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My journey-in short
Teachin g interc ul tura l
communication critically/
global leadership development
(Ly&Rygg 2016; Ly 2021,
2022a, 2022b)/ teaching online
(Ly 2021)
Communication and cultural
differences in the workplace
(perception of cultural
differences, emails (production &
perception), BELF (Ly 2015,
2016,2017)
Internationalisation, corporate
values & HRM socialisation
mechanisms (Sverdrup &Ly,
2022)
Methodology/
intercultural fieldwork
(Ly 2012; 2015; 2019;
Ly&Spjeldnæs 2021
Integration of highly skilled
migrants
Political and leadership
discourse (Ly 2011,
2013, 2021, Fløttum &
Ly 2014,)
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•Population (source: www.ssb.no)
•5,379 millions (2020)
•819 356 immigrants in Norway –excluding Norwegian born to immigrant parents (2022)
(15% of the population)
•over 40% of highly skilled migrants (HSMs) are overqualified for their position.
•Business needs
•Norwegian employers claim they lack qualified candidates…
•But they are reluctant to hire HSMs because they do not trust their qualifications and
claim they lack proficiency in the local language (Risberg & Romani, 2022)
The context of the study: Norway
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•Language
•To official languages: bokmål and nynorsk
•Very high English proficiency, ranking 5th in the EF ranking
(https://www.ef.com/wwen/epi/)
•Corporate language in Norwegian organisations
•Norwegian is still considered the most important language in companies
Among the 6409 companies that took part of the NHO survey in 2018, around 80% stated
that their employees’ written and oral communication skills were important for the
company (Sanden, 2020)
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•Case: Norwegian organisation that has adopted Norwegian as its corporate language
•They studied the implications for international knowledge workers
•… and concluded that not having a good command of Norwegian limited international
workers’ career prospects and constituted a “linguistic glass ceiling” (Bjørge &Whittaker,
2015: 152)
«corporate language proficiency is a career asset (...). This is perceived as a question of
linguistic proficiency only, and nationality per se is not in itself a deciding factor.»(152)
àTo what extent does local language proficiency constitute a glass ceiling?
Bjørge and Whittaker’s study on knowledge workers (2015)
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•Not defined explicitly in the literature
•Some related concepts:
•Glass ceiling (Cotter et al., 2001),àwomen
•Bamboo ceiling (Hyun 2012)—> Asian/ Asian American
•Canvas ceiling (Lee, Szkudlarek, Nguyen & Nardon, 2020)àrefugees
•Relates to the concept of Language-based discrimination “ a situation where individuals
from a minority group are put to a disadvantage compared to other groups due to their
language skills” (Back & Piekkari, 2022)
•A definition: LGC: barriers in the careers of workers who do not have a sufficient
command of a determined language (local or corporate)
Linguistic glass ceiling defined
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•20 interviews of highly skilled migrants.
•All the informants were part of a leadership programme for HSM organised and financed
by Bergen Chamber of Commerce.
•18 of them had a job; two were-at the time of the interview-unemployed
•Interview questions about their journey, their professional advancement and feeling of
inclusion. Proficiency in Norwegian became a key topic.
•Interviews were conducted in Norwegian, English and French/ by me, «an insider».
The data
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•Weick, 1995, organisational studies
•the process by which people give meaning to their collective experiences.
•Some properties of sensemaking
•Identity and identification is central –who people think they are in their context shapes what they enact
and how they interpret events
•Retrospection provides the opportunity for sensemaking
•People enact the environments they face in dialogues and narratives
•People extract cues from the context to help them decide on what information is relevant and what
explanations are acceptable
•People favour plausibility over accuracy in accounts of events and contexts
Sensemaking
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“Language is absolutely a factor. Like understanding Norwegians and being comfortable in
any context where people are gonna speak Norwegian helps a lot. I felt so excluded at the
beginning when I didn’t understand anything. You know, at the time when I was learning
Norwegian and I didn't understand the jokes. I think the worst feeling is as people say
something and then everyone laughs but you though you understood every word in that
sentence.” (Informant 4)
«You need to learn the language and get into society” (Informant 11)
Findings:
1) Proficiency in Norwegian is important to be included
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•Some nuances
•If you are a native speaker of English, it is hard to learn Norwegian
“They tell me I need Norwegian in my everyday life. Except every time I go to the store and open my mouth
and I try to ask something, everybody responds in English, so I never get to practice” (Informant 3, from
English speaking country)
•But if you’re not a native speaker of English, Norwegian is needed to be taken seriously
“Before being a Norwegian speaker… I wasn’t taken seriously. They were seeing I was an English speaker-
but from (Middle East) -so I was being seen down. If you are from the US or Britain or Australia.. You have all
the respect. But it my case, it (the respect) went down (…) Three years later, I speak Norwegian now, so I
start seeing like I’ve been more accepted, I’m able to make more contact with people” ( Informant1)
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“I think as long as you're kind of a mercenary in a way that you're doing really good work
then yeah the Norwegian doesn't really matter and no one is gonna tell you that it matters.
