Ari-Veikko Anttiroiko

Published: Oct 14, 2014 by Growth and Change, published online 14 Oct 2014
Authors: Ari-Veikko Anttiroiko
Subjects: Economics, Finance, Business & Industry, Geography , Communication Studies

Globalisation is dramatically changing the premises for urban development policy. Cities' major goal is to increase their competitiveness, in which the positioning and attractiveness of a city have a critical function. This paper proposes a city attraction hypothesis that states that global intercity competition is essentially about a city's ability to attract the highest possible value from global flows of values in order to promote urban development.

Published: Sep 10, 2014 by Public Management Review, published online 10 Sep 2014
Authors: Stephen J. Bailey, Ari-Veikko Anttiroiko & Pekka Valkama
Subjects: Economics, Finance, Business & Industry

This paper argues that justifying lack of productivity improvements in public services by referring to Baumol’s Cost Disease is conceptually confused, theoretically misspecified and empirically blind. Baumol’s thesis misconceptualizes public services as categorically distinct from manufactured goods and is based on a theory of productivity not directly applicable to many public services. This paper concludes that public services are not as technologically non-progressive as BCD asserts.

Published: Aug 04, 2009 by Regional Studies, vol. 43, issue 5, pages 759-769
Authors: Ari-Veikko Anttiroiko
Subjects: Economics, Finance, Business & Industry, Sociology, Area Studies

Osaka City and Osaka Prefecture introduced several large-scale business site and technopole development projects in the 1980s and 1990s that appeared to be failures. This development was designed by the politico-administrative establishment of the Osaka area in order to claim their share of anticipated global economic growth. The case of Osaka suggests that business site developments need to be built on premises that match the requirements of a global knowledge economy.

Published: Jun 01, 2004 by International Journal of Technology Management, Vol. 28, Nos 3-6, pp. 395-418
Authors: Ari-Veikko Anttiroiko
Subjects: Economics, Finance, Business & Industry, Geography , Sociology

This article explores science cities and their basic characteristics. A brief outline of science cities in different parts of the world is given. A more detailed case description is presented on the most significant science city project in the world, Tsukuba Science City in Japan. Lastly, the future of science cities will be discussed in the light of recent trends and developments.

By: Ari-Veikko Anttiroiko
Subjects: Business, Management and Accounting, Communication Studies, Other, Tourism, Hospitality and Events

The emerging logic of global economic flows requires paradigm shift in urban management. The need for such an approach lies in increased fluidity in economic life, which has created new kind of space with its own logic, the space of flows.

The emergence of such an economic condition has intensified global intercity competition, as metropolitan governments’ ability to maintain their economic vitality depends on their ability to attract flows of values through their innovation milieus, urban amenities, and other assets. Ability to attract global flows in turn depends less and less on location-specific physical assets and increasingly on collective symbolic capital. This brings us to one of the key issues in urban management: how to utilise flow analysis in brand-oriented economic development policy?

Two books by Ari-Veikko Anttiroiko address this topic. The introduction to flow paradigm was addressed in The Political Economy of City Branding (Routledge, 2014), which focusses on international city branding and its connections with local economic development policy. A thematic continuation of this story is presented a shorter book entitled  New Urban Management: Attracting Value Flows to Branded Hubs (Palgrave, 2015), which conceptualises global flows of values and on that basis shows how such knowledge can be used to smarten up brand-oriented economic development policy. The overall message of these books is that current developments indicate a new relationships between places, flows and symbols, which should be taken into account in local economic development policy.

By: Ari-Veikko Anttiroiko
Subjects: Business, Management and Accounting, Communication Studies, Economics, Finance, Business & Industry

Cities have become important actors on the global scene. Metropolitan governments are among the best ‘glocal’ players, sharpening their global influence strategy and improving the management of their brand. International city branding has its undeniable challenges, however. One of them is the fact that cities must utilize their symbolic, or brand, capital—the resources and influence afforded to them through a perceived value—in an increasingly decentralized, fluid, and media-shaped environment. This implies weak control over ones’ brand.

This mini-article takes a look at how branding can benefit local economic development and how to cope with the many factors that wrest control of the brand from its masters. This article is largely based on my new book, The Political Economy of City Branding.

For the whole article, please visit Tronvig Group's blog at http://www.tronviggroup.com/city-brands/

PS. Special thanks for James Heaton for providing me a chance to publish this mini-article in their blog. Ari-Veikko

By: Ari-Veikko Anttiroiko
Subjects: Business, Management and Accounting, Communication Studies, Economics, Finance, Business & Industry, Sociology, Sociology, Criminology and Criminal Justice

City branding as a strategic management tool for local governments to promote smart and creative urban development is the primary research interest of Ari-Veikko Anttiroiko, Adjunct professor in the School of Management at the University of Tampere, Finland.

In this first of The Place Brand Observer's 2015 interview series with place branding thinkers, shakers and doers, Ari-Veikko shares insights from his recent book on The Political Economy of City Branding (Routledge, 2014) and explains why city branding is gaining importance in a globalised and mediatized world. Below is an excerpt from the interview.

What are the key insights from the book?

First, one of the premises of the book is that we live in a world in which ‘urban attractiveness’ is becoming a key measure of success. This is known as City Attraction Hypothesis. It paints a picture of cities in a globalised “spiky world”, as convincingly described by Richard Florida in his seminal article ‘The World Is Spiky’ (The Atlantic, 2005).

Cities have to learn to manage themselves as ‘hubs’ or economic dissipative structures in an increasingly fluid economy organised in the ‘space of flows’ – another concept invented by Manuel Castells. Branding is a tool to deal with such a demanding job.

Second, the discussion about ‘industrial city profiles’ emanates from the attraction imperative. The book claims that the decisions about which niches, industries or clusters to promote in the local economic development policy are critical to the success of cities since such decisions determine factually the key attributes of the city’s economic identity. Hence critical connection between economic development policy and identity-driven brand building.

Third, such a branding endeavour takes place in a mediatized environment, as exemplified by the growing impact of city rankings on cities and their audiences. The book provides a fairly clear picture of how rankings serve as a snapshot of the symbolic battlefield of cities.

Fourth, apart from the previously discussed strategic and managerial aspects of city branding, the book emphasises the need to anchor such branding into the true strengths of the city in a process that is open and inclusive, in order to create a popular and resilient brand.

Lastly, we should do our best to avoid the birth of ‘brandocracy’ that reaps the benefits of collective symbolic capital to a small local elite. Rather, the idea should be to use city branding as a tool to create win-win situations in which the whole community benefits. Hence the idea of ‘open brand politics’.

To read the whole interview, please visit The Place Brand Observer.

Published on 13 January 2015

Interviewed by Florian Kaefer, The Place Brand Observer