From Public Relations to Corporate Public Diplomacy

This paper illustrates several factors that make corporate public diplomacy a fundamentally different approach to activities that aim at legitimacy alone. A case study of a suspended Chinese hydropower project (i.e., the Myitsone Dam) in northern Myanmar is presented to address the functional differences and their implications for corporate practice. In particular, it illustrates how public resistance can prevent the success of direct foreign investments despite favorable agreements with host governments; also, it shows that corporate public diplomacy can be used to develop sustainable win-win solutions supported by the general public. While existing research suggests that an important function of public relations is to create a perception of legitimacy and that the hope of economic and commercial public diplomacy is to create a perception of attractiveness among the public in foreign countries, this paper suggests that the concept of corporate public diplomacy – that is, collaboration with the general public in a host country through negotiations directly with civic society – should be considered a supplement to other forms of corporate diplomacy.