The Diplomat in the Corner Office: Corporate Foreign Policy PDF
Preview The Diplomat in the Corner Office: Corporate Foreign Policy
The Diplomat in the Corner Office THE DIPLOMAT IN THE CORNER OFFICE Corporate Foreign Policy Timothy L. Fort stanford business books An Imprint of Stanford University Press Stanford, California Stanford University Press Stanford, California © 2015 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of Stanford University Press. Special discounts for bulk quantities of Stanford Business Books are available to corporations, professional associations, and other organizations. For details and discount information, contact the special sales department of Stanford University Press. Tel: (650) 736-1782, Fax: (650) 736-1784 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival- quality paper Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Fort, Timothy L., author. The diplomat in the corner office : corporate foreign policy / Timothy L. Fort. Pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-0-8047-8637-9 (cloth : alk. paper) — isbn 978-0-8047-9660-6 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Peace—Economic aspects. 2. Peace-building—Economic aspects. 3. Corporations—Moral and ethical aspects. 4. Business ethics. I. Title. jz5538.f668 2015 303.6'6—dc23 2015010584 ISBN 978-0-8047-9670-5 (electronic) Typeset by Thompson Type 10.9/13 Adobe Garamond To Kurina, Steven, and Theo In hope that in 2050 they will just shake their heads at what took us so long to figure out—this connection between business and peace And, always, to Nancy Contents Foreword by Per Saxegaard ix Acknowledgments xvii Preface xix part i: mainstreaming business and peace 1 Corporate Foreign Policy 3 2 Causes of War and Lessons for Balances of Power 27 3 Could Peace Break Out in This Day and Age? 46 4 The Economics-Ethics-Trust-Prosperity- Peace Matrix 59 part ii: cases in point 5 Peacemaking, Peacekeeping, and Peace Building 75 6 Peace Entrepreneurs, Instrumental Corporate Foreign Policy, and Unconscious Peace Building 96 part iii: policies for peace 7 Little Brother Government Policy 109 8 A New Great Awakening 130 viii Contents 9 Why a Peace-Oriented Corporate Foreign Policy Is Smart Business 141 Appendix 159 Notes 167 Index 197 Foreword “When we say peace, we mean business,” a delegate emphatically stated to a global gathering of business leaders, government officials, and other agents of change at the UN Global Compact’s inaugural Business for Peace leadership platform in 2013. The newly created initiative aims to foster peace in the workplace, the marketplace and in society. Its creation and support by the global community is part of a growing recognition of the importance of peace to business, and vice versa—the core of the very topic that makes The Diplomat in the Corner Office essential reading in a contemporary business environment. The fact that business, for the most part, is benefiting from peace will not come as a revelation to most, as peace is prosperity. It is the rec- ognition that business can be a powerful driver of peace that remains surprising to many. Over the last fifteen years, the role of business in con- tributing to peace has become the subject of increased interest, and Tim Fort has been in the academic forefront of this exploration, researching and convincingly arguing that a business presence in peace building— through the idea of gentle (ethical) commerce—solves a long-standing anthropological debate of whether human beings have become more or less peaceful over time. Discussing from perspectives of power and trust, Fort lays out a compelling case for the idea that the role of business in fostering peace is neither ancillary nor niche; instead it is germane to the way in which peace and prosperity have developed from the beginning of trade and into the twenty-first century. As an investment banker and chairman of the Business for Peace Foun- dation, an international organization vested in promoting a business ix
The list of books you might like
