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Title: A municipality among others? A case study of Skellefteå kommuns selfpresentation

This essay is a case study aimed to explore how a Swedish municipality portrait itself in its external communication. Increased competition due to bigger autonomy have made it more important for Swedish municipalities to appear attractive in relation to businesses, investors and potential immigrants. However, municipalities are big and complex organizations with many different stakeholders, which makes it difficult for them to appear as unique brands. The specific municipality targeted by this case study is Skellefteå kommun. Skellefteå kommun is considered particularly interesting in relation to the purpose of this study because they have high ambitions to grow, and as result of this invest heavy in, among other things, industry and housing. This presumably means that the municipality has a need to communicate this to the outside world, and that they actually have something concrete to position themselves against. 

The theoretical framework of the essay consists of legitimacy, isomorphism, promotional culture, reputation management and brand communication. Further, to achieve the purpose of the essay a discourse-theoretical approach was applied to selected texts from the website of Skellefteå kommun, with the aim to make visible the values and meanings that Skellefteå kommun constructs about itself. In the analysis, growth was identified as a particularly important discourse, which largely affects the meanings the municipality constructs about itself. The result of the essay also indicates, like previous research, that it is difficult for municipalities to appear as unique. Skellefteå kommun build its brand around a number of universally applicable core values, and in addition to this growth and industrial investments appears as two particularly important competitive advantages. Nevertheless, the municipality’s communication, even in relation to the aforementioned competitive advantages, tends to result in vague formulations and abstract visions about the future.