Country Reputation Research Articles

The role of the specialized pages of social media in strengthening civil peace - The Tech for Peace as a model

The process of combating rumors through specialized pages in of social media, including what is published on The Tech for Peace page of Facebook, is one of the important operations in the leading pages that address rumors and false news as one of the major problems facing media work in our world today, as it aims To strengthen civil peace by highlighting the standards of accuracy and fairness in the process of transmitting news in an ethical manner, and addressing everything that is harmful to the reputation and performance of individuals, groups, institutions or countries according to the goals planned by the promoters of rumors and false news. The problem of this study is summarized in a main question: What is the role of the specialized pages of Facebook in strengthening civil peace in Iraq? In this research, the two researchers followed the survey method; In order to analyze the contents of the rumors that were verified before the (Tech for Peace) page, in order to know the role that the specialized pages play in achieving civil peace. As for the research results, the researchers reached several results, the most important of which are: 1. The results of the analytical study proved that (security rumors) ranked first, as most of the rumors circulating in the Iraqi street during 2019 focused on the issue of murder, abuse and arrests that the social protest movement in Iraq was subjected to, especially after 10/1/2019 through Its greatest component is the youth, who protested against all the service, political, social and other conditions that came as a result of the worsening of the poor relationship between the authority and the public.

Kaefer, F. (2021). An insider’s guide to place branding: Shaping the identity and reputation of cities, regions and countries. Springer. $64.99 (paperback)

Kaefer, F. (2021). An insider’s guide to place branding: Shaping the identity and reputation of cities, regions and countries. Springer. $64.99 (paperback)

Positive ripple effects of corporate leaders’ CSR donations amid COVID-19 on corporate and country reputations: Multi-level reputational benefits of CSR focusing on Bill Gates and Jack Ma

Through cross-national surveys in the United States and China, this study investigates the positive ripple effects of corporate leaders’ CSR donations amid COVID-19 on multi-level reputations of corporate leaders, companies, and countries. The study finds that public knowledge of celebrity corporate leaders’ CSR donations can enhance the reputation of the origin country. The enhancement occurs through the improvement of their own personal reputations and affiliated corporate reputations across the two countries. In this ripple-effect mechanism, the role of perceived CSR motives can be changed by the level of publics’ CSR knowledge. As people know more about corporate leaders’ donation activities, the positive impact of altruistic motives increases and the negative impact of self-serving motives decreases. The study also finds that consumer willingness to accept self-serving CSR motives differs by the institutional development of the countries. American participants are more willing than their Chinese counterparts to accept self-serving motives.

Practicing Public Diplomacy by Doing Good: Examining the Effects of Corporate Social Responsibility on Country Reputation

ABSTRACT This investigation examines whether and how multinational corporations’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities fulfill the function of public diplomacy by boosting home country reputation in the minds of international publics. Two experimental studies were used to empirically test a theoretical model that examines nuanced effects of CSR messages on publics’ perceptions of home country reputation using a 2 (presence vs. absence of CSR information) × 2 (high corporation-country association vs. low association) between-subjects factorial design (Study 1 n = 137; Study 2 n = 134). Research findings across both studies showed that simply including CSR information in the corporate messages did not directly impact country reputation. Rather, perceived corporate social responsibility mediated the effects of the presence of CSR information on country reputation. Moreover, publics’ perceived association between corporation and home country, as influenced by information within the corporate messages, also impacted their perceptions of country reputation. This investigation offers practitioners implications on strategically promoting corporate CSR efforts overseas to achieve desirable public diplomacy outcomes.

