| Abstract [eng] |
The final paper presents an analysis of resident involvement in municipality image development. Taking the lead is the goal of many corporates and organizations. Countries, regions and municipalities also try to not fall behind. Positive image development is one of the available methods to achieve this goal. Even though the local image is by far not a new phenomenon in scientific literature, scientists are more prone to analyze the image of countries or cities and its subsequent development. Municipality image is an important factor in attracting investments, tourists and new residents. Being a complex process, municipality image development should involve local residents as well. Thus, an analysis of the ways local residents can get involved in municipality image development must be carried out. The final paper consists of the following three parts: • Theoretical Part • Methodological Part • Empirical Part The Theoretical Part includes an analysis of the concept of municipality image and the image development process. A positive and favorable image is a goal to be strived for and it must be carefully considered and purposively developed. The Theoretical Part also gives an explanation of what involvement means and a description of its levels and dimensions. Information is presented about what encourages residents to get involved and the forms of resident involvement in municipality image development. The Methodological Part presents the research scope. The research planning is described and explanations are given as to why the quantitative research has been chosen. The selection of research methods is substantiated. The research tool, i.e., the questionnaire-based survey, is described explaining how it has been compiled and what the aim of each question is. The research reliability and sample are described. The research ethics, i.e., the principles that the survey has been based on, are explained. This part also provides information about data collection, the way of conducting the survey, the time it took to complete the survey and the reasons why this method has been chosen. The Empirical Part includes a study of the social engagement of local residents with the aim to find out the reasons of their involvement in the image development process and their opinion on the ways of getting involved in municipality image development, to reveal the differences in the involvement of residents of different age groups in municipality image development, to show the differences in the involvement of residents from different municipality locations (villages, towns and cities) in municipality image development, to reveal the differences of the assessment of the ways and reasons of resident involvement in municipality image development with respect to the resident sex, age, social engagement level and place of residence, to verify the hypotheses about the differences in the manifestation of resident involvement in municipality image development with respect to their social engagement level, sex, age, education and place of residence. The research results reveal that residents with lower social engagement level tend to be more involved in municipality image development, compared to those residents, whose social engagement level is higher. The residents are usually involved in the image development process by following the news in the newspapers and online portals about municipality activities, praising the municipality, leaving positive comments, telling others about their municipality, taking part in the municipality events, online forums, discussions and municipality surveys, and writing comments about their municipality in the public media. The residents are most encouraged to get involved in the image development process by their desire to live better in their municipality and care for its image, the wish to gain knew knowledge and skills and to feel satisfaction in doing good deeds for their municipality and residents. The research also reveals that as members of the community, the respondents feel responsible for the municipality image and feel obligated to contribute to the development of a more positive municipality image. They give only positive comments about their municipality and are proud to live and work there. Research methods. Theoretical studies were completed using the methods of scientific source comparison and systemic analysis. A quantitative research in the form of a questionnaire-based survey was applied in the empirical research. The methods of descriptive, factor, correlation, regressive and dispersive analyses and Student’s t-test were employed. |
