Social identity, collective self esteem and country reputation: the case of Pakistan

Abstract

Purpose – This paper aims to show how the relative global status of a country influences its internal country reputation and resulting social cognitions of citizens. Design/methodology/approach – The theories of social identity and collective self-esteem were employed to explain how self-assessment and evaluations of a country’s reputation are regulated by social concepts and vice versa. The structural equation modeling technique was employed to estimate the conjectural relations. Findings – The groups which people belong to are their primary source of pride and self-esteem. But if a country is negatively stereotyped on the global stage, it weakens the ability of people to live their nation’s brand. A formidable nation’s brand can only be constructed if people are deeply involved and committed to it. Practical implications – The results of this study have implications for policymakers, nation’s branding experts and researchers to focus on internal branding of nations. The academicians and researchers should focus more on the internal audiences in their role as a “communication medium” to external audiences. A more purposeful internal branding will promote community strengthening and enable people to act as a mouth piece in communicating a desired experience to external audiences. Originality/value – The existing nations branding literature does not show how relative global status of a country influences self-assessment and evaluations of people’s associations with that country. The present study aims to fill this gap by drawing on the theories of social identity, self-categorization and collective self-esteem to show how people’s self-perception in negatively perceived countries is regulated in relation to their country’s relative global status and its influence on resulting social cognitions.

New challenges in brand management

“…Business partners, such as retailers and suppliers, are actively playing roles with the aim of contributing to the development of the brand identity and the decisions made in the brand team (Törmälä and Saraniemi, 2017). Linked entities, such as endorsers (Dwivedi et al, 2015), other brands (Davies et al, 2006;Delgado-Ballester and Hernández-Espallardo, 2008;Thomas, 2015) or products are sold under the same brand name, such as own labels (Marques dos Santos et al, 2016) and the country or origin (Lu and Xu, 2015;Yousaf and Li, 2015;Brodie and Benson-Rea, 2016). What the press and the media report about the brand and all the publicity produced by what is perceived as reliable sources are not unnoticed when consumers evaluate brands (Gendel-Guterman and Levy, 2017).…”

Knowledge Connectivity in an Adverse Context: Global Value Chains and Pakistani Offshore Service Providers

“…As the security conditions in Pakistan deteriorated, western countries imposed a travel ban, preventing their citizens from visiting the country. This led to decreases in both exports and inflows of FDI, as well as damage to the nation's reputation (Hussain 2011;Lopez-Calix and Touqeer 2013;Yousaf and Li 2015).…”

Information agents and cultural differences as determinants of country’s reputation and its subsequent effects on tourism prospects of a country in sustained crises

“…The self-perception of people living in a certain country is pivotal in building sustainable place brand equity. However, Yousaf and Li (2015) reported that the citizens of negatively perceived countries like Pakistan internalize the negative stereotypes associated with their country. Therefore, in coming years, Pakistan may lose this effective reputation-enhancing tool, unless some revolutionary steps are taken by the government of Pakistan to revive the passion and invoke self-belief of Pakistanis to evolve a collective identity.…”