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PRI0010.1177/2046147X15614883Public Relations InquiryWhite
Candace L. White
University of Tennessee, USA
Abstract
This conceptual article explores the role of international corporations as non-state
actors in the process of public diplomacy as the global environment for diplomacy
becomes increasingly multi-directional and networked. It provides an operational
definition of the concept of corporate diplomacy and depicts potential contributions
of the private sector, particularly the role of corporate social responsibility, in public
diplomacy outcomes. The private sector has vast resources to contribute to public
diplomacy, but corporations may be more willing to support, rather than to directly
engage in public diplomacy in order to protect their economic self-interest. Key issues
for research about the role of the private sector in public diplomacy are motives and
intentionality of corporate efforts and strategic coordination between business and
governments.
Keywords
Corporate diplomacy, international public relations, public diplomacy
Introduction
Governments are still at the center of public diplomacy, but there is increasing support for
the contention that non-state actors, including international corporations, can play a role
and contribute to public diplomacy outcomes (Fitzpatrick, 2010; Goodman, 2006; Gregory,
2005; Reinhard, 2009; Wang, 2006b). The government-to-people model of public diplo-
macy does not accurately reflect the rapid changes in the global public sphere, nor the
multi-lateral nature of 21st century diplomacy where governments are part of a network
rather than always on top of a hierarchy (Hocking, 2004). The purpose of this
Corresponding author:
Candace L. White, University of Tennessee, 476 Communications Building, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA.
Email: white@utk.edu
306 Public Relations Inquiry 4(3)
Whether one believes that public diplomacy encompasses the actions of non-state entities
or is an inherently government enterprise, the reality is that non-state actors have become
more involved in efforts to influence foreign publics’ views of nation-states and therefore
require the attention of public diplomacy professionals. (p. 198)
Herter, then general manager of government relations for Socony Mobil Oil Company,
noted that the increase in international business called for ‘corporate diplomacy’ between
American and foreign corporations and between American corporations and foreign gov-
ernments. He stated that ‘corporate and political diplomacy are virtually indistinguisha-
ble to build an enduring feeling of good will for the United States, its people, its economic
system, its business organizations, its political institutions, and the validity of its culture’
(Herter, 1966: 409).
In business literature, the terms corporate diplomacy and business diplomacy have
different or overlapping definitions. Steger (2003) contends that business diplomacy
means to manage the business environment in such a way that ‘business is done smoothly’
(p. 6). De Vries (2014) defines business diplomacy as a function of business to commu-
nicate and negotiate internationally, between firms, and with the governments of their
home countries. Amann et al. (2007) define corporate diplomacy as the attempt to man-
age the business environment systematically and professionally … that leads to mutual
adaptation between corporations and society (p. 34), which is synonymous with the defi-
nitions of business diplomacy provided by Steger (2003) and De Vries (2014).
Asquer (2012) also defines corporate diplomacy in the same sense as business diplo-
macy, which is a corporate function to strategically manage relationships to achieve cor-
porate objectives. Other scholars have extended the concept of business/corporate
diplomacy to include communication and negotiation with foreign governments and
publics since the globalized business environment means corporations have a greater
need than ever to communicate with international stakeholders. Saner et al. (2000) define
corporate diplomats as trouble shooters of multinational structures, as liaison persons in
the various head offices, or as temporary managers for new ventures, who need the same
skills as government diplomats (and who may indeed be former ambassadors). While the
authors argue for training in diplomatic skills for the function of business diplomacy,
they place the concept of business diplomacy, the purpose of which is to achieve business
goals, apart from the public diplomacy function that benefits a nation-state.
The commonality among the definitions discussed above is they refer to corporations
(non-state, corporate actors) behaving in a diplomatic manner, internally and with exter-
nal constituents, in order to implement favorable conditions to achieve their business
goals because corporations realize they cannot leave their international interests to gov-
ernment diplomats alone. Business diplomats manage relationships between global com-
panies and multiple stakeholders, which might include NGO’s, other business, and
governments. In this sense, the sole concern of business diplomacy is the welfare and
interests of the corporation. Asquer (2012) contends, however, there is little evidence
that companies acknowledge the peculiar role of business diplomacy. It is carried out
through various activities and is rarely a well-defined function.
Saner and Yiu (2003) further differentiate the concept of business diplomacy from the
concept of economic or commercial diplomacy. Economic diplomacy is concerned with
governmental negotiations of economic policy and legal issues, and commercial diplo-
macy supports a country’s business and finance sectors with the objective of increasing
a country’s commercial development, which includes investments and trade. Commercial
and economic diplomacy are performed by state (government) actors for the overall
benefit of the nation-state.
