EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Citizens’ deprecating behaviour: dragging down the nation branding efforts in developing countries—opinions of selected stakeholders in Zimbabwe

Fainos Chokera (), Edward Mudzimba (), Reason Masengu () and Mugove Mashingaidze ()
Additional contact information
Fainos Chokera: Midlands State University
Edward Mudzimba: Midlands State University
Reason Masengu: Middle East College, Department of Management Studies
Mugove Mashingaidze: BA ISAGO University

Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, 2025, vol. 21, issue 2, No 2, 157-174

Abstract: Abstract Developing countries face unique challenges in building and managing their national image due to various socio-political and economic factors. Thus, this study explored the extent of citizens’ deprecating behaviour and factors that breed citizens’ deprecating behaviour focusing on Zimbabwe as a case study. An interpretivist philosophy based on the exploratory approach was employed where a total of 20 personal interviews were conducted with purposively selected government officials, business leaders/marketing experts, sports personalities, media experts, local university students, and international diplomats. Findings indicated a high prevalence of citizens’ deprecating behaviour while national injustices, economic mismanagement, bad governance, foreign government interference, and human rights abuse top the list of factors breeding citizens’ deprecating behaviour. The study recommends the government and the nation branding stakeholders to adopt an inclusive approach in implementing strategies that result in the effective development of a compelling nation brand while promoting social cohesion and equity among the citizens.

Keywords: Deprecation; Self-deprecation; Nation branding; Zimbabwe (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41254-024-00361-6 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:pbapdi:v:21:y:2025:i:2:d:10.1057_s41254-024-00361-6

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.palgrave.com/gp/journal/41254

DOI: 10.1057/s41254-024-00361-6

Access Statistics for this article

Place Branding and Public Diplomacy is currently edited by Robert Govers and James Pamment

More articles in Place Branding and Public Diplomacy from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().

 
Page updated 2025-06-27
Handle: RePEc:pal:pbapdi:v:21:y:2025:i:2:d:10.1057_s41254-024-00361-6