IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/pal/pbapdi/v13y2017i4d10.1057_s41254-016-0051-5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The less transparent, the more attractive? A critical perspective on transparency and place branding

Author

Listed:
  • Vincent Mabillard

    (University of Lausanne)

  • Renaud Vuignier

    (University of Lausanne)

Abstract

According to recent surveys, transparency has become a key issue in business decisions. Foreign firms increasingly view transparent economic policies as crucial in their investment planning. Evidence has shown that clear and predictable environments play an important role in companies’ decisions to develop their activities in a specific place. Nowadays, place branding scholars and practitioners alike call for more transparency and responsibility in branding strategies, assuming that trust, enhanced by transparency, is needed to improve the attractiveness of a place. In a study by a major consulting firm, investors in Switzerland specifically mentioned stability and transparency as the most important location factors. However, the country scores poorly in terms of financial transparency. This paradox reveals a degree of confusion about the nature of transparency, which is addressed in this article. We argue that, while transparency of the regulatory framework can effectively improve the attractiveness of a place, opacity of legal requirements may also attract foreign investors. In this sense, transparency of and required by the rules can be at odds. A nuanced approach to transparency and a more detailed analysis are needed to provide a clearer explanation of the relationship between transparency and the attractiveness of a place.

Suggested Citation

  • Vincent Mabillard & Renaud Vuignier, 2017. "The less transparent, the more attractive? A critical perspective on transparency and place branding," Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 13(4), pages 348-359, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:pbapdi:v:13:y:2017:i:4:d:10.1057_s41254-016-0051-5
    DOI: 10.1057/s41254-016-0051-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41254-016-0051-5
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1057/s41254-016-0051-5?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Shang-Jin Wei & Mr. Gaston Gelos, 2002. "Transparency and International Investor Behavior," IMF Working Papers 2002/174, International Monetary Fund.
    2. Drabek, Zdenek & Payne, Warren, 2002. "The Impact of Transparency on Foreign Direct Investment," Journal of Economic Integration, Center for Economic Integration, Sejong University, vol. 17, pages 777-810.
    3. Niels Johannesen & Gabriel Zucman, 2014. "The End of Bank Secrecy? An Evaluation of the G20 Tax Haven Crackdown," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 6(1), pages 65-91, February.
    4. Mohsin Habib & Leon Zurawicki, 2002. "Corruption and Foreign Direct Investment," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 33(2), pages 291-307, June.
    5. Beata K. Smarzynska & Shang-Jin Wei, 2000. "Corruption and Composition of Foreign Direct Investment: Firm-Level Evidence," NBER Working Papers 7969, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Jose Guilherme Reis & Thomas Farole, 2012. "Trade Competitiveness Diagnostic Toolkit," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 2248, December.
    7. Jean-Noël Kapferer, 2013. "Ré-inventer les marques: La fin des marques telles que nous les connaissons," Post-Print hal-00786811, HAL.
    8. Staci M. Zavattaro, 2014. "Place Branding through Phases of the Image," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-1-137-39451-4.
    9. Pasquier, Martial & Zumofen, Raphael, 2015. "Image Resilience after Multiple Crises. The Case of Switzerland in the United States," Die Unternehmung - Swiss Journal of Business Research and Practice, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, vol. 69(2), pages 182-192.
    10. Helmut Birnleitner, 2014. "Attractiveness of Countries for Foreign Direct Investments from the Macro-Economic Perspective," Proceedings of FIKUSZ '14, in: Pál Michelberger (ed.),Proceedings of FIKUSZ '14, pages 29-40, Óbuda University, Keleti Faculty of Business and Management.
    11. Steven Globerman & Daniel M Shapiro, 1999. "The Impact of Government Policies on Foreign Direct Investment: The Canadian Experience," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 30(3), pages 513-532, September.
    12. Bevan, Alan A. & Estrin, Saul, 2004. "The determinants of foreign direct investment into European transition economies," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 775-787, December.
    13. Renaud Vuignier, 2016. "Place marketing and place branding: A systematic (and tentatively exhaustive) literature review," Working Papers hal-01340352, HAL.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Renaud Vuignier, 2018. "Attracting Investments and Companies: Federal Multi-Level Collaboration in Switzerland and Canada," Journal of International Commerce, Economics and Policy (JICEP), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 9(03), pages 1-30, October.
