Paper/Speech Details of Conference Program for the 26th NISPAcee Annual Conference Program Overview I. Working Group on Local Government Author(s) Tudor Cristian Ticlau Babes-Bolyai University Cluj-Napoca Romania Hintea Cristina, Title Public Marketing in Romania: Longitudinal Study on Use of Marketing Tools in Local Government File Paper files are available only for conference participants, please login first. Presenter Tudor Cristian Ticlau Abstract According to an OECD (2011) study, general government expenditures accounted for around 45% of GDP on average for OECD member countries, with Denmark, France, Finland, Belgium passing the 55% mark. Taking into consideration on of the central roles of the state is to provide public goods and services that serve the needs of the citizens, the way in which these resources are managed in order to effectively do this is of high interest. Public marketing is an optimum platform for any public agency that wants to meet citizens needs and deliver real value (Kotler, Lee, 2007). The current study investigates the extent to which public organizations use public marketing instruments in their daily activities. We were keen to find out the extent to which local authorities display and use ”formal marketing elements” in order to creat value for the public, using a comprehensive list of over 1o indicators. This was a longitudinal study, with 2 data collection points (2013, 2017) based on a quantitative method (document analysis). Official public information requests were sent out to a sample of over 400 local public institutions. The general goal translated into 3 specific objectives: (1) identify the usage level of public marketing tools by local authorities in Romania, focusing on specific formal components (e.g. financial allocation for specific marketing activities, existence of marketing department, marketing strategy, market research activities and so on); (2) classify authorities on a three level scale as low, medium and high intensity public marketing institutions and create a national institutional map based on the results (3) map out the evolution between the two data points to highlight progress. Initial results indicate to a low level of marketing use in both decentralized and deconcentrated local public authorities and a slow evolution towards more diversified marketing tools. Recommendations on how to improve the use of public marketing instruments by local authorities are offered, based on the data analyzed.