310 Public Relations Inquiry 4(3)
Melé (2004) categorize four theoretical approaches to the study of CSR: instrumental
theories of CSR based on profits and economic results, ethical theories based on the
values of corporations and their responsibility to society, integrative theories that posit
that businesses act in response to social demands, and political theories that recognize
the power of corporations in society and the responsible use of power in the political
arena. Scherer and Palazzo (2007) position CSR at the interface of management and
political theory, noting that corporations, through socially responsible actions, can play a
role in regulating global issues.
Political theories of CSR include the concept of corporate citizenship, which as a
component of socially responsible behavior implies that businesses are citizens in the
communities in which they operate, and like individual citizens, have a responsibility to
be politically involved. Schwab (2008) describes global corporate citizenship as the con-
viction that companies not only must be engaged with their stakeholders, but are them-
selves stakeholders alongside governments and civil society. A global perspective of
public relations places the process in a transnational public sphere in which international
corporations seek legitimacy through responsible corporate citizenship. The most effec-
tive way to achieve stature on corporate citizenship is for companies to proactively link
their initiatives that demonstrate CSR. While businesses will always conduct their own
diplomacy outside governments, the willingness to cooperate with governments is a
component of corporate citizenship.
Figure 2 depicts the intersection between government public diplomacy and cor-
porate activities that contribute to public diplomacy, which includes intentional
White 313
Figure 2. Corporate citizenship: Overlap of corporate and government activities that
contribute to public diplomacy.
cooperation between state and non-state actors in such things as business diplomacy,
corporate diplomacy, partnerships and contracts, as well as CSR activities that may
not be intentional contributions to public diplomacy but that have positive effects for
a company’s home country. Corporations also hold soft power that contributes to
nation branding and to building the reputation of the corporation’s home country.
Many activities in the intersection could be considered components of corporate citi-
zenship that impact public diplomacy outcomes. Gregory (2011) notes, however, the
need for some sort of analytical line between public diplomacy and corporate efforts
that carry the effect of public diplomacy.
While all of the components of private-sector involvement depicted in the figures
and described above contribute to a nation’s public diplomacy, it should be noted
that private-sector involvement in public diplomacy is not the same as privatizing
public diplomacy. Privatization implies outsourcing the implementation of govern-
ments’ public diplomacy initiatives to private entities. Hocking (2004) explains that
the reality of private-sector involvement lies somewhere on the continuum between
outsourcing and government control of public diplomacy. He notes that the diplo-
matic milieu is inhabited by a growing diversity of actors including activist groups,
NGOs, and business interests, which compose a complex web of international inter-
actions. State functions can be shared with non-state actors to manage complex
issues in partnership.
314 Public Relations Inquiry 4(3)
Corporate actors are quite interested in doing this if it is project-oriented and a high profile
issue that is good for the image of the corporation as well as good for the company. They are
happy to do it for the country, but they also see that it is quite good for the corporation, or they
wouldn’t be doing it.
purpose. Examples are Chevron’s efforts to provide health care for the communities in
which it operates, and IBM’s Corporate Service Corp through which IBM executives use
their expertise to solve social problems throughout the world. White et al. (2011) found
evidence that CSR activities of US companies contribute to the diplomatic process by
positively affecting the image and reputation of the United States. Some CSR activities
of US companies in Romania were conducted in direct cooperation with the Romanian
government, but without formal coordination with the US government. Examples include
companies’ direct involvement in national health issues, and ALCOA’s assistance to the
Romanian government to improve water quality standards that helped Romania reach
compliance needed to join the European Union. While these activities may have the
effect of public diplomacy, they are carried out to benefit the companies through main-
taining relationships with the governments of the countries in which they are operating
and with the communities upon which they rely for healthy workforces and resources.
Whether intentional or not, corporate communication and CSR activities can play a
role in building relationships, promoting trust, cultivating positive public opinion, and
affecting the image of a corporation’s home country, which affect public diplomacy out-
comes. Many global companies are engaged in business practices that promote under-
standing of national values through CSR practices that include cultural exchanges and
sponsorships as well as an array of other activities that have the impact of diplomacy, that
are, however, unintentional involvement in public diplomacy. Previous research has
found that brands and products, CSR activities, and corporate communications in host
countries affect how the country with which the international corporation is associated is
perceived, regardless of whether or not the activity was done for the purpose of national
reputation building. For example, Lee et al. (2008) found consumption of products from
South Korea caused people to perceive the reputation of the country as ‘high technology’
and ‘advanced economy’. Knowing the country of origin of a company or product about
which consumers have positive perceptions (e.g. IKEA) can enhance the image of the
country (Sweden) in which the brand originated, which is the inverse of country-of-ori-
gin effect that posits the reputation of the country affects the reputation of the brand
(White, 2012). The contention of these studies is that well-regarded companies can con-
tribute to a favorable national reputation.
embrace new practices in a world of networks and transnational challenges (p. 372)
since for many issues, there are actors on both the governance side and the private
side (Gregory, 21 October 2011, personal interview). As public diplomacy becomes a
more dialogic and relational activity that involves more than foreign policy goals, the
strategic goal will be to coordinate information and activities from a variety of
sources, from both the public and private sectors.