    2. Cicatiello, Lorenzo & De Simone, Elina & Ercolano, Salvatore & Gaeta, Giuseppe Lucio, 2021. "Assessing the impact of fiscal transparency on FDI inflows," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    3. Renaud Vuignier, 2017. "Place branding & place marketing 1976–2016: A multidisciplinary literature review," International Review on Public and Nonprofit Marketing, Springer;International Association of Public and Non-Profit Marketing, vol. 14(4), pages 447-473, December.
    4. Vincent Mabillard & Renaud Vuignier, 2021. "Exploring the relationship between transparency, attractiveness factors, and the location of foreign companies: what matters most?," Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 17(4), pages 304-316, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cuervo-Cazurra, Alvaro, 2008. "Better the devil you don't know: Types of corruption and FDI in transition economies," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 12-27, March.
    2. Bitzenis, Aristidis & Tsitouras, Antonis & Vlachos, Vasileios A., 2009. "Decisive FDI obstacles as an explanatory reason for limited FDI inflows in an EMU member state: The case of Greece," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 691-704, August.
    3. Bailey, Nicholas, 2018. "Exploring the relationship between institutional factors and FDI attractiveness: A meta-analytic review," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 139-148.
    4. Turan Subasat & Sotiris Bellos, 2011. "Economic Freedom and Foreign Direct Investment in Latin America: A Panel Gravity Model Approach," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 31(3), pages 2053-2065.
    5. Mondher Cherif & Christian Dreger, 2015. "The Impact of South-South Trade Agreements on FDI," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1461, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    6. Vladimír Benáček & Helena Lenihan & Bernadette Andreosso-O'Callaghan & Eva Michalíková & Denis Kan, 2014. "Political Risk, Institutions and Foreign Direct Investment: How Do They Relate in Various European Countries?," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(5), pages 625-653, May.
    7. Jingtao Yi & Shuang Meng & Craig D. Macaulay & Mike W. Peng, 2019. "Corruption and foreign direct investment phases: The moderating role of institutions," Journal of International Business Policy, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 2(2), pages 167-181, June.
    8. Wu, Shih-Ying, 2006. "Corruption and cross-border investment by multinational firms," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 839-856, December.
    9. Tag, Mehmet Nasih & Degirmen, Suleyman, 2022. "Economic freedom and foreign direct investment: Are they related?," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 737-752.
    10. George Emm. Halkos & Nickolaos G. Tzeremes, 2007. "An Empirical Analysis of Socioeconomic Patterns of Host Country Transparency," International Journal of Business and Economics, School of Management Development, Feng Chia University, Taichung, Taiwan, vol. 6(2), pages 161-177, August.
    11. Rahim M. Quazi, 2014. "Corruption and Foreign Direct Investment in East Asia and South Asia: An Econometric Study," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 4(2), pages 231-242.
    12. Dorota Wawrzyniak, 2010. "Determinanty lokalizacji bezpośrednich inwestycji zagranicznych," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 4, pages 89-111.
    13. Turan Subasat & Sotirios Bellos, 2013. "Governance and foreign direct investment in Latin America: A panel gravity model approach," Latin American Journal of Economics-formerly Cuadernos de Economía, Instituto de Economía. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile., vol. 50(1), pages 107-131, May.
    14. Bebonchu Atems & John K Mullen, 2016. "Outward FDI from the USA and host country financial transparency," The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(8), pages 1122-1143, November.
    15. Cicatiello, Lorenzo & De Simone, Elina & Ercolano, Salvatore & Gaeta, Giuseppe Lucio, 2021. "Assessing the impact of fiscal transparency on FDI inflows," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    16. Brada, Josef C. & Drabek, Zdenek & Mendez, Jose A. & Perez, M. Fabricio, 2019. "National levels of corruption and foreign direct investment," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 31-49.
    17. Arjen H. L. Slangen & Sjoerd Beugelsdijk & Jean-Francois Hennart, 2011. "The Impact of Cultural Distance on Bilateral Arm’s Length Exports," Management International Review, Springer, vol. 51(6), pages 875-896, December.
    18. Dorożyński Tomasz & Kuna-Marszałek Anetta, 2016. "Investments Attractiveness. The Case Of The Visegrad Group Countries," Comparative Economic Research, Sciendo, vol. 19(1), pages 119-140, March.
    19. Gui-Diby, Steve Loris, 2014. "Impact of foreign direct investments on economic growth in Africa: Evidence from three decades of panel data analyses," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(3), pages 248-256.
    20. Klaus Uhlenbruck & Peter Rodriguez & Jonathan Doh & Lorraine Eden, 2006. "The Impact of Corruption on Entry Strategy: Evidence from Telecommunication Projects in Emerging Economies," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 17(3), pages 402-414, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pal:pbapdi:v:13:y:2017:i:4:d:10.1057_s41254-016-0051-5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.palgrave.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.