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Strong growth and social progress have made Brazil one of the world’s leading economies over the past three decades, but Brazil remains a highly unequal country with an urgent need for reforms to sustain and continue development with inclusive growth. This chapter introduces sustainable foreign direct investments (FDIs), which can be tools to promote sustainable development and improve the living conditions of all Brazilians, thus representing entrepreneurship for social change in Brazil. Although there is a large recognition that FDIs might pave the way for sustainable development, it does not happen in an automatic way and, in this chapter, some instruments are presented as pathways for achieving that aim in Brazil. First, it analyses the scenario of inequalities in Brazil and a call for more sustainable private investments to achieve social inclusion. Next, it introduces the state of the art of Brazil’s framework and legislation on sustainable FDIs. Last, it presents initiatives on financing and promotion of sustainable development in Brazil. This chapter comes to a conclusion that Brazil has taken the first steps, but much more has to be done in order to effectively introduce sustainable FDIs as entrepreneurial tools for social inclusion, reduction of inequalities and better conditions of life for all Brazilians.

To analyze the industrial development of South, East, and Southeast Asian nations in terms of investment and trade and how the institutional environment – in particular, the government policy with regard to outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) – has played a role in this respect.

The chapter puts OFDI policy and industrial upgrading in newly industrialized, emerging, and developing Asian economies (NIEDAEs) in historical perspective to attempt to draw inference from their past behavior.

The chapter provides information about each NIEDAE’s experience with OFDI policy through a comparative analysis of OFDI promotional policy.

A useful source of information about each NIEDAE’s OFDI policy approach, the chapter attempts to draw recommendations for OFDI policy.

This chapter fulfills an information need and offers practical help to government policy makers.

In a globalized world where emerging markets are more important than ever, there is an increasing pressure on international businesses and governments to work together. The set of facilities known as commercial diplomacy combines the interests of both by highlighting new markets and investment opportunities.

In this chapter, we present a literature review based on 56 relevant publications to assess what we currently know of this important activity.

The results indicate that research on commercial diplomacy consists of many subtopics, resulting in a patchy understanding of the topic as a whole.

We discuss why integrative research focusing on the business–government relationship and the organization and the value of commercial diplomacy are needed from an international business perspective.

This chapter seeks to reveal what are the implications of the corporate social responsibility (CSR) debate on international investment law by focusing on the specific example of public health. The right to health is one of the human rights secured in international law and in the national legislation of a majority of States. This chapter will provide examples of investment cases concerning tobacco control measures, imposed by the Host States for the purpose of improving public health, though challenged by the tobacco companies under International Investment Agreements (IIAs) in investment tribunals. These specific examples cast rather general questions regarding the legal framework of international investment framework and its role in providing sufficient policy space for Host States to implement the public policies and to ensure that foreign companies adhere to the CSR standards.

In order to investigate what are the implications of the CSR debate on international investment law on the example of tobacco industry, the author performs a literature review and analyze two tobacco disputes and its possible implication on the public health debate and protection of foreign investors.

This case study illustrates the complex paradigm that interlink economic and human rights obligations of States on one side of the spectrum and property rights and social responsibilities of tobacco companies on the other side.

This chapter addresses a very topical and pertinent issue in public international law, namely: the role of public interest norms in the regime of foreign direct investment.

Government, business support organisations (BSOs), support services and client business firms constitute the key actors involved in the business–government interaction within commercial diplomacy. While businesses are interested in support in their international operations, commercial diplomats (CDs) work towards both objectives: supporting individual firms and promoting the home country's national economy in general. BSOs, public or private or mixed such as bilateral chambers of commerce, sector associations, investment promotion agencies and other self-help business organisations, complete the CD's offer, and are often referred to, and participate directly and indirectly in the home country's trade promotion effort.

The nature of the CD's service to beneficiaries is highly people based, and contains both a consistent amount of government instruction and CD's own personal judgment and initiative in promoting various sectors/sub-sectors and spotting business opportunities. The ‘intermediary’ function of the CD between the beneficiary business and its potential future business partner is important. The interaction may start on either side: the business firm may approach the CD or vice versa. To a large extent, export issues remain the most important enquiries from business to CD vs. other issues such as foreign direct investment, joint venture and debt issues.