My kind of wakeup call or midlife crisis is when I got to the mid level. And then all of a
sudden I realised -this whole time they're saying that the Norwegian is something nice to
have if you want to have the opportunity to look upwards, it's no longer just a nice to have
any more. And keep doing what you're doing doesn't work any more even though no one
has ever said a negative word about you in your medarbeidersamtaler.” (Informant3)
2) The importance of Norwegian is under communicated
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“Og så kom det en mann, norsk mann fra NHH . Og da hadde jeg 10 års erfaring. Og han
etter ett år, fikk samme lønn og samme stilling som meg etter 10 år. (...) så jeg spurte min
sjef og han sa: «du må snakke bedre norsk».» (informant 2)
Vi skulle sette et team, og jeg ville ledet teamet. «nei, det får du ikke». Jeg hadde jobbet
der i 8 år, jeg hadde gode resultater, jeg er sertifisert, jeg har mange års erfaring. Og da
sier jeg jeg vil ha noe til tilsvarer min erfaring og mine kompetanser. «Ja men (navn), din
norsk er ikke god nok». Og hun sier, «ja, men du kan bli senior konsulent». Men hør nå! I
fjor ringte det fra Brussels (international consulting firm). Vil du komme å jobbe for oss?
«Du kan bli partner» . Så jeg kan bli partner i Brussels men her i Norge er jeg ikke god
nok? De kunne betale noen noen privattimer hvis jeg var så dårlig i norsk!» (informant 14)
3) Proficiency in Norwegian is used as a proxy for
competence
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I: So there's a lot of non-Norwegians working there…And yeah, imagine the impact that it
has on a business when half the company realises that they're being paid significantly less
than the other half for the same work, it's a… It's not good.
AL: was it because of their level of Norwegian?
I: That’s what they said. But we work towards international customers, and the corporate
language is English. But the management is Norwegian” (Informant 10)
3) Proficiency in Norwegian is used as an excuse to give
lower salaries
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•Yes, there is a linguisti c glass-ceiling
•But can one break the linguistic glass ceiling if one speaks really really well?
Reflection break
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•Hvis du er en afrikansk dame som meg, som går med dreadlocks. Man tenker ofte, for
eksempel hvis du er gift med nordmann, at du har ingen jobb, du kan ikke språk, du har
ingen utdanning. Jeg ser at jeg føler at folk blir så overrasket når jeg gjør ting jeg tenker
av grunnleggende vanlige ting.
•Å ja, men er det mulig? Ja, så det blir litt sånn .. jeg skjønner jo det, men først så klager
du at vi ikke lærer oss språket, men når vi gjør det, så blir det: er det mulig, er du sikker?
(Informant 9)
4) Bewilderment
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AL: Kunne du snakke norsk da du jobbet i dette firma?
00:04:28 Informant
Ja, jeg kom jo på B2 og C1 nivå i løpet av ett år.
(…) men kompetansen min ble ikke annerkjent der. men da ble jeg gründer istedenfor, så
det gikk like greit (informant 7)
5) Mismatch between level of Norwegian and career
prospects
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«Jeg fikk meg bunad i fjor fordi jeg hadde bodd her i 25 år og jeg griner når jeg hører på
nystemten. Og mine barn er norske, og min mann er norsk og jeg har bodd her lenge enn
jeg har bodd i Venezuela for all del. Jeg er veldig glad i Norge så det har ikke med det å
gjøre. Og du hører jo på meg. Sant?»
(Informant 6)
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In America, English is a matter of functionality. In Norway, Norwegian is probably slightly
less a matter of functionality and I suppose less so as time goes on and modern
generations get turned over a bit more. So I wouldn't know there's a part of me that's like
well “they just want me to bend the knee, don't they?” (informant 3)
6) Norwegian as a way of displaying power
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•Yes, there is a linguisti c glass ceil ing
•But informants felt “betrayed” when they had learnt the language but did not get a
job/relevant job
•Even those who had relatively good positions felt they were “stuck” in their career
prospects because they have an accent and because they are foreigners.
• “Med en gang man hører at man snakker med litt aksent man blir liksom mistenksom. Er det noe som
skurrer der? Er det en som er annerledes? Det miljøet jeg jobber i er veldig norsk da så jeg Er
annerledes, enten jeg vil det eller ikke. ” (informant 5)
Discussion
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•.. Or maybe it depends on where the foreigner comes from
«I: det er litt kulere å være fra Frankrike, som alle har kjennskap i, med fransk ferie og
fransk vin, med mange positive assosiasjoner, enn å være fra Russland, fra Øst Europa,
sant? Som vasker hos deg eller bygger ditt hus. Ikke kan ditt språk og spytter.
AL: Føler du at det er en rangering av utlendinger
I: å ja, selvfølgelig: USA, Australia, Vest Europa, klasse 1. Øst Europa og nummer 3, de
andre land. Jeg opplever at det er kanskje slik da.» (Informant 6)
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•AL Tror du at med dine norske kunnskaper, at du ville ha vært der du er nå, hadde du
vært fra Pakistan?
•00:38:35 Informant
•Jeg tror ikke det.
(informant 8-from Vest Europa)
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• - work in progress-
•Illustrates the linguistic glass ceiling-even in a country with high English proficiency
•also suggests that there is more and that the statement “This is perceived as a question
of linguistic proficiency only, and nationality per se is not in itself a deciding
factor.»(Bjørge &Whittaker, 2015: 152) may not apply here
•Contributes to understanding language-based discrimination and feeling of discrimination
among HSM
•Nuances the narrative on D&I, particularly in the Norwegian context where most of the
research has focused on the majority’s position and point of view.
The study