Corporate diplomacy: a capability small exporters need too

In March 2024 a team from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) spent nine days in Ho Chi Minh City and four provinces, visiting 5 processing plants, 3 farms and a government laboratory. The report, published in 2025, says that many of the facilities could not identify Canada's import requirements or where to find them; representatives of the Vietnamese regulator could not either (Canadian Food Inspection Agency, 2025). If you own a small exporter with no external-affairs department, what has "corporate diplomacy" got to do with you? See also the library page on corporate diplomacy as a dynamic capability; this post asks what dynamic capability adds and builds a checklist at workshop scale.

What is corporate diplomacy?

For Asquer (2012) it is the behaviour of organisational actors aimed at creating favourable conditions for the firm's activities (Asquer, 2012, p. 53). His paper is a conceptual analysis with no survey data (Asquer, 2012, p. 54). He groups the activity into four kinds: creating and seizing business opportunities, safeguarding image and reputation, affecting rule-making, and preventing conflicts (Asquer, 2012, p. 59).

The other two sources draw the boundary elsewhere. According to its abstract, Bolewski (2018) is narrower: the diplomatic activities of transnational corporations to influence foreign policy (Bolewski, 2018). Henisz (2016) is wider: the ability to win over external stakeholders in support of the organisation's mission, as opposed to the narrow support function of external affairs (Henisz, 2016).

What does dynamic capability add?

It turns diplomacy from a string of one-off tasks into a repeatable capability. Teece (2007) splits dynamic capabilities into sensing and shaping opportunities and threats, seizing opportunities, and keeping competitiveness by enhancing, combining, protecting and, when necessary, reconfiguring assets (Teece, 2007, p. 1319).

Henisz carries that logic over to the stakeholder environment. Per the abstract, a firm must sense opportunities and threats across several countries, sectors and issue areas, then engage stakeholders in a way they see as genuine and carry out initiatives that address their concerns, which requires strategic change at the core of the organisation (Henisz, 2016).

The library page adds three details: senior managers from several functions meet stakeholders themselves, issues are tied to the numbers that drive revenue and cost, and stakeholder data is refreshed every one to three years. I could not check these, because the full text of Henisz sits behind a paywall.

Who is this literature written for?

Multinational corporations. Teece says dynamic capabilities are especially relevant to multinational enterprise performance (Teece, 2007, p. 1320); Asquer, reporting Strange's distinction, places firm–government relations particularly with multinational and transnational corporations (Asquer, 2012, p. 55); Bolewski writes about transnational corporations (Bolewski, 2018). I found no study of small firms in this set, and the CFIA says the plants it visited ranged from medium to big (Canadian Food Inspection Agency, 2025). So applying the framework to an 80-person workshop is my inference. The sense, respond, refresh loop should transfer, since it needs no department; changing the importing country's rules does not.

How can a small workshop with no diplomats sense what is changing?

Pick a few stakeholders, score them, and scan each at the right intensity instead of watching everyone. Mendelow (1981) proposes concentrating scanning on the most powerful stakeholders (Mendelow, 1981, pp. 410–411). Power has four sources: possession of resources, the ability to dictate alternatives, authority and influence, each rated 1–5. Dynamism is the sum of two 1–5 ratings: how often the stakeholder is considered in decisions, and how often outside factors shift its power base (Mendelow, 1981, pp. 408–410, 415). Above the mean counts as high.

Invented example: a frozen-prawn processor in Ca Mau with 80 staff, selling to two North American importers. The scores are mine; I add the four power scores because Mendelow does not say how to combine them. The mean power is 10.3 and the mean dynamism 6.7.

Mendelow ties continuous scanning to high power and high dynamism, periodic scanning to low power with high dynamism, and irregular (crisis-driven) scanning to high power with low dynamism; low and static stakeholders need nobody assigned (Mendelow, 1981, pp. 411–414, 416). Periodic scanning costs more than irregular scanning (Mendelow, 1981, p. 413).

Why does the buyer rank first? The CFIA report says Canada keeps no list of authorised foreign plants; licensed importers must make sure the fish was prepared under safe conditions (Canadian Food Inspection Agency, 2025). From that I infer that the importer holds the rulebook and is the one to ask in writing.

Once you sense something, how do you reduce risk and seize the opportunity?

Fix the inside first, then tell the stakeholder what you fixed. Henisz also asks for initiatives that address real concerns (Henisz, 2016).

The CFIA report records 8 cases in 5 processing plants where consignments were rejected for chemical contamination and the authority did no tracing, because it is not required to unless Canada notifies it officially. Rejected consignments can lead to a plant being downgraded or removed from the priority export list. NAFIQPM replied that the audited plants had traced the consignments CFIA notified. The report's overall conclusion is that Vietnam's system gives reasonable assurance that seafood exported to Canada is safe (Canadian Food Inspection Agency, 2025). Diplomatic skill cannot replace tracing, so risk reduction starts inside the plant.

The same report shows shaping at national level: NAFIQPM said it would post Canada's rules on its website and proposed a cooperation agreement between the two sides. I did not check whether either happened (the report was modified on 4 June 2025) (Canadian Food Inspection Agency, 2025). Asquer notes that bodies such as chambers of commerce abroad work for a community of firms rather than one company (he files this under business diplomacy) (Asquer, 2012, p. 60); my inference is that collective channels are the natural route for a small firm to be heard.

On ports, an August 2021 Hapag-Lloyd notice, written during the COVID-19 outbreak in Ho Chi Minh City, said the Cat Lai and TCIT terminals would temporarily stop receiving import containers for customers whose production had halted; the transshipment option required the customer to provide an "LOI" (the notice does not expand the abbreviation) to pick up cargo within 72 hours of arrival (Hapag-Lloyd, 2021). That concerns imports, so I use it only for its structure: port rules can change with immediate effect.

What goes into a checklist for a small exporter?

Five rows; the last column says which rows rest on a source and which are my own idea.

When is this not worth doing?

It is not worth it if all your goods go through one trader who handles every document and the rules do not change. Mendelow holds that scanning low-power, static stakeholders is wasted effort (Mendelow, 1981, p. 411), and that broad issue management is expensive, with results often visible only in the long term (Mendelow, 1981, p. 414). It is worth it if a few buyers account for most of your revenue, or if the product faces food-safety inspection, as in the CFIA case.

The evidence has limits. Asquer wrote in 2012 and concedes there is little evidence that companies recognise the distinct role of this function (Asquer, 2012, p. 60). Bolewski is a practitioner's policy paper (Bolewski, 2018). Mendelow wrote in 1981, not about exporting.

Going deeper: what I read and did not read

Read in full: Asquer (2012), through the journal's published version in the University of Cagliari repository (I could not open the SSRN page the library lists); Mendelow (1981), 10 pages; the Hapag-Lloyd notice (via an archived copy). Read in part: Teece (2007), open-access copy, covering the abstract, introduction, the sensing and seizing sections and part of the reconfiguring section; the CFIA report (published 14 May 2025, modified 4 June 2025), except the sections on staffing, laboratories and audit that I did not read closely. All read on 3 November 2026.

Abstract only: Henisz (2016) and Bolewski (2018), both behind paywalls; what I say about them is what the public abstracts say.

One mismatch: the site's library page for the "power–interest matrix" credits Mendelow (1981), but the paper I read uses power and environmental dynamism, with no interest axis. This post follows the paper.