Purpose -The aim of the paper is to carry out a contemporary and concise "state-of-the-art" review of the city branding research domain, in particular how scholars have approached this field of study, what aspects of city branding have been studied, what cities have been chosen, and how the studies are designed. Design/methodology/approach -Through an iterative search in multiple literature databases, 217 qualified research studies on city branding were identified and retrieved. Those studies were examined, analyzed and categorized according to six categories: bibliographical data, methodologies used, empirical foundation, conceptual frameworks, branding elements, and reported outcomes of branding efforts. Findings -City branding is emerging as an internationally recognized research domain characterized by a high degree of multi-disciplinary, rapid proliferation in and between disciplines, and a somewhat fragmented theoretical foundation. On the basis of research interests, three perspectives were identified (producing, consuming, and criticizing city branding) emerging across academic disciplines.Research limitations/implications -The study is based on research articles in English, published in academic journals, which limits the international and professional scope of the study. Another limitation is the selected time period, which does not include studies prior to 1988 or later than 2009. Originality/value -As a state-of-the-art review, the main contribution of this paper is a contemporary and comprehensive overview of the field as such. A methodological contribution is the attempt to run a multi-variate analysis of the branding elements in relation to the output and performance data reported in the studies. Another contribution is the identification of three cross-disciplinary research perspectives in the field today.

No abstract

This article takes as its starting point the observation that food, meals and gastronomy are frequently used in the branding of places. The knowledge of how and why this takes place is, however, rather limited, and the aim of this article is thus to identify and describe the role of food, meals and gastronomy in the direct and indirect branding of places. The article contains three main sections, where the first is a clarification of key concepts and the methodology applied. The second part is an account of the ways in which food is used in branding places, based on the observations we have made as part of a multisite field study of large metropolitan cities. The third part of the article is a tentative and illustrated conceptual framework, based on the assumption that places can be seen as sensescapes. Food, meals and gastronomy contribute to the spatial configuration (sensory topography), time-space flow (orchestration) and iconography (sensory mapping) of these place-sensescapes. The conclusion of the article is that the character of a place does not only affect the experience of food and gastronomy in that place, but also that food and gastronomy is -directly and indirectly -affecting the character of the place and its brand-image.Place Branding and Public Diplomacy (2015) 0, 1-16.

The purpose of this analysis is to present a detailed overview of the current state of evaluation methodology in organization development. A detailed search procedure yielded 35 empirical studies in the OD field for the period 1959 to mid-1975. Each study was analyzed according to (a) research design, (b) data collection procedures, (c) subject characteristics, (d) treatment dimensions, and (e) data analysis approaches. Findings show that the overall quality of OD research methodology was spotty. Research designs were relatively strong with a large percentage of investigators using quasi-experimental designs. An excessive reliance on questionnaires as the sole data collection approach exists. Only a small percentage of studies report using other quantified approaches. Most studies were conducted in one organization or in situations where the N's for units of analysis larger than the individual were small (< 10). The heavy use of laboratory training intervention techniques was noted, although a strong shift from process to task orientation has occurred in recent years. Over 75% of the studies reported the use of statistical tests of significance. Although data analysis procedures are becoming more sophisticated, the vast majority of studies used very simple analytical techniques. Based on this analysis, a series of suggestions for improvement of methodological approaches to OD research is presented.

No abstract