“Leveraging Business Diplomacy”, in The Role of Multinational Enterprises Supporting the United Nations’ SDGs, edited by John McIntyre, Silvester Ivanaj and Vera Ivanaj, Edward Elgard,pp 190-215)
This book chapter suggests that MNEs should take into consideration the use of business diplomacy in order to successfully manage the growing number of standards of required good business practice as well as to identify opportunities for business investment and participation in the SDGs. MNEs need the knowledge and competence of business diplomats to avoid failures and loss of reputational capital, such as Nestlé and its baby milk formula or Shell Company’s misguided oil and gas exploration in Nigeria (Saner and Yiu, 2000).
Intersection of Roles between States and Multinationals”, in H. Ruel, International Business Diplomacy (Advanced Series in Management, Vol. 18), pp 109-122, Emerald Publishing Limited, Bingley
This chapter describes and discusses the growing intersection of roles and functions between states and multinationals in the field of diplomacy and how diplomatic skills are needed to support transnational companies in their search for markets in emerging countries.
Since the agreements on the 2030 Agenda and the Financing of development (AAAA) agreement in 2015, the member countries of the United Nations have agreed that domestic and foreign direct investment are expected to be aligned with the 2030 Agenda.
The 17 SDGs of the 2030 Agenda are supposed to be achieved in an integrated manner focusing at the same time on social, economic and environmental sustainability and be implemented in a transparent, inclusive and participatory manner.
In order to achieve these 17 goals and guiding principles, very substantial financial investment will be required. According to the 2014 World Investment Report (WIR) by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), approximately 4 trillion USD will be required every year in developing countries alone for the SDGs to be achieved by2030.
The New Diplomacies are needed to help state and non-state actors find common ground and engage in mutually beneficial cooperation. This presentation will highlight key interactions between the New Diplomacies that is Economic, Commercial, Business, IGO (intergovernmental organization) and CSO Diplomacy.
Historically, China had prior experience in interacting with Africa. In the first half of 15th Century, Admiral Zhen reached Madagascar already with his fleet of “treasure boats”. Traders from the neighboring countries and dominions joint the fleet in order to benefit from the trading opportunities. This was the first official trade mission by the Chinese Ming Emperor. Such missions continued for more than 15 years and came to a halt. The Belt and Road Initiative is a systematic effort of the Chinese government to foster a stronger economic and political link with its neighbours in the Southeast Asia and beyond reaching the shore of Africa once again. In the geopolitical context of the post cold war period and the accelerated economic and technological catching up by China, such a concerted effort like BRI is causing concerns and anxieties in many quarters. Wherever there is a Chinese international trade policy, Chinese companies follow. Interactions with the host countries, either the community or the labour force or suppliers, is achieving mixed results.
In addition to criticizing China’s policy as being exploitative, there have also been kidnapping of Chinese workers and security problems causing loss of lives of Chinese workers. This presentation narrates the experience of Chinese companies going abroad by using the typology of Bartlett and Ghoshal and suggests that business diplomacy capability is critical for the Chinese corporation in managing its host countries business and non-business relationship. Through the successful economic diplomacy of the Chinese government, Chinese companies enjoy privileged access to local markets in Africa. However, to sustain their business engagements in Africa continent, Chinese companies will have to be more embed in the local community as good corporate citizens and contribute to the local development and prosperity. Business diplomacy could complement the government’s economic and commercial diplomacy and make BRI a mutually beneficial success.
Faced with global concerns about increasing vulnerability of the global system and its sustainability, private companies are asked and encouraged to contribute to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through multi-sectoral partnerships. Implementing the SDGs will require coordinated and collective efforts by all stakeholders to move the world forward towards a shared vision as set out in the SDG goals and targets. Business diplomats representing the interests of enterprises are crucial to ensure a mutually beneficial participation of business in the implementation of the SDGs. Propositions are made in this chapter to outline the requisite competencies needed to implement business diplomacy both at the organisational and managerial levels in the context of SDGs implementation.
Governments use economic and commercial diplomacy to represent their interests abroad and at home1. However, Indian companies are less aware that they need to develop their own diplomatic competencies in order to be successful abroad and to be less dependent on information and guidelines provided by their Embassies abroad.
As nuclear negotiations conclude and an opening to Iran’s market looms, Western companies with interests in investing in Iran need to prepare their entry strategies carefully. Beyond normal business considerations, Western companies may face challenges with obstacles emanating from outside of their direct sphere of control. To plan beyond “business as usual,” this article proposes that they consider applying thecompetencies of Business Diplomacy Management. After so many years of strained international relations, foreign companies need to understand that Iran comes with a history fraught with political tensions that may impede business as usual. A British and American backed coup forcefully removed the democratically elected Mossadegh in 1953 to reinstall the Pahlavi Shah, who was himself subsequently removed in the Islamic revolution in 1979. Since then relations between the new Islamic Republic of Iran and Western countries have been frosty. The recent JCPOA agreement must be understood within this context.
Welcome to this edition of Interconnections. We hope our theme of international management practice provides interesting and stimulating reading and is successful in provoking thought and debate. As with the two earlier editions of Interconnections, our contributors are connecting the insights provided by academic theory into the challenges and issues facing international management practitioners, just as the experience of practitioners feeds back into academic theory.
Non state actors like Business Diplomats and Transnational Economic NGO Diplomats with their multitude of transborder alliances and pressure groups have added to the traditional domain of economic diplomacy a “supraterritorial relations” component and are thereby partially undermining sovereignty of states in conducting international economic relations. At the same time, faced with globalisation and competition for foreign direct investment as well as with the growing influence of international economic standard setting organisations (WTO, ITU,ILO etc), …
