D ISCUSSION P APERS IN D IPLOMACY Commercial Diplomacy and International
身残志坚的名人故事
Business
Michel Kostecki and Olivier Naray
Netherlands Institute of International Relations ‘Clingendael’
ISSN 1569-2981
D ISCUSSION PAPERS IN DIPLOMACY
Editor: Dominic Kelly, University of Warwick
Managing Editor: Jan Melisn, Netherlands Institute of International Relations ‘Clingendael’ and Antwerp University
Desk top publishing: Desiree David
Editorial Board
Geoff Berridge, University of Leicester
Rik Coolsaet, University of Ghent
Erik Goldstein, Boston University
Alan Henrikson, Tufts University
Donna Lee, Birmingham University
戈公振Spencer Mawby, University of Nottingham
Paul Sharp, University of Minnesota Duluth
Copyright Notice
高考文学常识© Michel Kostecki and Olivier Naray, April 2007
All rights rerved. No reproduction, copy, or transmission of this publication, or part thereof in excess of one paragraph (other than as a PDF file at the discretion of the Netherlands Institute of International Relations Clingendael) may be made without the written permission of the author.
A BSTRACT
Commercial diplomacy is a significant factor in the on-going process of globalization, yet there is a shortage of empirical rearch on this activity. This paper reports the results of an empirical study conducted among diplomats and managers. It identifies three dominant types of commercial diplomats: civil rvant, generalist and business promoter. The paper shows how commercial diplomacy contributes to the promotion of international trade and corporate partnership, to the resolution of business conflicts and the marketing of a country as a location for foreign investments, R&D activities or tourist destination and “made-in”. It prents the current trends in commercial diplomacy, examines the determinants of its value chain and rvice fees and makes a number of suggestions on how to improve performance given the growing willingness of governments to emphasize the business promotion approach.维生素e祛斑
A BOUT THE A UTHORS
Michel Kostecki is Professor at the Faculty of Economics of the Université de Neuchâtel (Switzerland). He was founding director of The Enterpri Institute at the same university (1992 - 2001) and directed, for two years, the joint doctoral program in Management S cience of the French-speaking S wiss universities and the Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. During the Uruguay Round Dr. Kostecki was Counllor in the GATT cretariat in Geneva. He has also been a
n Investment Manager at a financial company of one of the leading German banks, and Professor of Business Economics at the Université de Montréal (HEC) in Canada. Email: michel.kostecki@unine.ch
Olivier Naray graduated in 2001 in political science (MA) at the faculty of Economics and Social Sciences, University of Geneva, Switzerland. He is also a graduate of the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna, International Affairs (MA) Austria (2002, 38th Diploma Cour). Between 2003 and 2004 he worked as an advisor – including commercial affairs - for the S wiss Embassy in Hungary. He has worked as a rearcher and teaching assistant at the Enterpri Institute, University of Neuchâtel, S witzerland since November 2004. He is also PhD candidate in Management with the topic “Commercial Diplomacy and International Business Development”. Email: olivier.naray@unine.ch
C OMMERCIAL
D IPLOMACY AND I NTERNATIONAL B USINESS
Michel Kostecki and Olivier Naray
Introduction
Commercial diplomacy plays a significant role in global trade, investments and R&D activities, yet has remained virtually unexplored as a factor of international business development. This paper examines the issue from a managerial perspective. The emphasis is on the value chain of commercial diplomacy and on leading management issues such as rvice profile, its positioning, client-provider gap, management style, organizational matrix, as well as rvice fees, motivation, the evidence concerning improved performance and best practice. Empirical data has been collected through in-depth interviews, a panel of experts and questionnaire-bad rearch.
