PRINCIPALES EMPRESAS DEL SECTOR

Vis- à -via personal habitus, the institutional dispositions are a second essential

dimension facilitating understanding of the field dynamics. Given that nation branding was discussed at the crossroads of few institutions, it is worth capturing how broadly defined practices interlink with the settings of a particular field actor. With respect to the institutional interactions, this study follows the view that “institutions and

incumbents of institutional positions shape each other in an unpredictable way” (Eyal

et al. 2000, p. 44) and class distinctions between the dominant coalitions shape the

directions of relevant institutional agency.

The difficulty of capturing all qualities of the field management lies in the fact that some of the actors changed and moved beyond the field. For example, the former head of public diplomacy in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Agnieszka Wielowieyska travelled to the Chancery of the Prime Minister to become a director of the Foreign Affairs Department and Andrzej Sadoś, was sacked by the Prime Minister Donald Tusk from his position as the head of public diplomacy.35 _{Personnel changes at the key}

positions in the field are characteristic of the government actors there. Until 2008, the Institute of Adam Mickiewicz had eight directors. Changes among senior management in other institutions have been also reported, but those at the Ministry of Foreign

35 _{Throughout the fieldwork, those actors refused to be interviewed. In a telephone conversation, Sadoś}

refused to offer insights into his professional practice and Wielowieyska’s office informed me on her behalf that it is best to speak to the policy makers at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

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Affairs are critical to promotional policy making and its relationship to nation branding projects. However, management operating with the field at the time of the fieldwork operate partly driven by their instructional objectives, partly from trans- institutional relationships with other actors. In fact, the institutionally signified ‘we’ or ‘us’ is equally important as trans-institutional connections between the players. The institution-centric view, however, remains a prominent feature of the field. The collective ‘we’ and ‘us’ have been emphasised in the professional accounts by actors forming dominant coalitions in the field. Those emerge as markers of institutional belonging, including directions of policy making and projects planning. The Deputy Director of the Polish Chamber of Commerce reveals it in the following statement:

Nation branding has arrived in Poland thanks to us, and it can be said, that it was imported by us” (Maciej, personal interview, 2009,

underline added);

Similarly, the department director at the Ministry of Economics discloses the

development of nation branding and links it with institutional world-view as sediment of habitus:

We are starting off with a big European project, promotion of the Polish economy that is part of ‘The Innovative Economy’ programme. Thanks to this programme we are hoping to finalise the construction of the overarching ‘meta-message’ about Poland and then transfer it into our area to do with promotion of branded exports. (Tadeusz,

personal interview, 2009, underline added);

The institutional dispositions are also revealed by the head of public diplomacy and cultural diplomacy at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs:

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To me, a practitioner, but also a governmental official... hm, I associate branding with products or commodities. Many marketing and nation branding publications that I have read told me that Poland can be considered as a commodity and it should be sold. I don’t quite believe in this. It is not about launching or selling a product. Poland already exists in the international communication flow, but the main issue at the moment is its presentation (Zofia, personal interview,

2009, underline added).

The organisational habitus of group belonging was also emphasised by nation

branders. The leader of a local initiative, The Advertising for Poland Association, the first non-governmental organisation engaged in nation branding in Poland, reveals:

The Association was a very cool idea as it was all about combining expertise. You see, everyone in the industry is interested in serving the national brand as it is prestigious and who knows what else and we have attempted to pre-empt the competition. We said, let’s don’t do the public bidding, let’s don’t compete with each other, let’s do something together for this country (Igor, personal interview, 2009,

underline added).

The closest institutional settings in which nation branding has been performed is critical to understanding dynamics of trajectories, but the field where this discourse has been contested has one common denominator: both policy data and professional accounts of dominant actors in the field declare responsibility for or vested interest in symbolic representations of Poland overseas. It would be a simplification to claim that senior and middle management of the field institutions are exclusively closed within their own institutional life-worlds. On the contrary, a central characteristic among the management of public institutions is openness to listen to new institutional voices

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whereas marketing and public relations professionals or their clients have been less flexible with regards to accepting varying institutional practices or policy solutions.

Furthermore, institutional habitus is important to the field dynamics as nation branding advocates offer their institutional solutions on how Polish nation branding should be performed; who should enact its praxis and who should manage it. Indeed, the statement by a transnational nation branding consultant suggests that public and private sector actors should set up their own institutional framework to perform nation branding in Poland:

We should have a coordinating committee (Michael, personal

interview, 2010, underline added).

This narrative unfolds in the consultancy report, ‘A brand for Polska: further

advancing Poland’s national identity’ produced as part of the central nation brand

building programme:

There are five main elements: a new national branding directorate, a steering group, an advisory panel, task forces and brand champions

(Saffron, 2007, p. 119).

