What can a municipality offer to its residents? Value propositions and interactions in a place context

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of the municipality in the place marketing context and to describe how municipalities work on making their place good to live in. The study rests on abductive reasoning whereby service-based logic forms the study and offers a theoretical framework for how to approach the phenomena. Design/methodology/approach – A qualitative study in the form of 20 semi-structured interviews with leading elected officials and civil servants is used to let us understand how two typical municipalities in southern Sweden work on making their municipality a good place for their residents to live in. Content analysis is used to analyze the data. Findings – The study reveals how municipalities work on creating opportunities for interactions between themselves and their residents, as well as offers insight into what value propositions the municipalities believe they offer their residents. The current study shows that the geographical location and the natural environment, basic and essential services, accommodations, urban quality, recreation and leisure and ambience constitute important dimensions in the place offering. Originality/value – Service-based logic is used as a backdrop to facilitate the analysis in this study, which emphasizes value propositions offered by the municipality and interactions between the municipality and its residents, which increase our understanding of how municipalities work on making their place good to live in. The service-based logic help shed new light on the place marketing context and allows us to understand the context in a new way.