Commercial Diplomacy
Diplomacy is usually described as the main instrument of foreign policy enabling the management of external relations of a state by communication with foreign authorities and publics, as well as through the process of negotiations and networking. Diplomatic activities may take place on the international level (bilateral, regional or multilateral) or within the host state (for example, relations with government departments, civil rvants, parliament, NG Os, business organizations, corporations and so on). Commercial diplomacy is a government rvice to the business community, which aims at the development of socially beneficial international business ventures. Commercial diplomats perform their main activities in the host country and are usually staff members of a diplom
锤子手机系统atic mission or a trade promotion organization (TPO) / investment promotion agency (IPA). The term commercial diplomat in this paper stands for all different denominations that commercial diplomats might officially receive such as ‘commercial counlor’, ‘commercial attaché’, ‘trade reprentative’, ‘commercial reprentative’ and so on.
The term commercial diplomacy is frequently ud to cover two somewhat different types of activities: (i) activities relating to trade policy-making (for example, multilateral trade negotiations, trade consultations and dispute
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ttlement) and (ii) business-support activities (Curzon 1965, Saner & Yiu 2003). The first category is also referred to as trade diplomacy and is designed to influence foreign government policy and regulatory decisions that affect global trade and investment. This paper deals with the cond form of diplomacy and opts for the u of the term commercial diplomacy for the following reasons. First, the term commercial diplomacy is commonly employed within numerous foreign rvices and in the literature to describe business support functions performed by the members of diplomatic missions, their staff and the related agencies. Second, the alternative term business diplomacy is ambiguous s
ince it is often ud in reference to corporate activities widely known as public relations, public affairs or corporate-government affairs. Finally, the term commerce is broad enough to cover not only issues related to trade but also tho related to investment, tourism or intellectual property. With globalization and greater government attention paid to corporate performance, job creation, and rearch and development (R&D), the role of commercial diplomacy tends to change. Table 1 below prents the main features of commercial diplomacy viewed as a rvice and briefly describes their managerial implications.
Table 1
The Nature of Commercial Diplomacy Services and their Managerial Implications
The Nature of Commercial
Diplomacy低调解析
Managerial Implications
1. Service Performance – being intangible – is difficult to evaluate. It is highly dependent on the skills and motivation of the providing individual and/or team and on the quality of the relationship between
the commercial diplomats and their beneficiary.
2. Government rvice G
overnment providers and business beneficiaries are involved in creating value to fulfill social expectations concerning business relations between the home and the host country.
G
overnment rvices, strongly influenced by politics and bureaucracy, often suffer from inefficiencies.
The commercial diplomacy’s rvice has to fit
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3. Diplomatic rvice into the context of the home country’s foreign
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policy, its export promotion programs and
wider economic policy objectives. The resulting
subordination to veral forms of authority may
bring confusion and reduce accountability.
Moreover, diplomats are frequently criticized
for their limited understanding of business, lack
of entrepreneurship and abu of the diplomat’s
power for personal benefit or that of their
cronies.
4. Public rvice The business beneficiary does not pay for certain commercial diplomacy (public) rvices, which means that ‘ownership’ may be a critical issue in determining what the content and quality of the rvice should be and how it should be evaluated.
5. Commercial rvice The business beneficiaries pay for certain other rvices, which rais the issue of what is the rationale for having the rvices provided by diplomatic missions rather than private consultants, intermediaries or lf-help business organizations.
6. Networking rvice A rvice in which the value is largely created through relationships that give access to new information not publicly available and forge business contacts is particularly intangible and difficult to asss. The skills, standing and the right motivation of the individuals involved in such activity is a [condition] sine qua non of success.
The spectrum of actors in commercial diplomacy ranges from (i) the high-policy level (head of state, prime minister, minister or a member of parliament) to (ii) ambassador and the lower level of specialized diplomatic envoy known as trade reprentative, commercial attaché, or commercial diplomat. The activities of the latter take place within a network of specialized, government-sponsored organizations charged with trade promotion or attracting foreign direct investments such as the TPOs or IPAs. It is this particular form of commercial diplomacy that is the focus of this paper.苏有朋导演
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