Careers in International Affairs, Eighth Edition

10 Business-Related Organizations - Careers in Business - Related Organizations

10 Business-Related Organizations Careers in Business-Related Organizations Jonathan Huneke Jonathan Huneke is a 1988 graduate of the Master of Science in Foreign Service Program at Georgetown University. He is vice president for communications with the United States Council for International Business (USCIB), a New York–based business organization that promotes an open system of global commerce, represents American business in several worldwide industries, and provides services for companies doing business overseas. Previously, he was a U.S.-based representative of the Province of Quebec, acting as corporate liaison during the period surrounding the 1995 referendum on Quebec sovereignty and as public affairs manager thereafter. In a prior stint with the USCIB after graduating from Georgetown, he worked as a policy analyst in the organization ’s policy and program department. VOLUNTARY NETWORKS have been a hallmark of American culture since well before the 1830s, when Alexis de Tocqueville wrote of Americans’ penchant for forming ‘‘associations’’ in their professional, social, civic, and political lives. Of course, nowadays such groups are not at all unique to the United States; virtually every imaginable type of organization has some sort of representation in Washington and other major world capitals. Among the most visible and active are business and industry associations. Why do such organizations exist? First and foremost, they advocate laws, regulations, and policies that benefit their members’ interests—in other words, they exist to lobby. This may include traditional legislative 267 268 • Business-Related Organizations lobbying of the kind so familiar in Washington or Brussels. Or it may include ‘‘soft lobbying’’—convening working groups, holding conferences , commissioning research, issuing position papers and press releases, and so on. In addition, in many industries, business organizations provide a much-needed self-regulatory role, developing standards for companies in the industry and offering training and professional certification for individuals working in it. And of course, most business associations organize periodic conventions and other gatherings for networking, while many also fulfill an educational role. As regional and global integration has marched forward, the international activities of business organizations have mushroomed, both in the United States and overseas. At the national level, nearly every country, whatever its size, has a leading chamber of commerce and employers’ federation, along with some form of ‘‘club’’ for chief executives, such as the Business Roundtable in the United States. Though such groups work largely to influence domestic law and policy, their international focus has grown alongside that of their members and in many countries may be their most important calling card. Business organizations active at the global level are sometimes overlooked . The oldest of these is the International Chamber of Commerce, founded after World War I, which works closely with the United Nations and other intergovernmental organizations, maintains a leading court of commercial arbitration, and sets worldwide standards in such areas as marketing and advertising, trade terminology, and letters of credit. Some groups even have quasi-official mandates; for example, the International Organization of Employers sends voting delegates to meetings of the UN’s International Labor Organization, where governments, businesses, and trade unions all take part in deliberations. Although not, strictly speaking, a business organization, the World Economic Forum, well known for its annual high-profile get-together in Davos, Switzerland, convenes groups of executives and other experts from around the world to address specific topics. At the regional level, the European Roundtable and Business Europe (formerly known by the acronym UNICE) is the preferred provider of industry views to the European Union and its member states, whereas other transnational business bodies have sprung up around the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the North America Free Trade Agreement, and other regional trade groupings. Careers in Business-Related Organizations • 269 Operating alongside, and often in close cooperation with, these multisector business groups are a seemingly endless array of ‘‘vertical’’ industry associations that seek to safeguard and promote the interests of companies in a particular industry. Again, some of these are quite well known— for example, at the national level, the Motion Picture Association of America, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, and Information Technology Association of America—while others operate largely below the radar of public perception. In many cases, the national industry federation is part of an international confederation that seeks to coordinate the industry’s public and regulatory affairs work worldwide. Furthermore, in a...