Policy Transfer of Branding and Reputation Management: Motivations, Challenges, and Opportunities for a Small Rural Municipality

Abstract

This paper seeks to convey a broader understanding of policy transfers between different sectors, focusing on transfers from the for-profit sector to local government. Specifically, we study the reasoning in a transfer process of branding and reputation management policy. Our case is a rural Norwegian municipality struggling to combat depopulation. This study is longitudinal. We discover that some original program elements cannot easily be transferred to the democratic context of local government. The transfer involves both interpretations and adjustments of the policy because of municipal institutional characteristics and values. The success of transfer depends here on the ability to balance the original policy with practices widely valued within the new setting.

Keywords:

• Branding
• municipality
• policy transfer
• public sector
• reputation management

Notes

Notes

1 Here, we have narrowed it down to four categories. We combine Rose’s (1991) “synthesis” and “hybrid,” which we label “combination” in line with Dolowitz and Marsh (2000).

2 Nowadays, corporate branding literature includes not only products but also the marketing of the organization itself (Byrkjeflot, 2011).

3 A Norwegian survey shows that a clear majority of municipality officials do not want to use differentiating techniques to achieve competitive advantages (Wæraas, 2015).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Åshild Skjegstad Lockert

Åshild Skjegstad Lockert is a PhD candidate in political science at the Department of Social Sciences at UiT The Arctic University of Norway. She is currently working on a thesis on reputation management in local governments.

Hilde Bjørnå

Hilde Bjørnå is Professor of Political Science at UiT The Arctic University of Norway. Her research interests are mainly local reforms, development policies and democratic innovations. Her recent publications have focused on local leadership, “Joined up” local government, municipal political organization, trust in politicians and municipality reputation and branding strategies.

Martin Sollund Krane

Martin Sollund Krane has a PhD in political science and holds a position as a researcher at NORCE Norwegian Research Centre, Tromsø. His research interests are mainly local democracy, public sector governance and reforms, branding and strategic communication in the public sector.