This institutional arrangement, as envisioned by nation branders, is to liaise with the so called, ‘steering group’, including: the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage; Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Ministry of Economics; Polish Chamber of Commerce; the Council of Poland’s Promotion; the Polish Tourism Organisation and the Ministry of Regional Development and the assumed inclusion of chairman from Saffron Brand Consultancy (Saffron 2007, p. 120). This centralised approach to leadership is closer to the habitus sedimented by corporate managerialism than an institutional network developed in the state-building process done through the legislation process.

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As it stands, institutional habitus enables understanding of the actors as nation branders entered in a specific institutional setting in Poland; nation branding had been contested within pre-defined institutional network, and nation branders had their own vision of institutional management. Further insights into the actors’ characteristics enabled me to divide the habitus into the institutional settings: bureaucratic or technocratic fraction, driven by various policies and business habitus, driven by predispositions to manage nation branding. With regards to the Polish bureaucracy, their institutional habitus unfolds their relationship to the type of policy making they are engaged with. The senior and middle management of the Polish state actors also emphasised the significance of communicative practice within the institutional structure they manage. The head of public and cultural diplomacy at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs links its institutional communicative practice and the Polish foreign policy objectives; she states that the primary role of public diplomacy is:

...communicating the Polish story overseas by simultaneously making

sure that it fits with objectives of the foreign policy (Zofia, personal

interview, 2010).

The professional account by a senior manager of the Polish Information and Foreign Investment Agency reveals that his institution is accountable for marketization of Poland and facilitation of economic policy aimed at “attracting external investors” (Jacek, personal interview, 2009). Similarly, institutional policy ties are reported by the senior manager of the Polish Tourism Organisation where tourism is considered as part of the economic policy therefore “requiring management by applying wide tools to enact this policy” (Daniel, personal interview, 2009). The institutional habitus has also been shaped by historical features: the struggles over competences and changing links between actors which impacted on the contemporary situation within the field.

The institutional habitus also emphasises interdependency with the broader field of power. This feature demonstrates relationships between the political field in Poland,

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leadership style, and the quality of relationships as defined by dominant coalitions among the field actors. Indeed, the institutional processes and visions were reported as dependant on the political field: both political alliances within it and personal qualities of politicians. One the one hand, the links between political alliances and the field was explicitly linked to the representations of Polishness; an advisor to the Polish Tourism Organisation states:

...Law and Justice would like Poland to be represented overseas in a Romantic, 1920s sort of way, whereas the Civic Platform seem to strive towards more modern representation of Poland via promotional activities (Igor, personal interview, 2009).

On the other hand, the head of public and cultural diplomacy reports how her superiors’, minister Sikorski habitus, links to institutional dynamics:

Sikorski is a new type of minister in his thinking about Poland [...] He understands, quite rightly, the fact that [...] we shouldn’t be ashamed of anything, that we should be down with martyrdom, and that we are a strong country. To me his thinking is more of a result of his

personality, education, and a traveller’s mindset, than an actual idea that is being conceived here (Zofia, personal interview, 2009).

While the approach to representing the institutional processes has had links with the field of power, it was reported that the state actors can also benefit from their own managers’ career progression. It was reported by one manager at the Polish Tourism Organisation that one of their former employees was nominated to the rank of the undersecretary of state in the Ministry of Sport and Tourism and this progression better positions this actor in the field of power (Kinga, personal interview, 2010).

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As far as bureaucratic class properties are concerned, the management of the field plays a key role in the field dynamics. This has been reported by the managers by revealing their commitment to the statutory either institutional or departmental tasks, struggles as part of the policy making (e.g. consultation processes), adherence to procedures (e.g. public bidding), interests and analysis of in the market research and media reports (e.g. market reports), attention to changing legislature (e.g. institutional changes proposals), sensitivity to the external auditing (e.g. policy reviews), learning from ‘best-practice’ from the overseas institutional competitors, and most importantly, to their decision making capabilities.

Furthermore, institutional habitus, depending on the levels of institutional seniority, clearly exceeds boundaries of a single institution. Particularly, the senior management of key institutional actors report cooperation and exchange of ideas on the level of policies making, institutional consultations, personnel crossovers and governmental projects or campaigns managed within the field. Although, it was characterised as not an ‘ideal cooperation’ in terms of inter-institutional exchange of ideas or projects coordination, nevertheless, it undoubtedly exceeds the boundaries of a single state institution. For instance, it was reported that promotional policy making at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is subject to broader consultancies (Zofia, personal interview, 2009); the head of public and cultural diplomacy at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and one of the undersecretaries of state at the Ministry of Economics have a seat on the Council of Polish Tourism Organisation (consulting body on tourism policy) (Polish Tourism Organisation 2011); in 2004, a body called the Council of the Promotion of Poland was set up to stimulate cooperation on promotional policy.

