Research & Thesis / Cities’ Soft Power & Foreign Direct Investments.
Economics — Geoeconomics — Urbanism — City Branding — Smart Cities — Soft Power — FDIs — Public Diplomacy — Urban Strategies.
Overview:
What is the multi-localism era? What makes global cities attracting talents/resources? How city brand management and marketing could influence investments? What’s the role of second-tier cities and last but not least:
How the underpinning attributes of the Milanese soft power do influence FDIs’ motives of companies and investors?
Hyperculture
Case Study: Joseph Nye - Soft Power, the role of culture in companies’ foreign markets penetration. Nba, Harvard, Microsoft, and further US entities, are attributed a positive “halo effect” on American-related goods exports fueling international consumer demand.
Chinese user streaming an Nba match, 2017.
Deep-Digitalization
European Soft Power: Estonia, bridging the gap with tech. Despite the relatively stagnant growth between 2015-2020, according to the DESI report, Estonia sits amongst the most digitalized European nations thanks to a series of heavy tech-driven investments started in the 90s.
Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) 2020
The currently dubbed “E-stonia” has bootstrapped itself out of a no-future perspective leading the way towards a digital-first society, shaping the path for Tallin to become an international hub for start-ups, also worldwide recognized for its cybersecurity know-how besides E-governance score.
Non-state actors
Companies, NGOs, Individuals, Public institutions: rising synergies driving the change. From FIFA Women’s World Cup 2019 turning into the beacon of gender equality, the rise of activism rooted in young social movements such as #Fridayforfuture or BlackLivesMatter, the dawn of mutual collaboration bringing civic actors to the forefront has yet to come.
BLM protest in Milan, 2020.
Urban Dynamics
Urban socio-economic development frameworks, IoT, data collection, urban analytics, circular economies, what is the new smart city paradigm?
Daito Manabe 真鍋 大度 - Squarepusher “Terminal Slam”, Tokyo, 2020.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, the research and thesis aim to deepen the understanding of city branding/city marketing mean in relation to the talents as well as business appeal translated in (inflows) Foreign Direct Investments, with a novel approach that shift concepts prior only related to a national level to a more city/urban conglomerate.
By a literature collection spanning from a wide range of domains, a framework to disentangle the underpinning relevant city attributes has been laid out. A special case has been crafted for the city of Milan.
Having said so, the key learnings can be applied/tested/compared to any urban center.
Resources
Bibliography
Nye Jr. J.S., “Soft power: the means to success in world politics”, New York, Public Affairs, 2004.
Sitography & Papers
Armondi, Simonetta, and Antonella Bruzzese. “Contemporary Production and Urban Change: The Case of Milan.” Journal of Urban Technology 24, no.
Bank, Asian Development. Asian Development Outlook (ADO) 2017: Transcending the Middle-Income Challenge. Asian Development Bank, 2017.
IF! RoundTable: “BRAND MILANO: INTELLIGENZA E CREATIVITA’, OLTRE IL MARKETING.”
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