, promote talent and innovation, create knowledge, levy taxes and enact laws. As a whole, nations accumulate wealth, power and status and leverage their brand identities to further their strategic interests. This article looks at the theories of nation branding and its implications on attracting foreign direct investment (FDI). FDI inflow has been studied by various researchers. The impact of nation branding on FDI has not been studied from an integrated perspective. This article analyses all the papers published in the field from 1969 when the genre of research was first mentioned in management literature and the factors presented by various researchers and place brand practitioners up to 2022 and combines them all into one integrated statistically testable model. The article analyses the factors from three perspectives—that of the governments and investment promotion agencies, external brand analysts and ranking consultancies as well as that of the investors.