Cumulative Analysis of Port State Control Based on Paris MoU Inspections

The Port State Control (PSC) was established to control ships entering ports or coastal facilities under its jurisdiction, with inspections by PSC officers aiming to determine whether ships meet safety and pollution prevention requirements and comply with the standards prescribed under the relevant international conventions. Annual reports based on PSC’s inspection reports are published under each memorandum of understanding (MoU) regime. The detailed inspection reports within the scope of the PSC, that contain a variety of information about vessels, and the processing and sharing of such information with other regional MoUs are intended to reduce the number of non-conforming practices in the global maritime system. In addition, PSCs publish lists of black, gray and white (BGW) flags, with the classification depending on the number of ship deficiencies and detentions. The classification is an indication of the quality of national flags. When a ship is found to have deficiencies, the inspection takes longer, and when the deficiencies are serious, the vessel is detained. Detention periods mean financial losses for the operator and loss of reputation for the flag state. Hence, the lists of black, gray and white flags published by the regional regimes are important in terms of reflecting the reputation of different countries. For these purposes, in this study, the inspections and detentions under the Paris MoU in 2019 have been examined and analyzed by countries and regions. Countries are categorized by UN geographical regions. In particular, the goal of the study was to identify the flag countries of the most frequently inspected and detained ships in 2019, as well as to determine the strategic measures developed by the countries and establish their differences and similarities compared to inspections and detentions in 2018. In addition, the global COVID-19 pandemic in 2019 had a lockdown effect in the maritime domain and a profound effect on society, economy and health worldwide. The result of this study is the prediction of PSC efficiency in terms of the COVID-19 pandemic and the effect of the pandemic on the order of countries in the flag lists.

How Country Reputation Differentials Influence Market Reaction to International Acquisitions

AbstractThis study investigates the influence of country reputation differentials on market reaction to international acquisitions. Building on social identity theory, we argue that market reactions are more positive when the reputation of the acquirer’s country is better than that of the target’s, since a country’s reputation imprints on its firms due to social categorization. Thus, firms from countries with better reputations are perceived as having superior skills/capabilities and the reputation difference suggests that the acquirer is able to identify/exploit undervalued targets and leverage synergies. The influence of country reputation should be weaker when additional information on the merging firms is present, through news media reporting and analyst coverage of the merging firms as well as the acquirer’s prior acquisition track record, since market investors will rely less on country reputation. We find support for our hypotheses for a sample of 4,792 international acquisitions across 48 countries from 2009 to 2017.

Spain's reputation in China: analysing its effects on attitudes towards Spanish olive oil

PurposeThe objective of this paper is to analyse the elements that influence Spain's reputation among Chinese consumers, and to evaluate to what extent this country's reputation has an impact on their perceived quality of Spanish olive oil (SOO) and their intentions to purchase and recommend SOO.Design/methodology/approachThis study was carried out by surveying 399 potential olive oil consumers in China (256 of whom were familiar with olive oil and 143 of whom had no previous familiarity with the product, although they stated their intentions to consume it). The proposed hypotheses were tested using covariance-based structural equation modelling (CB-SEM).FindingsThe results show that: (1) Spain's reputation among Chinese consumers can be principally explained by its appealing environment and advanced economy; (2) reputation does not have a direct impact on intentions to purchase and recommend SOO (summary construct effect), but rather has an indirect impact thanks to the perceived quality of SOO (halo effect), and (3) familiarity with olive oil moderates these relationships.Originality/valueNo previous study has analysed this question for this food product category (olive oil), country of origin (Spain) and target market (China). This study, therefore, provides new empirical evidence regarding the formation process of Spain's reputation among Chinese olive oil consumers and the effect of the country of origin on the Chinese olive oil market. These results provide countries' policymakers with criteria for competitive country reputation management.

How Can Marriage Immigrants Contribute to the Sustainability of the Host Country? Implications from the Leisure and Travel Patterns of Vietnamese Women in South Korea

This qualitative exploratory study focuses on marriage immigrant women and explores the possibility they might contribute to the sustainability of the host country. A sustainable society, the contribution of visiting friends and relatives (VFR) tourism to destination sustainability, information behavior, and fringe stakeholder involvement for sustainable destination management are the focus of this study. Vietnamese marriage immigrant women in South Korea were investigated; the reasons for the investigation include: their increasing numbers, their significance caused by the roles both at the household and the societal levels, and the increased diplomatic ties between Vietnam and South Korea. The narratives of 16 informants about their leisure, hosting of friends and relatives, and information sharing patterns show that Vietnamese marriage immigrant women’s leisure and travel facilitate their subjective well-being and the enhancement of social capital, which potentially contribute to a sustainable society. Their hosting experience of the visits of friends and relatives, and its implications for sustainability, are further discussed. Furthermore, their roles as information mediators suggest their potential to contribute to the formation of the host country reputation. Self-appraisal of their unique travel patterns provides implications for involving this group for destination management. We consider both their importance and constraints as contributors to the host country attaining sustainability, and the implications are discussed.