As far as the institutional habitus is concerned, it is also characterised with a high level of formalism, particularly regarding qualifications. This quality remains in line with Bourdieusian notion of the bureaucratic class whereby the state tends to legitimize their views of academic credentials (Poupeau and Thierry 2005). For example, a senior manager with a well-established tract of service for the Polish state

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emphasises this formalism by accentuating the importance of formal qualifications over practical skills among the bureaucrats; in the context of career progression description for the Polish state, he states:

I had to get my own money, go to a private university, and pay. Nobody here [in public administration] is asking you about practical skills. You have a piece of paper and this is it [reference to

qualification certificate]. Unfortunately, that’s how it is (Jacek,

personal interview, 2009).

As aforementioned, management of the state institutions and departments responsible for specific areas of promotional policy making have reported holding academic qualifications (either on MA or PhD levels) in their relevant areas of institutional practice. Interestingly, none of the actors, either the state or non-state, revealed the requirement of formal qualifications to practise nation branding.

On the other hand, the collective habitus of private sector nation branders is less formalised with regards to education and qualifications. I define their disposition as ‘business habitus’. Given that the habitus is characterised by “older forms of

behaviour and prior ideas continue to shape actions within new collectivities” (Eyal et

al., 2000, p. 44), the emerging themes support that their entrepreneurial dispositions

facilitated venturing into the new avenues of business and consultancy. Dominant nation branders are aligned with either marketing or public relations industries, and specialise in consultancy and ‘brand management’ practice. For public relations marketing, and advertising consultants - local or transnational - nation branding is an ‘extra service’ in their business portfolio or operations. For them, nation branding is not their exclusive consultancy area: it is a part of their business framework. For example, the corporate websites of the Saffron Brand Consultancy (2011); the Eskadra Group or Corporate Profiles (2011) offer corporate branding consultancy. On the other

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hand, the management of the Polish Chamber of Commerce took interest in nation branding as it is concerned with national economy; its deputy CEO states:

Overall, Polish elites have limited knowledge of the economy. Perhaps it is understandable in our historical context, but it’s very harmful [...]. To break through with certain economic agenda therefore is very difficult (Maciej, personal interview, 2009).

As far as institutional dimensions of the business habitus reveal, it is linked to business opportunities. One of the local nation brander presents her world-view on Poland as a dynamic ‘Never, never land’ offering plenty of opportunities:

...so if we live in a country in which dynamics of change are so vast, a

country in which opportunities, ‘those opportunities’ [original in English] are enormous, so dynamics of change are so fast that it is difficult to define anything in a specific timeframe and say, this is how it is, because it will change in a second. The landscape is changing every single day (Natalia, personal interview, 2009).

Therefore, the business habitus sediments are based on a set of professional identities valued in marketing and creative industries: strategic thinking; creativity; research skills; networking skills; presentation and organisational skills; professional writing skills; analytical and research skills; understanding of bureaucratic procedures (e.g. public bidding), communication and advocacy skills. Those qualities have been emphasised in discourse on nation branding by advocates of this model in their professional testaments on their practice. The crossovers between the institutional habitus and the business habitus is represented in the following statement by the head of public and cultural diplomacy at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs:

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I am against generating all ideas by bureaucratic heads. Because this is my life-world, I am limited in some ways. I am not a branding or marketing expert so I might find it difficult to figure everything out on my own (Zofia, personal interview, 2010).

This openness to listen to new ideas was common across the state bureaucrats within the field. However, the selection of newcomers’ qualities remains in line with

specificity of the project or type of external expertise required by the institution operating with the governmental field of national images management and the field of power. This openness to marketing ideas was also characteristic of other governmental actors across the field, but some treated them with greater reflexivity than the others, leading to resistance against some solutions offered by nation branders. For example, the centralised approach to nation branding management was questioned by the Deputy Chairman at the Polish Tourism Organisation; he points out:

There are some people who argue that everything that involves promotion of Poland abroad should be under the one wing, in one institution. But, if you consider, for instance, the European solutions, there is no country with such institutional setting...for a moment, just a short moment, not so long ago, perhaps four or five years ego...that all aspects of promotion of foreign direct investment, trade, including tourism were attempted to be integrated by Portuguese government. Namely, they merge, I believe it is called ISEP, but they quickly gave up this type of institutionalisation...in Poland this tendency for some reason still exists (Daniel, personal interview, 2009).

While the institutional dimension of habitus was important from the point of view of understanding how my participants’ ‘life-worlds’ shaped the inhabited social space, the next layer of sediments of their socialisation reveals insights into habitus that was an outcome of their professional trajectories and performativity.

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