<p>The competition between the Swedish municipalities has increased as the world has become more globalized, which means that they need to become more attractive for sustaining sound finances and not to find themselves to have a downward trend. One possibility to show the attractiveness of a place is by using place marketing and therewith attaining a stronger brand position. There are 20 suburban municipalities in the county of Stockholm, of which six are multicultural or are having a minimum of 20 percent immigrants among the residents. These immigrant areas are segregated based on class, income and culture. Problems associated with these areas have historical aspects that dates further back than modern immigration does. What could be seen as positive with these multicultural municipalities are their intercultural competences, something that should be attractive among companies that try to survive on today’s global market. Intercultural competences facilitate the managing of social expectations within a culture and in the meeting with other cultures. Immigrants have had experience of a minimum of one cultural meeting and that is with their new host culture. They should therefore have a higher likelihood of being knowledgeable when it comes to intercultural competences. This could therefore be a good attribute for immigrant areas such as multicultural suburban municipalities to include in their brand identity and by that obtain a stronger brand position. However, the question is; would such attributes attract companies? According to several statements in the daily press, Swedish companies are very interested in multiculturalism, and some actually say that it is a critical factor for a company’s survival in a globalized world. But is this really true? According to the Swedish employment office (Arbetsförmedlingen), multicultural municipalities have a higher unemployment than municipalities in the county of Stockholm with fewer immigrants. This indicates that the municipalities might have a problem, but also that companies until now have not been very interested in immigrants as labor force. The primordial question of this thesis therefore is whether intercultural competence is something that could invigorate a multicultural suburban municipality’s brand position when it comes to attracting companies. Another question is how attractive intercultural competencies are in comparison to other attributes such as area, number of well educated residents and business climate. The purpose of this thesis is to find out whether multicultural suburban municipalities in the county of Stockholm are attractive business municipalities today. Furthermore, one could wonder if they are having a downward trend and if so is, what to do about that? The thesis will also examine how the present identities of those municipalities appear and if they use attributes that show their multiculturalism or their intercultural competencies. More so, the thesis will study whether multicultural suburban municipalities are to invigorate their brand position when it comes to attracting companies via the use of attributes that can be associated to their intercultural competencies. For analyzing of this thesis, three theories have been used. The first theory is a model of an unattractive place’s downward trend. The second theory is the strengthening of a brand position through a differentiated competitive advantage. The third theory is a closer definition of intercultural competence and the different competences that lies within that term. The conclusions of this thesis are that five of the multicultural suburban municipalities are unattractive business municipalities and that they are having a downward trend. Clearly, place marketing would be a good strategy to make these multicultural suburban municipalities shift their downward trend to become an upward trend. It would give them the opportunity to show their competitive advantages. It is also concluded in this thesis that intercultural competences, compared with attributes such as area, number of well educated residents and business climate or not, would be good attributes in order to invigorate the brand position since intercultural competences belongs to their core identity, it is differentiating and it could be, under certain circumstances, a competitive advantage. Nevertheless, what could be seen as a big problem is that the municipalities don’t seem to have an immense interest in place marketing.</p>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA/oai:DiVA.org:sh-1763 |
| Date | January 2008 |
| Creators | Nyquist, Anna |
| Publisher | Södertörn University College, School of Business Studies |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, text |
Page generated in 0.0145 seconds