What is the study about?

The studies analyse the image of Austria and its comparative countries - Germany and Switzerland - in 30 countries around the world over a period of almost ten and 30 years, respectively (including more recent studies by the Institute for Marketing and Consumer Research at the Vienna University of Economics and Business). This is one of the largest country image studies of any country in the world.

What is the most exciting aspect of the study for you? Were there any surprising results?

I am merely the ‘restorer’ of the study. I spent months restoring the data sets, some of which were damaged, and comparing them with more recent studies. The original question of the studies was whether Austria has its own image that differs from that of its peer countries. There were some surprising results, which can be found in Günter Schweiger's publication “Österreichs Image in der Welt” (1992) and summarised in my dissertation “Österreichs Image im Wandel der Zeit”. As someone who has reconstructed the studies in almost archaeological work, I was most surprised by the topicality of the studies. These were collected at a time when internet communication was not yet possible and country image research was in its infancy. Nevertheless, the survey methods and structure are similar to those of many contemporary country image studies. Particularly noteworthy is the multimodal image measurement and the consideration of emotions, which from today's perspective are lacking in country image research. I was also surprised that it is virtually the only long-term study (as far as I know) over such a long period of time in this area, which was also carried out in over 30 countries.

Why did you decide to make the data openly accessible?

The lack of long-term and replication studies is one of the major problems in country image research. Many results and models cannot be validated because there is a lack of these types of studies. By publishing the data, I would like to give researchers the basis for replicating and further developing the image studies and make a long-term contribution to country image research.

• Nadya Knops completed her doctorate in social and economic sciences at the Vienna University of Economics and Business. She works in research coordination at the TU Wien and is a lecturer at the University of Applied Sciences Wiener Neustadt and the Vienna University of Economics and Business. She is also a trainer in adult education, a coach and works as a LegoSerious Play Facilitator.