Management of Country’s Social Brand Under Conditions of Uncertainty in the Health Domain

Abstract

The coronavirus pandemic confirmed that national systems of medical and social provision for the population of various countries could not quickly adapt and implement effective measures to prevent the negative consequences from achieving a state of resilience. The article empirically substantiates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on national social brand to form effective mechanisms for countering risks in public health and supporting the social brand of the country for its main internal stakeholders in a period of uncertainty. The article is devoted to analyzing the channels through which the COVID-19 pandemic affected various aspects of the national management systems of Austria, Slovenia, France, and Ukraine. The analysis used a combination of correlation analysis, causal modeling, and the construction of cognitive maps to visualize dependencies. It was revealed that the key indicators that verify the mentioned impact are the satisfaction of the needs for medical examination and care, the availability of hospital beds in the medical system, and the general costs of social protection of the population. The indicator of the social attractiveness of the country for its internal stakeholders is the indicator of net migration, and it is empirically determined that this indicator is significantly influenced by the security of the medical system and the efficiency of its functioning, especially during the period of data analysis, taking into account the existence of the COVID-19 pandemic. The dependence between the social and economic well-being of the population and its tendency to critically assess one's health, readiness for disease prevention, and the formation of higher requirements for medical care was revealed. The determined regularities are useful in developing a national strategy for building an effective medical and social security system for the population in conditions of uncertainty, which is a significant component of the overall attractiveness of the country and its brand management.