Design of a sustainable integrated crude oil manufacturing network with risk cover and uncertainty considerations: a case study

The oil industry is one of the largest and most influential manufacturing systems in the world. In addition to being the world’s leading source of energy, oil plays an important role in determining the national power and international reputation of various countries. This industry has certain characteristics that distinguish it from other manufacturing systems. Some of these characteristics include the strategic importance of products, variable prices, and political pressure. This industry is one of the most sophisticated manufacturing systems in the world, incorporating integrated activities from vendor to customer. In this paper, we presented a multi-objective integrated mathematical model including all three upstream, midstream, and downstream sectors of the crude oil supply chain. Our proposed multi-product, multi-period, and multi-objective mixed-integer linear programming model address an optimal solution. We have a scenario-based approach which deals with two sources of uncertainty. Conditional value at risk approach was applied to minimize the risk. Also, the social and environmental aspects of the supply chain are considered simultaneously to propose a sustainable model. Finally, the performance of the model is illustrated and analyzed using the real data of a national refining and distribution company. According to the results, the risk coverage by conditional value at risk has a positive impact on the model.

Application of the agricultural and food products trademark serving to increase the agricultural sector competitiveness

The subject of this paper is a research of state, processes, and conditions for the use of agricultural and food product trademark, both in Serbia and worldwide. During the period between 2015 and 2019, the agricultural food products were among the most represented classes of goods in terms of trademark applications, according to the Nice Classification of goods and services, both in our country and worldwide. The aim of this paper is to promote the competitiveness of the agricultural sector, with an emphasis on non-price competition forms such as the trademark application and protection, with a particular focus on international application and protection via the Madrid Agreement These forms of non-price competition could become the main promoters of the Serbian economy and the expression of the country's identity, given that the image of product quality indirectly projects to the country's reputation as well.

Reputation and Sovereign Default

This paper presents a continuous‐time model of sovereign debt. In it, a relatively impatient sovereign government's hidden type switches back and forth between a commitment type, which cannot default, and an opportunistic type, which can, and where we assume outside lenders have particular beliefs regarding how a commitment type should borrow for any given level of debt and bond price. In any Markov equilibrium, the opportunistic type mimics the commitment type when borrowing, revealing its type only by defaulting on its debt at random times. The equilibrium features a “graduation date”: a finite amount of time since the last default, after which time reputation reaches its highest level and is unaffected by not defaulting. Before such date, not defaulting always increases the country's reputation. For countries that have recently defaulted, bond prices and the total amount of debt are increasing functions of the amount of time since the country's last default. For countries that have not recently defaulted (i.e., those that have graduated), bond prices are constant.

Measuring consumer' willingness to pay for food safety certification labels of packaged rice

<abstract> <p>Food safety is vital for public health, influencing a country's economic development and international reputation. In recent years, Taiwan has encountered several food quality problems, with consequent public questioning and mistrust of food safety. If consumers are unaware of the quality of a product, their perception and demands can be influenced by the credibility of the food safety certification labels. This study uses the contingent valuation method (CVM) to analyze the factors influencing consumer willingness to pay (WTP) for food safety certification labels of packaged rice. Questionnaires are randomly adopted and assigned to 434 participants. The results indicate that product factors should be presented clearly on their packaging and advertisements. Consumers focus on certification labels for food safety perception. Gender, education level, place of purchase, certification cognition, and health cognition are all found to affect willingness to pay. These significant results indicate that women were more willing to pay than men; people were willing to pay a higher amount for purchases of packaged rice at supermarkets or hypermarkets; health cognition was estimated to be negative and significant, showing that health cognition negatively affected WTP, perhaps because participants did not sufficiently trust the foundation's assurance that the rice was safe. In the valuation of WTP for food safety certification, each person was willing to pay on average NT31.07 annually to reduce the risk of food safety problems.</p> </abstract>

Collective Reputations, Trust Premium, and Corporate Misconduct

We examine the relationship between collective country reputations and foreign stock returns following news of corporate scandals. We find that investors punish not only the scandalous foreign firm but also other firms from the same country of origin, especially those coming from more trustworthy countries. The effect is more salient for firms with more imperfect information as measured by higher information asymmetry, lower reporting quality, and higher bankruptcy risk. Our findings suggest that investors incorporate a trust premium into stock prices based on foreign firms’ country-of-origin. However, they reclaim such a premium when a country’s trustworthiness is compromised by its affinity firm’s misconduct. Overall, we provide novel evidence that collective country reputations affect the pricing of foreign firms listed on the U.S. stock market.

