Content uploaded by Annelise Ly
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Annelise Ly on Mar 02, 2018
Content may be subject to copyright.
A preview of the PDF is not available
International Internal Communication in the Workplace: A Transdisciplinary Approach
Abstract and Figures
Successful communication among employees working in the same company is essential but difficult. However, it can become even more challenging when employees are from different national and linguistic backgrounds and are required to interact in English (used as a lingua franca for business purposes or BELF), in which they may be less competent than in their mother tongues. Misunderstandings and tensions may arise and are often attributed to national cultural differences, particularly when the employees are from diametrically opposed cultures.
The thesis examines the key challenges when employees communicate with their international colleagues. It draws on several disciplines (organisational theory, linguistics, intercultural communication…) and combines different research methods to tackle these issues.
The thesis consists of three articles. The first article explores the way Chinese and Scandinavian (Norwegian and Swedish) engineers working together perceive and make sense of cultural differences and communication practices in the work context. The study reveals that national cultural differences did not particularly hinder work collaboration. The lack of BELF competence on the other hand, made it challenging to communicate difficult messages, particularly when writing emails in English.
The second article first analyses the way Northern European employees formulate requests, criticisms and disagreements when writing internal work emails in English to their Asian colleagues and second, it examines the way these emails are perceived by the Asian employees, in terms of politeness, friendliness and clarity.
The final article discusses research methods used to collect language data in the workplace context and argues in favour of role enactment.
The thesis contributes to existing knowledge, from theoretical, methodological and practical perspectives. Among other things, the two empirical studies nuance existing theories that have emphasised the importance of national cultural differences and communication styles in the workplace and discusses the concept of national culture. In addition, practical contributions include a discussion on how communication in the workplace can be improved and suggestions for the workplace are made.
Figures - uploaded by Annelise Ly
Author content
All figure content in this area was uploaded by Annelise Ly
Content may be subject to copyright.
... Ly has a background in international management and French linguistics. In her doctoral project (Ly, 2016(Ly, , 2017, Ly examined how communication and cultural differences could affect work collaboration among international employees working in the same company. She investigated a company in the marine industry, with headquarters in Norway and numerous business units abroad. ...
... In both our projects, we used triangulation. In her doctoral project, Ly (2016) resorted to different methods: observation, interview of participants, role enactment and perception questionnaires. Taken together, these methods could shed light on different aspects of the same topic. ...
This chapter addresses the issue of identity and positioning while conducting fieldwork on foreign turf. Addressing one’s subjectivity is particularly important when collecting data on foreign turf. The purpose of this chapter is to share and reflect upon our experiences and strategies of communicating common grounds and building trust from two different settings: 1) a business setting; engineers in the marine industry subsidiaries in Norway, Sweden and China, and 2) a community setting; adolescents’ family values in a socio-economically marginalised province in South Africa. Our cases contribute to the methodological literature with the argument that identity attributes can be voluntarily downplayed or on the contrary highlighted depending on the behavior we wish to perform. The chapter offers practical tips to others who plan fieldwork on foreign turf.
... Eriksson & Kovalainen, 2008). Such methods might include role enactment, for example, in which a business practitioner is required to function and communicate in a situation that is typical of the particular job (Ly, 2016). It would also be useful for participants in BELF interactions to adopt an emancipatory view, acknowledging the potential of multilingualism and becoming more aware of the interplay of language and identity (see also Kassis Henderson et al., 2018;Yagi & Kleinberg, 2011) in the MNC context. ...
Bringing in insights from sociolinguistics, this conceptual paper advances the theorizing on language and identity in the MNC, viewed as socially constructed by individuals in interaction when they cross fluid linguistic and geographical boundaries. We posit that the identities of global business professionals in the MNC are not intrinsically tied to nationality and native language, they are rather cosmopolitan and constructed in interactions in English as the working language (BELF: English as a Business Lingua Franca). We further conceptualize the multilingual MNC as a social constellation – providing the context for processes of identity construction but also shaped by them. We outline three propositions that capture the ways in which BELF contributes to the construction of a cosmopolitan identity on three dimensions (individual, interactional and contextual) in multilingual professional MNC settings. The first one concerns the identification of individuals as participants in BELF interactions drawing from their different linguistic resources, national origins and professions, and previous experiences. The focus in the second one is on BELF interactions that manifest an orientation to both sharedness and difference in skills, knowledge and social relations. The third proposition concerns the MNC context in terms of enabling BELF interactions and being (re)constructed as a social constellation with fluid linguistic and geographical boundaries. We further elaborate on the methodological implications of sociolinguistic and cosmopolitan approaches to IM research on identity in general, and how our propositions could guide future research on language and identity in the MNC in particular.
... For example, engineers often rely on pictures and drawings that contain shared symbols, to convey meaning (e.g. Ly, 2016). As the development of new technologies has a significant effect on knowledge sharing and mutual understanding in cross-language encounters (Saarinen, 2016), it would be important to investigate these areas further. ...
This paper explores the assumptions underlying the core concept of language used in the growing field of language‐sensitive research in international management. We reviewed 92 articles on the topic of language(s) in multinational corporations published during the period 1997‐2015, and applied a linguistic lens to uncover how these articles “talk about language”. The assumptions found in these articles can be grouped into three complementary categories that take a structural, functional or social practice view of language. We go beyond the review by also reflecting on the consequences that these underlying assumptions have for the study of language in multinationals. We consider the social practice view the most promising one, and propose a future research agenda for advancing it and thereby contributing to theorizing about the multinational corporation more broadly.
This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
This conceptual paper advances the notion of “English as corporate language” in the multilingual reality of multinational companies (MNC) with novel insights from the English as lingua franca (ELF) paradigm of sociolinguistics. Inspired by Goffman, Erving. 1959. The presentation of self in everyday life. New York: Doubleday. dramaturgical metaphor of social life, we develop the notion of English as corporate language by making a distinction between the frontstage official language used in corporate communication and backstage working language used in interactions among MNC employees. We argue that the former approaches the notion of English as a native language and the latter represents ELF in the business domain (BELF); they are different in terms of understanding language competence, multilingualism and role of language in building legitimacy. Our conclusions imply first, that the frontstage English may not always be accessible to the backstage BELF users, due to which employees may feel disadvantaged or disempowered. Second, the use of formal language testing in recruitment and performance appraisal may transform into a gate-keeping mechanism that leads to power inequalities. In our recommendations, we call for an emancipatory language policy accepting different standards of English for different positions and adopting ideas of the Plain Language initiative to better reach all MNC employees.
