The role of language(s) in business: three danish cases and their corporate language policies
Author: 
Nina BellakAuthors Info & Claims
Nina BellakAuthors Info & ClaimsPages 207 - 210
Abstract
This paper examines corporate and individual solutions to overcome language barriers in international business contexts. Specifically, attention is focused on decisions that go beyond 'English only'; in which context and why do languages other than English come into play? Qualitative interview data, collected from three Danish multinational corporations (MNCs), provides evidence that languages other than English are used and needed for several reasons, such as lacking English skills of interlocutors. A formalized language policy might help multinationals overcome the language barrier more efficiently and manage language effectively in the future.
References
[1]
Andersen, H., and Rasmussen, E.S. The role of language skills in corporate communication. Corporate Communications: An International Journal 9, 3 (2004), 231--242.
[2]
Charles, M., and Marschan-Piekkari, R. Language Training for Enhanced Horizontal Communication: A Challenge for MNCs. Business Communication Quarterly 65, 2 (2002), 9--29.
[3]
Coulmas, F. Language and economy. Blackwell, Oxford, 1992.
[4]
Dhir, K.S., and Gòkè-Paríolá, A. The case for language policies in multinational corporations. Corporate Communications 7, 4 (2002), 241--251.
[5]
Feely, A.J., and Harzing, A.W.K. Language Management in Multinational Companies. Cross Cultural Management: An International Journal 10, 2 (2003), 37--52.
[6]
Fredriksson, R., Barner-Rasmussen, W., and Piekkari, R. The multinational corporation as a multilingual organization - The notion of a common corporate language. Corporate Communications: An International Journal 11, 4 (2006), 406--423.
[7]
Grinsted, A. Foreign Language Analysis in Industrial Regions of Europe. Questionnaire Survey Denmark, Handelshøjskole Syd, Kolding, 1992.
[8]
Hagen, S. Effects on the European Union Economy of Shortages of Foreign Language Skills in Enterprise (ELAN), 2006. Available at http://ec.europa.eu/education/policies/lang/doc/elan_en.pdf.
[9]
Hagen, S. (ed.). Business Communication Across Borders - A Study of Language Use and Practice in European Companies (Elucidate). Languages National Training Organisation, London, 1999.
[10]
Harzing, A.W.K, and Feely, A.J. The language barrier and its implications for HQ-subsidiary relationships. Cross Cultural Management: An International Journal 15, 1 (2008), 49--61.
[11]
Harzing, A.W.K., Köster, K., and Magner, U. Babel in business: The language barrier and its solutions in the HQ-subsidiary relationship (in press for Journal of World Business, 2010). Available at http://www.harzing.com/download/langbar.pdf.
[12]
Henderson, J.K. Language Diversity in International Management Teams. International Studies of Management & Organization 35, 1 (2005), 66--82.
[13]
Lavric, E. Code choice in der internen und externen Unternehmenskommunikation, in Organisationskommunikation. Grundlagen und Analysen der sprachlichen Inszenierung von Organisation (Managementkonzepte 34) (2008), Rainer Hampp Verlag, München / Mering, 243--264.
[14]
Louhiala-Salminen, L., Charles, M., and Kankaanranta, A. English as a lingua franca in Nordic corporate mergers: Two case companies. English for Specific Purposes 24, 4 (2005), 401--421.
[15]
Maclean, D. Beyond English: Transnational corporations and the strategic management of language in a complex multilingual business environment. Management Decision 44, 10 (2006), 1377--1390.
[16]
Marschan, R., Welch, L., and Welch, D. Language: The Forgotten Factor in Multinational Management. European management journal 15, 5 (1997), 591--598.
[17]
Marschan-Piekkari, R., Welch, D., and Welch, L. In the shadow the impact of language on structure, power and communication in the multinational. International business review 8, 4 (1999b), 421--441.
[18]
Marschan-Piekkari, R., Welch, D., and Welch, L. Adopting a common corporate language: IHRM implications. The international journal of human resource management 10, 3 (1999a), 377--390.
[19]
Miles, M.B., and Huberman, A.M. Qualitative data analysis: an expanded sourcebook, 2nd edn. Sage, Thousand Oaks, 1994.
[20]
Poncini, G. Multicultural Business Meetings and the Role of Languages other than English. Journal of Intercultural Studies 24, 1 (2003), 17--32.
[21]
2Spolsky, B. Language Management. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2009.
[22]
Thomas, C.A. Bridging the Gap between Theory and Practice: Language Policy in Multilingual Organisations. Language Awareness 17, 4 (2008), 307--325.
[23]
Vandermeeren, S. Fremdsprachen in europäischen Unternehmen. Untersuchungen zu Bestand und Bedarf im Geschäftsalltag mit Empfehlungen für Sprachenpolitik und Sprachunterricht. Heidrun Popp Verlag, Waldsteinberg, 1998.
[24]
Verstraete-Hansen, L. Hvad skal vi med sprog? - Holdninger til fremmedsprog i danske virksomheder i et uddannelsespolitisk perspektiv. Produktion CBS Communication & Marketing, København, 2008.
[25]
Welch, C., and Marschan-Piekkari, R. Handbook of Qualitative Research Methods for International Business. Edward Elgar Publishing Limited, Cheltenham, 2004.
[26]
Welch, D., Welch, L., and Piekkari, R. Speaking in Tongues: The Importance of Language in International Management Processes. International Studies of Management & Organization 1, (2005), 10--27.
Index Terms
- The role of language(s) in business: three danish cases and their corporate language policies
Recommendations
An institutional theory perspective on e-HRM's strategic potential in MNC subsidiaries
This paper extends the application of institutional theory to electronic human resource management (e-HRM), and strategic information systems (IS) more generally, in a multinational corporation (MNC) subsidiary setting. By adopting Scott's (2001) ...
The influence of technological innovations on international business strategy before and during COVID-19 pandemic
AbstractIn the last two years, the world has gone through an unprecedented change in the most diverse dimensions (social, economic, and even political), leading that society had to adapt very quickly to the contingencies imposed by COVID-19. All ...
Layout-sensitive language extensibility with SugarHaskell
Haskell '12: Proceedings of the 2012 Haskell SymposiumProgrammers need convenient syntax to write elegant and concise programs. Consequently, the Haskell standard provides syntactic sugar for some scenarios (e.g., do notation for monadic code), authors of Haskell compilers provide syntactic sugar for more ...
Comments
Information & Contributors
Information
Published In
August 2010
300 pages
ISBN:9781450301084
DOI:10.1145/1841853
- General Chairs:
- Pamela Hinds,
- Anne-Marie Søderberg,
- Ravi Vatrapu,
- Program Chairs:
- Toru Ishida,
- Martha Maznevski,
- Gary Olson
Copyright © 2010 ACM.
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]
Sponsors
Publisher
Association for Computing Machinery
New York, NY, United States
Publication History
Published: 19 August 2010
Check for updates
Author Tags
Qualifiers
- Poster
Conference
ICIC '10
Sponsor:
ICIC '10: International Conference on Intercultural Collaboration 2010
August 19 - 20, 2010
Copenhagen, Denmark
Contributors
Other Metrics
Bibliometrics & Citations
Bibliometrics
Article Metrics
- 0Total Citations
- 360Total Downloads
- Downloads (Last 12 months)5
- Downloads (Last 6 weeks)0
Reflects downloads up to 02 Mar 2025
Other Metrics
Citations
View Options
Login options
Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.
Sign in