Research on Commercial Diplomacy: a review and implications.

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.