Analyzing Economic Systems and Cultural Initiatives in Nantes

The essay explores the interplay between a mixed economic system and cultural initiatives in fostering the growth and sustainability of Nantes city. By examining the collaborative efforts of private individuals and state agencies, it highlights how such partnerships have been pivotal in creating job opportunities and enhancing tourism. The establishment of municipal bodies like Le Voyage underscores the strategic integration of culture and tourism as economic drivers. Furthermore, the essay discusses government roles in managing mixed economies by balancing market forces with regulatory interventions to support both consumer needs and vulnerable populations. Ultimately, it underscores how Nantes' commitment to cultural development has positioned it for potential transformation into a hub akin to a 'French Silicon Valley'.

Introduction to organization and management
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Block 4
Question 1:
According to the marketing, the term product involves a broad sense that refers to an offering
by any organization irrespective of whether the nature of the product is a service or a good. Besides, it is
critical to point out that both goods and services that a company offers to its customers must be able to
provide different bundles of benefits to customers in a way that meets their needs and wants. While at
the same time, it is important to note that companies do not produce products that target at selling
them to customers. For instance, companies can also produce products for industrial purposes to be
bought by other companies in terms of raw materials or as capital for the purpose of producing other
products.
While at the same time, Shankar, Berry and Dotzel (2009) explain that all products cannot be in
the form of things. We can extent the idea of products to people or ideas. In one of the recent book
written by Heapy (2011), he states that it has become common to consider music as something that can
be manufactured. In addition, other examples can comprise of varying forms of products like events
such as the Olympic Games, festivals, cities, movements, and language. Kotler and Armstrong (2010)
have categorized goods into five different classes. They do this while combining different attributes of
goods and services. For instance, the first category refers to pure tangible goods. These are the products
that do not have a service in them such as music CDs, sugar, cars, and among others. The second
category comprises of the tangible good that have an accompanying services. Some of the best
examples of products that require accompanying of a service include servicing, training or maintenance,
planning, and installation such as electrical appliances. The third category of a good is the hybrid offer.
This involves a mix of both physical and intangible services. For instance, a company could offer an art
workshop that offers both teaching and materials to allow a customer benefit from both learning and an
artwork. The fourth category is the service with accompanying minor goods. These are services as the

main offering with products as minor. While the last category comprise of pure services. This category
involves offering of services that are completely intangible in nature.
The case of Nantes shows that the transformation of the area following the destruction of
World-War, has led to offering of pure services in the form of intangibles. For instance, the socialist
mayor Jean-Marc Ayrault started by setting up cultural centers as key events. Most importantly, the first
move involved launching a festival called Les Allumees. The event as a pure service involved inviting
artists that hailed from different major metropolis every single year. For example, the town hosted six
consecutive nights starting from 6pm all the way to 6am in the morning.
Besides, the area also involved offering of a hybrid products. These are products that have a mix
of a physical product and an intangible product. For example, a majority of the people that attended
bars at night were treated by attendants while at the same time, they drunk beverages as physical
products. While at the same time, the artists benefited from music as a pure service. The recent arts
event to take place at Nantes includes a two-month summer street festival as a pure service called Le
Voyage a Nantes. The idea of holding the event was to provide an opportunity for creation of artistic
works.

Question 2
When it comes to the perception regarding marketing, we often think about consumer
marketing. Apart from the consumers, we also have business-to-business marketing that targets other
businesses that require products as raw materials for their operations. Besides, it is critical to point out
that business-to-business market is always bigger than the consumer market. Major differences lies in
the market structure and demand, the nature of the buying unit, and the type of their motivational
behavior to purchase a product. For example, in the case of business markets, we always have fewer but
larger buyers. Businesses that target to purchase products are always fewer in number than customers.
However, they tend to purchase products in large quantities than individual customers.
After reading the case of Nantes, it is apparent that the Metropolis area is trying to attract both
large businesses as well as individual customers. For example, small businesses that operate in the area
include the shopkeepers and traders. Blaise points out that even though they were critics, they have
turned out to now want artists to help them create quirky and humorous signs or installations for their
shops. Other businesses in the area include companies that specialize in designing, artistic work, and
architectural drawings. Large businesses that target to buy services in large quantity include the public
works company and the graphic and visual storytelling firm Termites Factory. They collaborate with
artists to produce culture, decorations, and adornment. Apart from businesses, Nantes also attracts
individual customers who come to interact with other while at the same time, come to purchase cultural
products or for tourism purposes. Some of the customers include artists and 615,000 visitors that come
from the neighboring countries.
Customers receive motivations to purchase products from different factors. Funk (2008)
categorizes factors of motivation as social and cultural aspects of consumption. Within this, we find that
customers are motivated because of a society, pleasure, identity, and communication. In the case study
for instance, a majority of consumers have been motivated by society to purchase tourism services from