Understanding youths' perception and factors advancing cybercrime (yahoo-yahoo) in Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State, Nigeria

Previous studies on cybercrime in Nigeria have largely been conducted with the intention of understanding its influence on economy and country's reputation, with little attention devoted to youths' perception and issues promoting cybercrime. This study seeks to address this gap by understanding youths' perception and factors advancing cybercrime with a special focus on Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State, Nigeria. A total of 20 respondents were purposively selected from the identified youth population and the semi-structured interview type was employed to elicit qualitative data from the identified respondents. While the NVivo (v.12) qualitative software was used to identify themes from the transcript interview, the content analysis technique was employed to make sense of the themes. The Rational Choice Theory was used as a theoretical leaning to understand the presuppositions raised in the study. Findings show falsification of identity and impersonation, the use of diabolical powers/charms to hypnotize victims, and the belief system that cybercrime is seen as routine work where wage is expected as perception of cybercrime. Similarly, there is an evidence to support the claim that social media tools are robustly employed to perpetrate cybercrime. On the question of factors advancing cybercrime, the study found poor economic performance and youths‘ unemployment, weak law enforcement agencies and the challenge of corruption, and environmental and peer group influence as factors promoting cybercrime. The study recommends a robust investment on youth empowerment programmes, wealth creation and value orientation in addition to responsive and corrupt-free law enforcement agencies as critical to addressing the scourge of cybercrime.

Urban density and spatial planning: The unforeseen impacts of Dutch devolution.

National spatial planning has strongly influenced urban development and open space preservation in the Netherlands since the 1950s and established the country's reputation as a planner's paradise. The gradual withdrawal from this active and stringent type of planning in favour of decentralisation and deregulation has received less attention and its impacts on urban development patterns remain poorly studied. This study investigates residential development since 2000 in relation to the changing planning context. We focused on residential densification and the redevelopment of greyfields and brownfields as desired outcomes of policies that aim to limit urban development in open landscapes. Using detailed spatial housing and land-use data we quantified the relative importance of different urban development processes over three subsequent six-year periods characterised by slowly decreasing national policy attention to steering residential development. Our results indicate that, while the national policy instruments got weaker, the share of residential development within existing urban areas increased. Our results lend further credence to the suggestion that the abandoned national spatial planning policy targeted at housing construction within urban development zones that were predominantly defined on greenfield near existing cities, limited urban redevelopment. Despite reduced government spending, densities increased within existing urban areas as general, local-level restrictive policies with respect to greenfield development remained in place and demand for urban housing remained unabated.

Indonesia's Position in Asia: Increasing Soft Power and Connectivity through the 2018 Asian Games

AbstractHosting a sports mega-event strengthens connectivity with the world and provides opportunities to establish or increase networks and to build soft power. These events operate as hubs for the global flow of capital, people, knowledge and technology, and they perform important rituals and symbolic functions. In particular, they become coveted opportunities to enrich the soft power portfolio of governments or individual leaders. Despite its regional character, the Asian Games have developed into such a mega-event. In 2018 – only for the second time in the history of the Asian Games – Indonesia staged the event in Jakarta and Palembang. This paper scrutinises the ways in which Indonesia used or failed to use the Asian Games as a platform to increase the country's soft power and reputation and to strengthen intra-Asian connectivity. Three aspects serve as examples to assess Indonesia's soft power initiatives: (1) the “spirit of 1962”, (2) the host country's emergence on the Asian stage and (3) Indonesia's cooperation with other countries and intra-Asia connections in the context of the sports event. Examining the prominence of domestic politics reveals shortcomings and untapped potential. The analysis shows that the inward-looking foreign policy approach of the Jokowi administration limited the initiatives to increase Indonesian soft power and to establish and address Asian themes and debates; consequently, this approach downgraded the sports event to a tool to generate political capital for domestic affairs.

The power of sharing power: Presidential character, power mutuality, and country reputation

Using the context of the United States’ (U.S.) President Donald Trump’s promotion of an America First agenda, this study conducted an online survey (n = 511) in Australia to explore the dynamics among Australians’ perceptions of presidential character, power mutuality, and U.S. country reputation. Exploratory Factor Analysis and Confirmatory Factor Analysis were conducted to explore and validate the construct of power mutuality. The findings indicate that power mutuality consists of two dimensions: perceived power balance and perceived power dominance. Results from Structural Equation Modeling revealed that power mutuality fully mediates the association between foreign publics’ perceptions of presidential character and the governmental aspect of country reputation. It partially mediates the association between presidential character and the non-governmental aspect of country reputation. The implications of these findings on relationship management in public diplomacy are discussed.

