Branding the Nation: Spain and Greece 2022
Managing country reputations and international image
Course Description
In our ever-more globalized world, the importance of understanding and managing country brands, reputations and international image has risen exponentially. Increasingly, many governments actively take pains to control the messaging toward diverse stakeholder groups including potential investors and tourists, the global press, bondholders, multinationals, and international watchdog NGOs, to say nothing of domestic elites and broader national populations. Regardless of whether countries actively seek to mold such perceptions, the fortunes of their respective markets, currencies, tourism industries, and key companies cannot help but be affected by them.
The primary goal of this Global Initiatives in Management course, Branding the Nation, will be to help students develop a deeper understanding of the most salient country risks and the various ways in which governments and companies attempt to limit their impact or market around them. Understanding such strategies — what do they share? what do they spin? what do they hide? (and why?) — will prepare students embarking on a career in international business or entrepreneurship, marketing, tourism, consulting or investment to better discern the risks and rewards before them in the global arena.
The classroom experience in Branding the Nation will include lectures, case studies and interactive exercises, as well as drawing upon the unique perspectives and applied experiences of world-class guest speakers from across the globe. Guest lectures will primarily be given in situ and in person. Where possible, outside-the-class networking opportunities to get to know our guest speakers may be offered to students following the culmination of each classroom section or in-country.
Over the past eight years, Branding the Nation guest lecturers (during the classroom experience) and plenary speakers (during the trip) have frequently included very senior figures in business, media and government — including sitting heads of state, ministers, legislators, diplomats, journalists, unicorn founders, and the C-suite officers of major national and multinational corporations.
A variety of themes and geographies will be discussed in class and covered in the readings and case studies for comparative and illustrative purposes. While the travel portion of this course will take place in Europe, this is very much a global (rather than regionally-focused) course. Readings and lectures will cover a broad array of international examples from Europe, Latin America, Asia, Africa and North America — striking a careful balance between “emerging” and “developed” market perspectives.
The travel portion of the course will immerse students into two very different, and deeply fascinating, national arenas.
Spain:
After experiencing decades of poverty, economic underdevelopment and civil strife in the early 20th Century, culminating in a harrowing civil war and a subsequent 35-year right-wing dictatorship, Spain has since managed to transform itself into a strong democracy and a major actor within the Eurozone. Despite its often volatile politics, Spain has thus far managed to balance a strong export economy with the growing presence of a dynamic services sector, likewise becoming a major global hub for international tourism. Key to this transformation has been Spain’s virtually unrivaled success in leveraging its powerful respective sporting (e.g. the Real Madrid-Barça rivalry, the 1992 Olympics), culinary (tapas) as well as its strong music, media, and celebrity cultures into bulwarks of promotion for its national brand. Spain has likewise seen unusual success in leveraging its post-imperial cultural and linguistic affinities with its former colonies, fostering many key multinational enterprises with deep economic and trade links to Latin America. Spain’s economic and democratic rise has brought with it a resurgence of regional identities and long-simmering independence sentiments, most notably in the key region of Catalonia — with its capital Barcelona — that may threaten to upend Spain’s hard-won new reality.
Greece:
A country of paradoxes — Greece can currently claim the Eurozone’s strongest GDP growth as well as its weakest credit rating — its place in Europe (a Greek word) is a bipolar one: in equal parts mother and wayward child. Once the cradle of what would eventually come to be seen as “Western Culture,” and later one of its key guardians following the fall of the Roman Empire, Greece spent most of the second half of the Second Millennium under Ottoman occupation, before becoming one of Europe’s most volatile, unindustrialized and impoverished states during the latter 19th and 20th centuries. Admitted into the EU Community in 1981, somewhat controversially, Greece’s GDP gains over the next two decades were patchier than most of her European peers and living standards lagged behind the regional average considerably. In recent decades Greece has been the focal point of multiple harrowing economic and fiscal crises, which at times seemed to threaten the very viability of the EU itself, before resurging in recent years under new management. Today, Greece appears to have emerged as one of a handful of “winners” during the era of COVID-19. Its tourism, trade, and economically vital shipping industry are currently experiencing simultaneous and explosive returns to growth, boosting the country’s economic prospects (for now) to among the region’s brightest.
Itinerary
Syllabus
Faculty and advisor bios
Faculty bio
Daniel Lansberg-Rodríguez is director for the Latin American region at Greenmantle LLC, a macroeconomic and geopolitical advising firm based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a fellow at the Comparative Constitutions Project. On faculty at Kellogg since 2014, he has likewise taught at Harvard University’s summer school and guest lectured at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Harvard, the New York University Stern School of Business and IESA Business School in Caracas. His teaching and research focus include political economy, international markets, sovereign risk and constitutional and institutional development. Daniel is a weekly political columnist for the Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional. A regular journalist and opinion writer for mediums such as Foreign Policy, the Financial Times, the New York Times and the Atlantic. His analyses have likewise appeared in the New Yorker, Harpers, the Washington Post, the New Republic and the Los Angeles Review of Books (among others). He is also a frequent guest on television and radio, including NPR’s The Diane Rehm Show, HuffPo Live, Al Jazeera America and CNN. His academic publications include articles in the UCLA Law Review, the Indian Journal of Constitutional Law and POLITAI. From 2005–2007, Daniel worked at Fundación Eugenio Mendoza where he specialized in urban microfinance, and from 2009–2010 he was the division chief for entrepreneurial development at the Sucre Municipal Government in Caracas, Venezuela. Other work experience includes the private wealth management division of Goldman Sachs, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Daniel holds a B.A. Cum Laude from Carleton College, a J.D. from the University of Chicago, and an M.P.P. from Harvard University with a concentration in international trade and finance.
Advisor bio
Christine Post has been at Kellogg for five years, and currently works on the Executive MBA (EMBA) Student Experience team. She previously served as assistant director of Admissions for EMBA, and within Kellogg Alumni Relations and Development as an associate director of Annual Giving.
Prior to joining Kellogg, Christine was a commercial litigation attorney within a large international law firm representing financial service firms, insurance companies, and other corporations in breach of contract, antitrust, and trademark matters. She thereafter served as the Director of Recruiting and Professional Development for a mid-sized law firm. Christine holds a B.A. in Political Science from Indiana University and a J.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. After sitting for the Illinois Bar, Christine spent a celebratory month exploring 11 European countries.
Christine is married and has two young children. They live just blocks from Northwestern’s Ryan Field and enjoy cheering on the Wildcats.
This will be her third year serving as a GIM Advisor.