Paper/Speech Details of Conference Program for the 27th NISPAcee Annual Conference Program Overview WG2: E-government Author(s) Rudolf Wawrzyniec University of Lodz Lodz Poland Ewa Glinska, Bialystok University of Technology, Bialystok, Poland Title Communication of Brand Personality by CEE Cities - International Study of Municipal Activities in Social Media File Paper files are available only for conference participants, please login first. Presenter Rudolf Wawrzyniec Abstract Background of considerations Social communication today is moving to the virtual world. Also public organizations, wanting to effectively influence their recipients and thus realize the goals set before them, take actions to use the communication tools available in the network (Mergel 2012, Bryer & Zavattaro 2016). Social media as channels for building relationships with residents, citizens, territorial users, and public service recipients are at the same time platforms for creating brands of public organizations or territories (Mergel 2017). The communication style is the basic component of the brand's personality concept (Keller 2008). It is defined as personal human characteristics attributed to the brand in order to facilitate communication of physical elements and attributes of the brand in relation to the consumer (Plummer 1985). The aim of the study is to diagnose the city brand's personality dimensions/treats and to identify their diversity in selected CEE countries (with different models of public administration).The research problem is described by the following research questions: • What dimensions of the city’s brand personality are used in communicating cities through social media ? • Are the brand personality traits identified so far sufficient to categorize the city’s brand personality communicated through social media? • Which of the characteristics of the studied cities in both countries (Poland and Ukraine) correlates with their brands’ personalities? Justification for the purposefulness of research The most popular concept of measuring the personality of the brand is the Aaker model (1997), which created a research tool, the so-called the brand personality measurement scale (The Brand Personality Scale). She identified 42 personality determinants, grouped into five dimensions: sincerity, excitement, competence, sophistication, and roughness. Despite the criticism, the Aaker’s model is still widely used in scientific research. The proposed research approach is a certain novelty in research on the brand personality of the city, as earlier studies were carried out to identify only the manner of perception of the dimensions of brand personality from the perspective of the recipient. The method This study analyzes personality brand communication, which is conducted using official Facebook profiles run by local administration units in cities, being capitals of the regions/oblasts in 2 selected European countries with different levels of public administration development – Poland and Ukraine. It can be assumed that in Polish local administration the NPM approach is introduced with the elements of Public Governance model. It is the result of the long-term support for reforms in the area of public administration from the European Social Fund. In contrast, Ukraine, despite previous attempts to implement adequate reforms, has failed to radically change the status quo. Thus, it remains a country with a traditional administrative system based on the hierarchy, political system, and low level of trust. The research method is the qualitative study based on the researcher’s assessment of the posts. The full content analysis (text, film, photos) of the facebook posts was done by the inter-coder reliability approach. The 1 700 posts in total were evaluated. The results show the breakdown of the key personality dimensions for the Polish and for Ukrainian cities. The new treats have been identified which are typical for Ukraine which roots at their specific country culture, which is also the culture of its public administration.