A meta-synthesis of qualitative country reputation in search of building theory

Objetivo do estudo: O objetivo deste estudo interdisciplinar é teorizar a reputação de país usando a meta-síntese de estudo de caso como síntese de acumulação de conhecimento.Metodologia: Essa pesquisa adotou a abordagem de Hoon (2013) sobre meta-síntese de estudos de caso para analisar o acúmulo de conhecimento sobre a reputação dos países.Contribuições Teóricas e Metodológicas: A Figura 1. Etapas metodológicas da meta-síntese foram criadas com a apresentação das oito etapas do protocolo para orientar pesquisadores e profissionais. Dessa forma, a literatura foi concedida com contribuições teóricas e metodológicas sobre o entendimento aprofundado do construto reputação de país.Principais Resultados: Embora os métodos quantitativos predominem na literatura sobre a reputação de país, os estudos qualitativos representam uma escolha robusta para a construção da teoria, com a abordagem de meta-síntese. Sendo assim, a Figura 2. Framework da gestão da reputação de país foi proposta por meio da identificação de três condições principais, como (i) pesquisa sobre os atributos do local focados em seus impactos na sociedade; (ii) plano estratégico baseado na reputação percebida do local; e (iii) iniciativas governamentais para elaboração de políticas públicas.Relevância / Originalidade: Este é o primeiro estudo que aplica a meta-síntese de estudos de caso para teorizar a reputação de país.Implicações Sociais: A consolidação da teoria da reputação de país pode ajudar a desenvolver uma visão integrada para impactar as atividades econômicas perante a reputação global, com oportunidades para geração de negócios, renda do turismo e novas perspectivas de desenvolvimento social para um país, suas cidades e regiões. Como a marca de um país é uma ferramenta estratégica para os governos melhorarem sua reputação, os resultados podem possibilitar que as instituições responsáveis justaponham nosso modelo de framework de gestão para planejar, executar e monitorar estratégias por meio de parcerias públicas e/ou privadas.

The methods of identification and analysis of key indicators affecting the place reputation in the modern information and communication space

In the modern world, reputation is the most important intangible asset of the region economy and a dynamic characteristic of its activity. On the one hand, it is a major competitive resource for establishing partnerships with stakeholders. On the other hand, it is a set of opportunities to realize the interests of various target groups as a guarantee for the total implementation of the territory potential.The difficulty of building a holistic place image is related to the need to take into account a large number of indicators that are not always quantifiable. Only measurable parameters can be managed, so there is a need to create a relevant tool to assess the place reputation. In order to develop and manage an effective strategy, it is necessary not only to distinguish basic indicators, but also to analyze the reputation building mechanism as well as the factors influencing this process.Three main factors form the global attitude to the territory: attractive environment, efficient management, and developed economy. However, the parameters to differentiate these groups vary when evaluating the reputation of countries and megacities. First of all, it concerns the information and communication space, where the work of mass media and social media is of maximum importance. Subjectifying the target groups’ attitude to their region, different types of media form the place image in the opinion of each member of a society. The article presents approaches that determine the crucial indexes that can affect the place reputation. So qualitative and quantitative methods of publications assessment allow us to understand the peculiarities in forming the ideological components of the place image in order to be able to monitor the building of a place reputation.

The failure of mainstream parties and the impact of new challenger parties in France, Italy and Spain

AbstractPolitical parties share a very bad reputation in most European countries. This paper provides an interpretation of this sentiment, reconstructing the downfall of the esteem in which parties were held and their fall since the post-war years up to present. In particular, the paper focuses on the abandonment of the parties' founding ‘logic of appropriateness’ based, on the one hand, on the ethics for collective engagement in collective environments for collective aims and, on the other hand, on the full commitment of party officials. The abandonment of these two aspects has led to a crisis of legitimacy that mainstream parties have tried to counteract in ways that have proven ineffective, as membership still declines and confidence still languishes. Finally, the paper investigates whether the new challenger parties in France, Italy and Spain have introduced organizational and behavioural changes that could eventually reverse disaffection with the political partyper se.