Strategic coordination of state and non-state players in public diplomacy efforts
will be essential as the nature of public diplomacy becomes increasingly networked
and multi-directional, but it will be a complex process. At present, international pub-
lic relations in many multinational corporations include a component of business
diplomacy (diplomacy to further corporate goals). Corporations already recognize
the need for business diplomacy conducted by managers trained to communicate,
negotiate, and lobby to foreign governments. One possibility for strategic coordina-
tion would be the identification of existing business diplomats by political (govern-
ment) diplomats, at least as a first step toward cooperative efforts, as has been done
in the United Kingdom that has a unit at the center of government that identifies and
formally includes business leaders in diplomacy (Lee, 2004). Another possibility is
to expand the role of international public relations and CSR managers to include
corporate diplomacy, which differs from business diplomacy, the function of which
would be more concerned with deliberate corporate citizenship and broader societal
goals as suggested by Ordeix-Rigo and Duarte (2009). However, such efforts may be
difficult to achieve.
Saner et al. (2000) acknowledge that business and governments need each other’s
expertise to be effective in the globalized environment, but they also acknowledge that
‘this realization is not shared by most global companies’ (p. 83). While businesses may
be interested in episodically assisting their home governments with diplomacy goals and
have the diplomatic skills to do so, their central concern will always be the interests of
their companies. Nonetheless, just as there are mixed motives for engaging in CSR
(competitive advantage as well as social good), there may be mixed motives for corpo-
rate involvement in public diplomacy since improving national reputation can also
improve the environment for business success. Reinhard (2009) believes corporate
involvement with governments in public diplomacy could be a win–win situation since
businesses have resources and communication expertise that are advantageous to public
diplomacy, and building favorable country-to-country relationships in the global society
is in the self-interest of business. However, corporate self-interests will always be the
priority of the private sector.
How non-state actors, particularly international corporations, will fit a new public
diplomacy strategy remains to be seen and will be of interest to global public relations
and strategic communication scholars and practitioners. Operating structures that allow
for coordinated roles between state and non-state actors to utilize the resources and
expertise of business that are of value to public diplomacy need to be explored. Such
structures might include new roles inside corporations, or expansion of existing roles to
include intentional public diplomacy efforts. As such structures evolve, it will be impor-
tant to take a comparative perspective to look at how those structures may vary among
countries that may have different public diplomacy goals.
318 Public Relations Inquiry 4(3)
empirically to the normative and descriptive assertions found in scholarly literature as well
as in policy papers and think-tank reports, that private-sector companies can play a part of
the process of public diplomacy. Many questions remain about how involvement in public
diplomacy can be strategically coordinated between business and governments, and particu-
larly how government/corporate partnerships will be managed by different nation-states.
The motives of corporations for intentional involvement in public diplomacy and the
analytical line between deliberate corporate citizenship and activities that carry the effect of
public diplomacy but are not done for that purpose are key issues to address. More research
is needed to look at the effect of CSR and corporate soft power on public diplomacy although
arguably CSR efforts are separate from public diplomacy. The positive, albeit unintentional
effects of CSR beg the question: Is public diplomacy a by-product of CSR?
Finally, a very important issue to be considered is the unintended effects of corporate
activities that can be detrimental to the public diplomacy efforts of a corporation’s home
country. From a critical perspective, the imbalance of power between multinational cor-
porations and the countries in which they operate, the potential for great environmental
and societal harm that can co-exist with CSR activities, and the profit-driven reasons that
can obfuscate the motives for strategic coordination with governments in public diplo-
macy warrant analytical attention. Such inquiry will contribute to theoretical develop-
ment in both public diplomacy and global public relations.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Notes
1. Bruce Gregory is a former director of the Public Diplomacy Institute and Professorial Lecturer
of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University. He has served on the US
Council on Foreign Relations Task Force on Public Diplomacy, and the Public Diplomacy
Council.
2. The non-profit organization BDA operated from 2002 to 2010. Its goal was to raise awareness
of the need for the US to be more positively engaged with the world. Supporters included
PepsiCo, Google, Time Warner, Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Toyota North America, Boeing,
American Airlines, and Microsoft.
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Author biography
Candace L. White is a Professor of public relations in the College of Communication and Information
at the University of Tennessee, USA. She holds a doctorate in Mass Communication from the University
of Georgia. Her research interests are corporate social responsibility and international public relations,
particularly the role of private-sector corporations in public diplomacy and country image.