IMAGE AND REPUTATION MANAGEMENT OF THE KAINUU REGION

Abstract

This thesis aims at discovering the core factors of communication in organizational changes, image and reputation management and the role of media in image and reputation management. The thesis focuses on presenting these themes in relation to the self-government experiment of the Kainuu Region commensed in January 2005 and going on until December 2012. These themes were further researched by a press analysis and a customer satisfaction survey on the Kainuu Region social welfare and health care services. The press analysis is a qualitative research interpreting and observing ten articles on the self-government experiment of the Kainuu Region, published in local news paper Kainuun Sanomat and a Finnish national news paper Helsingin Sanomat. The Kainuu Region Social Welfare and Health Care Services Survey is a quantitative research conducted during autumn 2007 in eight of the nine health care centres in the Kainuu Region. The aim of the research was to measure customer satisfaction as it is one of the factors affecting the image and reputation of the region and an essential element in beginning to improve the image and reputation of the Kainuu Region as an organisation.