Nantes area. Consumer society in the area motivates consumers to buy from the mass production of a
large number of consumer goods from traders and shopkeepers. Second, a majority of individual
consumers depend on the idea of consumption to achieve their pleasure. Majority of goods and services
offered at the area like music, bars, and holidays, and tourism attract a majority of people because they
find them more pleasurable.
A majority of customers are also motivated by the fact that they want to communicate with
their family members, friends, and work groups. Most importantly, consumption at Nantes has becomes
a kind of language where a majority of visitors come to express their taste and status. Furthermore, they
also use this as a way of expressing their social relationships with one another. For instance, Nicolas
Mitric from the storytelling firm termites notes that, “meeting people and networking is a lot easier
here; everything goes much faster”. Four partners that come from Paris made decision to set up their
businesses at Nantes because of affordable prices and human scale.
Block 5
Question 3
The circular flow of income is a concept that explains how macroeconomics works. The concept
makes possible the analysis of the causes and effects of economic changes. The circular flow of income
concept also shows how the initial changes in aggregate demand result in greater final changes in
aggregate demand (Grant & Vidler, 2005). The simplest circular flow of income has got two sectors, the
household and the firm. It is within these two sectors that income, spending, products and factor
services flow. For example households own and give factor services such as labor, land, capital,
entrepreneurship and they in return receive income in the form of salaries and wages for labor, rents
from land, and interest on capital and profits from entrepreneurship (Dwivendi, 2010). The firms are
tasked with utilizing the factor services the households provide to produce goods and services. The

households then use the income they receive to acquire products and services produced by firms and it
is this money that the firms receive that they use to pay for the factor services (Vanita, 2010). In case the
households remain some of the income after spending, it is put back in the firms as investment. A
circular flow of income can therefore be termed as a flow of money, products and factor services around
the economy illustrating spending and income.
Nantes was not a city that was always associated with fun and frolics especially after the Second
World War. The war and other calamities like the allied bombs left the city with many geographical,
physical and emotional scars. Jean Blaise an artistic director and cultural impresario say that the Nantes
was culturally dead after the calamities. In the late 1980s the artistic and the then socialist mayor of
Nantes were determined to transform the city and give it a culture. They therefore decided that in the
status quo if they asked people to pay for culture only a few would be interested. They therefore
decided to hold cultural festivals for free outdoors or in public places. They started by organizing The
Allumees festival which local artists were invited to perform for six consecutive nights in public places.
The duo did this to open up the Nantes city to the world. Other cities also noticed the Nantes initiative.
These events have led to the establishment of several cultural centers. Through culture, jobs have been
created for artists even from once critics of the initiative by jean Blaise. Professionals are partnering with
artists and tourists are visiting the Nantes city to experience their versatile culture. Jean Blaise notes the
economic gain that arts and culture brings for instance through the expenditures of Voyage a Nantes.
After the initiative to invest in culture and art consequently giving the city a foundation, Nantes city now
has the potential of becoming a French Silicon Valley city if the city would invest more in incoming
businesses.

Question 4:
Some governments use more than one economic system. A mixed economic system is where a
government uses a planned and a market economic system (Grant, 2018). In this system, the private and
the public sector have their distinct roles in the economy. In a mixed economy some prices are
determined by the market forces of demand and supply where other prices are set by the government.
In a mixed economy the governments are able to capitalize of on the advantages of the two systems of
government. When the private sector is tasked with production of some products it ensures that
consumers have a choice, the process of production is effective and creates incentives. The government
plays important roles in the mixed economic system. It is the government’s role to take account and
responsibility of its actions even those that benefit the private sector for instance creating infrastructure
such as roads and railway lines. The government can help in promoting products that the consumers
mostly need by way of subsidies, providing information or passing legislation. Government can also
discourage the consumption of harmful products. It is the role of the government to provide or finance
the provision of services that are not directly paid for such as defense. The government protects the
consumers from the private sector by making sure that the private sector does not charge very high
prices. Job creation is a role of the government whereby it ensures maximum investment of resources
and capital so that the able and willing individuals find jobs both in the private and public sector. Since
the goals are of the government are more long term than those of the private sector, the government is
tasked to incest more of its resources in capital goods. Another role of the government in a mixed
economy is to protect the vulnerable groups of people in the society by ensuring that they have access
to basic needs. Since in a mixed economy people have the freedom to do business and create their own
wealth, the government then tries to ensure an even distribution of wealth in the economy by for
example taxing the rich more than the poor (Britton, 2012).

In the case of Nantes city, the government works closely with private sector. The initiative to
find the culture of the city was started by an individual that can be considered as the private sector and
the initiative has grown to the extent other individuals and state agencies are partnering in making the
city economically sustainable. The creation of the Le Voyage a municipal body that oversees both
culture and tourism is a result of public and private sector cooperation in the economic growth of the
city. The Le Voyage events attract many tourists as well as the permanent structures that have come up
since the beginning of the cultural events in the late 1980s. This attraction of tourists is a way in which
the government is able to provide jobs to the people of Nantes City.

References
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