From a business perspective the main advantages to use the CD's service are threefold. The CD appears to business firms as the central platform, the starting point to promote bilateral business. Second, CDs enjoy trust as an institution: they are considered credible and neutral (credibility and neutrality). Last but not the least, CDs are found useful in helping out firms in their first steps in foreign markets (not necessarily first exporters but for the firms to which the host country market only is new). The transaction between CD and beneficiary business firm has a material price: some services such as market research are for fee and are often subcontracted. Others being part of a ‘basic service’ of diplomats are free of charge.

In an ongoing process of globalization and technology improvements and due to an increase in worldwide actors in the economic sector, commercial diplomacy is an important tool for countries to support their business community during the internationalization process and afterwards. Nevertheless, commercial diplomacy literature is still in its infancy. Therefore, this chapter reviews existing research on the topic and develops a framework, which integrates the topics examined so far and provides the reader with a more complete picture of the topic at hand.

By means of a literature review, this chapter shows that the body of literature involving research of both disciplines, International Relations and International Management, is still rather limited. As a consequence, we determine a future research agenda and call for more empirical studies, especially in the field of (political) economy.

This chapter examines the role of formal and informal institutions in foreign direct investment (FDI) dynamics.

We examine the effects of the quality of legal, political, and economic formal institution as well as the effect of institutional distance (based on new dataset) on bilateral inward FDI stocks in 34 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries for the period 1990–2010 using a gravity specification. Additionally, we also examine FDI for the effects of a specific informal institution – attitude of the public toward economic liberal issues. Reactions of FDI to liberal and nonliberal public opinion (part of informal institutions) are examined with and without controlling for formal institutions.

Findings show that the quality of legal and political institutions are important determinants of FDI, that legal and political institutional distance are both significant obstacles to FDI, and that public opinion also matters. We find that it is important to control for formal institutions when looking at the effect of informal institutions, and that both past liberal and nonliberal public opinion correlate with FDI, but only nonliberal public opinion significantly reduces inward FDI directly.

Results are relevant for enterprises’ investment strategies, marketing strategies influencing public opinion as well as for policy makers, and governmental agencies involved in investment promotion programs.

Exploring the interplay between formal and informal institutions, institutional quality, institutional distance, and their effect on FDI in a bilateral panel.

In the enlarged European Union (EU) with 25 members, the free movement of capital, coupled with the free movement of goods and services should be a major direct attraction for both intra-EU and external foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows. EU membership does not, however, lead to a linear increase in FDI inflows as many analysts suggest (ECE, 2001). With EU accession, the structure of FDI may change substantially (Hunya, 2000; Dyker, 2001). Activities based on the existence of closed domestic markets (e.g. food and beverages) and on cheap labour (e.g. assembly activities) might be reduced, or even closed down, giving way to more knowledge-intensive activities in the new EU member countries (Kalotay, 2004a). FDI in the new EU member countries is not yet on an uninterrupted growth path. In the pre-accession phase (1995–2003), the relative importance of new EU members in global FDI flows when compared to that of the “old” members of the EU, was actually shrinking. Thus, if new members want to use FDI as one channel for catching up, they have to reverse this trend and increase their inward FDI quite rapidly.

Commercial diplomacy within the EU is currently a matter for the individual EU member states (MS). This results in different policies and practices. But to what extent do they really differ? This chapter presents the results of a comparative study on EU MS commercial diplomacy policies and practices. The policy goals and practices of all 27 MS were assessed via document analysis and interviews with commercial diplomats. The findings show considerable differences in terms of the responsible ministry, the policy focus, the network of foreign posts and the work performed at the foreign post. However, countries that entered the EU first seem to have similar commercial diplomacy policy and practices characteristics, as do the countries that entered the EU after 2003. Furthermore, the results of statistical tests show that countries that entered first are similar in size, wealth, share of EU trade, number of embassies inside the EU, number of employees at the foreign post and the activism of the foreign post. These similarities apply as well for the countries that entered the EU after 2003. Overall, this study concludes that home country characteristics (size, culture, government), host country characteristics (institutions, culture, regime) and the relationship between a home country and a host country affect the commercial diplomacy policies and practices.

The purpose of this research is to reveal the behaviour of the main Mexican exporting companies during the 2018-2020 period, which covers part of the COVID-19 pandemic phase. The results indicate that it is not viable to invest in this type of companies for the time being, and this is shown empirically through the traditional Markowitz investment portfolio selection methodology and its extension through the Sharpe model.