Management of a City Brand: An Examination on Three Stakeholders' Attitudes

Nowadays, cities mean more than just being a geographical border. Many researchers and practitioners evaluate cities under "brand" category; therefore, they adapt all kinds of branding techniques developed for products to cities. Thus, city branding has become a commonly studied topic in the literature within theoretical and practical contexts. The understanding of stakeholders' needs lie behind the success of city branding. The three basic functions of cities, i.e. "to live, to do business, and to visit," point to the fact that the stakeholders in city branding are composed of residents, entrepreneurs, and visitors. However, it is observed in the city branding literature that limited stakeholder groups are in focus. According to the limitedness in the literature, the purpose of this study is to analyze the attitudes and behaviors of stakeholder groups composed of residents, entrepreneurs, and visitors toward a city brand. Data of the study were acquired via face-to-face questionnaires with 1145 respondents of which 481 were residents, 342 were entrepreneurs, and 322 were visitors. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was employed as a research method. The findings of SEM show that the city brand elements that affect the attitudes of residents, entrepreneurs, and visitors toward the city brand are different.