After all, it is a people's business

Abstract

As the world is a complex and dynamic system, parties increasingly depend on each other in their decisions. These interdependencies are found as well between corporations and cities in decisions on mutations in the corporation’s accommodation, which is the subject of this research. Mutations are considered all changes in the accommodation. In this decision making, corporation often depend on cities for example for the granting of permits. At the same time, cities are in increasing competition to attract corporations to reap the benefits of boosting the local economy by increased employment levels. Thus within this decision making, actors of both parties need to communicate with each other. However, currently little is known about this actual interaction that is realised through communication strategies. At the same time, the importance connective capacity of individual actors is increasingly recognised in literature and practice and confirmed by this research. In this research the use of communication strategies of corporations and cities regarding the communication components when, who, how and what was analysed. By analysing these communication strategies in relation to the situation of the decision making and the motives of each party, interesting relations have been found. Among others, this research showed that communication strategies are supportive of the mutation process, either by speeding up the process or affecting slight preferences at decision-makers. Also, communication can be decisive by providing crucial information for the decision, such as location proposals. An aspect for further thought in both research and practice is the organisation of communication. This organisation includes the deployment of resources and additionally the appointment of a contact person. This appears to be related to the priority given to the mutation project. It seems that at cities, more priority is given to mutations with job creation in comparison with mutation projects focused on qualitative improvement. Also, communication often remains project-based and thereby both parties miss the benefits of early alignment of the plans with existing policies. This confirms the notion in literature that barriers between public and private still exist. All in all, the human factor remains present in decision making on mutations in the accommodation. Therefore this research encourages the recognition of communication strategies as a factor in decision making.