Maia Maziashvili (p), Izabela Kowalik

Eduardo Haddad

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to explore the role of digital technologies in the strategic city brand management process. In particular, it analyzes whether the digital tools are increasing internal stakeholders engagement in city branding practices or just substituting offline branding. The study aims to contribute to the understanding how the strategic city brand management components are affected by stakeholders’ engagement through digital technologies.

Design/methodology/approach – The first part of the paper is based on theoretical insights drawn from the combination of the literature on place branding, marketing and governance. The second part of study includes qualitative research results based on the individual semi structured interviews among city officials responsible for city branding. In sum, 12 in-depth interviews were carried out in 6 cities. The research is characterized by an innovative approach to sample selection, which includes participation of officials from Georgian and Polish cities (3 cities from Poland, 3 cities from Georgia), and enables comparison of two country contexts (with the background of developed and emerging economy). For this purpose the content analysis of interviews’ transcripts and MaxQDa software version PLUS have been applied.
Findings -The results of this study indicate the positive effects of using digital tools in increasing stakeholder engagement and strengthening long term relations between city authorities and stakeholders. Moreover, It has identified two groups of stakeholders -residents and business sector representatives-as the main groups, willing to establish long term relationships with the city government. The findings revealed which components of strategic city brand management are affected by stakeholders involvement through digital technologies. In this case, Polish cities show more advanced results, where stakeholder participation via digital tools is applied in the brand conceptualization, communication and brand evaluation processes. In Georgia, stakeholders are involved via digital tools in the process of communication and promotion of the place brand. The research identifies which digital tools are used at each participation stage for both stakeholder groups (residents and business) and how the participation in this channel is conducted.
Contribution- the study contributes to place branding research concerning the understanding of the role of digital tools in increasing the effectiveness of strategic city brand management process. The practical implications of the research concern the improvement of the local authorities’ relations with internal stakeholders and enhancing the active involvement of stakeholders in the place branding practices.

Soushi Suzuki (p), Karima Kourtit , Peter Nijkamp

Maia Maziashvili

Over the past decades, many Asian cities - especially, Chinese cities - have shared an unprecedented high degree of economic and geographic-demographic dynamics. It is noteworthy however, that cities in this region display also much heterogeneity in terms of economic performance, technological innovativeness, cultural profiles and spatial interaction. It is, therefore, interesting to develop an efficiency ranking of the multi-dimensional performance of these large cities so as to identify ‘super-cities’, whose economic and cultural achievements outperform others. The first aim of this paper is now to undertake a multi-faceted performance ranking of 12 large cities in the Asian region, with a special focus on Chinese large cities, by using of a Super-efficient DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis). In this study, we consider 3 inputs and 2 outputs. Based on a large-scale data base and our analysis results, it appears that Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Tokyo and Singapore may be regarded as a Super-efficient Cities. It also turns out that Osaka, Shanghai, Beijing, Seoul, Fukuoka, Mumbai and Taipei manifest themselves as inefficient cities. In these inefficient cities, there is clearly scope for improvement in performance, which requires of course an efficiency enhancement strategy, depending on the choice of productive inputs and achievement levels. In our modelling approach, we employ an efficiency-improving projection model, called a Distance Friction Minimization (DFM) model in DEA. The DFM model is based on a generalized distance friction function and serves to improve the performance of a Decision-Making Unit by identifying the most appropriate movement towards the efficiency frontier surface. To design a feasible and realistic improvement strategy for low-efficiency cities, we develop a Target-Oriented (TO) DFM model, in order to generate an appropriate efficiency-improvement projection model. The standard TO approach specifies a target-efficiency score (TES) for inefficient DMUs. Next, we also develop an objective target-setting model in our TO-DFM approach in DEA, named the Autoconfiguration Target (AT)-DFM model. This approach is able to compute an input reduction value and an output increase value in order to achieve an autoconfiguration target-efficiency score. The second aim of this paper is to apply this newly develop AT-DFM model with a fixed factor (FF) reflecting more realistic circumstances and requirements in an operational strategy for a feasible efficiency improvement. The above-mentioned new AT-DFM-FF model will be applied in order to provide an efficiency-improving projection for inefficiency enhancement of several large Asian cities, especially focused on the Chinese cities.

Peter Stenberg (p)

Soushi Suzuki

It has always been expensive to deliver telecommunication services to rural and isolated households, but as new broadband Internet technologies have been introduced that are both cheaper and more effective, the economic dynamics have changed. More rural areas have received the advanced broadband technologies, but many rural areas are still perceived as offering the least in economic returns for private investment and have not. Given the apparent benefits of the Internet, there are meaningful consequences for rural households remaining without, or with lesser, broadband service. Wireless Internet has improved a great deal over the last decade, but is it a solution to lack of universal rural service? Our research will be somewhat broad ranging at this point and constitute four questions: (1) the technical state of satellite and fixed and mobile wireless and how it fits into the rural broadband market, (2) how dependent are rural areas on the (various aspects of the) Internet? Or what is the relationship between rural economies and the Internet? (3) Are wireless broadband systems substitutes or complements to hardwired systems? What does substitute versus complement mean for rural households?

Please see uploaded preliminary draft of paper

Florence Labarre (p)

Peter Stenberg

This presentation shows the impact of personalized travel planning (PTP) applied to journey planner apps on car drivers who are not ready for modal shift.
Modal shift is often considered as a one-step process for switching from car to other modes, which leads to measures focusing only on incentives to use alternative modes. However, these measures are only effective for car drivers who already question their mobility behavior and contemplate changing. Modal shift is about mobility behavior change. According to psychology models, behavioral changes involve a series of stages (transtheoritical model), several of which occur prior to the action stage. Our study focuses on those preliminary stages to bring an extension tool to modal shift policies.
The experiment we present intended to encourage car drivers to question their habits and ideas about alternative mobility solutions. Usually, mass communication campaigns (posters, flyers…) are used, but the impact is always limited. PTP aims to generate an interest in alternative transport offers through soft measures (communication, information, coaching, education ...) and personalized measures. This PTP method is used mainly to guide people to take action with the help of a mobility coach. Given the good results of this method (average reduction of 10% of car mileage), we have conducted our experiment following this paradigm. Targeted and contextualized messages were sent to car drivers. To avoid certain limitations of PTP (high cost, time-consuming temporary process) and to enable targeting, messages were sent using a journey-planer app. The experiment, which was conducted with 120 car drivers, lasted 10 months in Bordeaux Métropole.

Eduardo Haddad (p), Renato Vieira , Miguel Jacob, Ana Guerrini, Eduardo Germani, Fernando Barreto, Miguel Bucalem, Pedro Sayon

Peter Stenberg

This paper estimates the socioeconomic impacts of the emergence and expansion of e-hailing services in São Paulo, Brazil. Combining data from a major service provider, individual level data from a representative travel diary survey and a structural traffic network simulation, we evaluate the impact of e-hailing on commuters’ travel time and accessibility. We then estimate the effect of these changes on workers’ productivity. Finally, using a Spatial Computable General Equilibrium (SCGE) model, we estimate the effect of these productivity shocks on broader economic outcomes. Our main results indicate that 83% of current e-hailing trips derived from trips that were previously made by traditional motorized private modes. We also find that the current e-hailing supply has mostly negligible effects on travel times and congestion; however, some individuals experienced important accessibility gains due to the emergence of this alternative mode. We then simulate e-hailing expansion and development scenarios, including the case of larger vehicle occupancy. Total economic activity expands by 1.089% if average vehicle occupancy reaches 3 passengers per trip and all motorized private trips are substituted by e-hailing.