THE ROLE OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION IN CITY BRANDING THE CASE OF CLUJ-NAPOCA

This paper focuses on two different topics that apparently do not seem to be linked: city branding and the perception of public administration services. The authors intend to briefly sketch the framework of the manner how public administration institutions can get involved in researching how citizens and private entrepreneurs perceive the services provided by the local authorities of the Municipality of Cluj-Napoca, how the image of these services influences the perception of the city, and how public administration servants can contribute to the development of the city’s brand. We have chosen to focus on Cluj-Napoca, as it is one of the most important cities of Romania, which has also enjoyed a spectacular economic development throughout the past decade. A question may be raised: Is there a linkage between the manner how local public administration institutions are perceived and the way how citizens regard the city from the perspective of branding? We are interested to identify how public services interfere with the branding of a city.