The construction of local authenticity: an exploration of two service industry cases

Abstract

The aim of this study is to explore the process of the social construction of local authenticity. More specifically, this study intends to outline the managerial practices that are being used to construct local authenticity. The background to this is the much-discussed phenomenon of the ‘death of geography’, where the Internet is famously implicated. In this study, it is claimed that in parallel to companies' increased use of the Internet, there has been a revalorisation and redefinition of the role of the local. Four key marketing practices that are used to construct local authenticity are identified: adapting employees' interactive manner, adapting employees' local explicit knowledge, using a local branding strategy and applying a local branch design.

Keywords:

• local authenticity
• social-servicescape
• Internet
• embeddedness