International Management and Language

Susanne Tietze

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781134139750
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Globalization processes have resulted in the emergence of business and management networks in which the sharing of knowledge is of crucial importance. Combining two contemporary and important subject areas – namely that of international management and also language and communication in multi-language contexts – the author of this book presents a wealth of ideas, examples and applications taken from international and global contexts, which show that 'language matters' in the pursuit of international business affairs.

The book establishes the theoretical core of its main ideas by introducing two orientations (social construction and linguistic relativity) and demonstrates how they can be drawn on to frame and understand the activities of managers. Highly innovative and topical, Susanne Tietze's book will appeal to students of international management and international human resource management as well as those studying intercultural communication. It is also useful for managers and practitioners who work internationally.

1 Setting the scene

This is a book about language as it is used by a particular professional group, namely managers, including those who manage across national and cultural boundaries. The activities of managers – as well as other organizational and professional groups – are intrinsically linked to the use of language and acts of communicating meaning. However, managers – more than other professional or organizational groups – need to possess superb communicative skills as they are perpetually talking and communicating with different professional, hierarchical or functional groups in order to achieve their organization’s goals and objectives and also to realize their own personal interests and projects. Apart from such communicative and skill-based functions, the use of language has a deeper meaning for managers: it is their most used and least understood tool for creating professional identity, status and credibility to the extent that managers could be seen as created through their own language use. Large parts of this book will be dedicated to explore this claim.

Their main tool for communicating is in most instances, of course, their own native language or mother tongue. Additionally, concomitant with the increase in the professionalization of management, managers draw on the discourses of management – by which I simply mean the specialist vocabulary and techniques acquired through management education and practice. In brief, managers use both their native language and the discourse/s of management to pursue organizational (and personal) projects. Examples of such discourses are the vocabulary and techniques/practices of Human Resource Management, Marketing Management, Strategic Management and so on. International managers are then those people who manage across national and cultural boundaries and, in doing so, they too perpetually use language and discourse. Much of their communication involves the use of their mother tongues as well as, or even exclusively, the use of the English language as the lingua franca of international business (Bargiela-Chiappini 2006). Therefore, international managers use both their native language as well as English and the discourse/s of management to pursue organizational (and personal) projects.

Linguistic turns

The reason to write this book is to bring together the knowledge, which the field of management studies has accumulated about a) ‘language’ and its use (as in ‘the German language’; ‘the Japanese language’; the Finnish language; the Russian language etc.); b) discourse and its use; and c) the use of English as the lingua franca of international business and management.

The broad field of management and organization studies has indeed already taken on board the importance of language and communication in managerial work and undertaken what has been labelled the ‘linguistic turn’ – i.e. it increasingly concerns itself with managerial and organizational use of language and discourse (Deetz 2003a; Holman and Thorpe 2003; Tietze et al., 2003). The underlying premise to this linguistic turn is based on social constructionist ideas about reality and knowledge and acknowledges that when managers are communicating they are not merely ‘talking’ or exchanging information; rather they are actively creating social and organizational worlds of work. Similarly, international managers are doing much more than merely ‘communicating in English’ across national, cultural and organizational boundaries; rather they are contributing to the creation of increasingly global realities. Thus, the axiomatic premise of this book is that ‘language matters’.

Of course, there is already much knowledge about the relationship between language, reality, management activity and practices – as quite an impressive body of literature dedicates itself to its exploration. However, different sub-fields of the overall field of organization and management studies have undergone slightly different ‘linguistic turns’ and pursued different areas of interest and have therefore focused on different themes and topics. For example, the sub-field one can describe as ‘organization studies’ has made the study of discourses in and between organizational contexts its major concern. Research projects have provided deep insights into the processual, complex and contested character of managerial activity and drawn attention to the discursive character of organizations. The subfield of international management has focused on the use (or non-use) of languages including that of English as the shared corporate language and scholars within this tradition have looked, for example, at language proficiency and its consequences for social exclusion/inclusion. The sub-field of international business has adopted an explicit focused on English as the lingua franca in international business contexts and its research focuses on the role of English in internal communications of global firms, as well as the emergence of multiple ‘Englishes’ and possibilities for resistance and reflection.

To repeat, the commonality between these sub-fields is the overarching interest in language and the realisation that it is at the core of management processes and that these processes can indeed be understood and approached through a linguistic lens.

Ironically, despite this shared interest in all matters related to language, discourse and communication, these different, yet related, fields do not ‘talk to each other’. In other words there are no instititutionalized (e.g. shared conferences, journals, courses) ways of communicating across these fields, nor have particular research ties been developed between researchers from these different traditions. Thus, in the field of organization studies, the investigation of ‘discourses’ rules at the expense of any consideration of the role of native or national languages in general and the role of English as the ‘lingua franca’ in particular. In the fields of international management and business (which are more closely related to each other), there are hardly any investigations of the use of discourses, managerial or otherwise.

Such ‘non-communication’ seemed to me to be a shame and this book aims to overcome this separation and to build on the commonalities between different traditions and fields.

A global context

The broad context for this book is that of ‘globalization’ – in other words it is assumed that currently the world is changing and becoming more global and that these processes can be approached from a linguistic perspective. I want to stay clear of hyperbolic language – claiming that change is ‘unprecedented’ and globalization is the inevitable fate of humankind – but rather within possible positions vis-à-vis globalization, the book takes a ‘transformationalist position’, which is explained below.

In terms of discussions and debates about globalization, one can differentiate between three perspectives. The hyperglobalist thesis sees globalization as a new epoch of human history which features radically different changes in trade, finance and governance. Economic factors are seen to be driving changes in cultural, social and political structures (Ohmae 1990). Within this school of thinking these developments are either celebrated as a utopia of individual freedom based on free-market principles or seen as oppressive and enslaving from a neo-Marxist position. The sceptical thesis argues that claims about the existence of globalization are exaggerated. Hirst and Thompson (1996) suggest that current developments are not new at all and that globalization is little more than a contemporary myth. The transformationalist thesis sees globalization as a force which drives social, economical, political and cultural changes. Held et al., (1999: 16) offer a definition, which can be positioned within the transformationalist thesis and which also provides a useful backdrop for the position of this book:

A process (or set of processes) which embodies a transformation in the spatial organization of social relations and transactions – assessed in terms of their extensity, intensity, velocity and impact – generating transcontinental or interregional flows and networks of activity, interaction, and the exercise of power.

It appears that this understanding of globalization acknowledges its existence, but also expresses that transformations are multiple and varied and that there are therefore different types of globalization, which can exist concurrently. Held et al. describe these different types of globalization as thick, diffused, expansive and thin – in other words, it is thinkable that some practices have indeed become widespread and expansive, yet that others remain diffuse and do not converge into more universalistic patterns. Also, globalization here is not defined as an exclusively economic phenomenon, but is seen to consist of diverse power networks set in economic, political, environmental, technological and cultural domains. Thus it is a complex socio-historical process that generates dynamic processes of cooperation as much as of animosity and conflict (Faria and Guedes 2005). Thus framed, the existence of globalization does not imply the arrival of a boundaryless world (Ohmae 1994) or a world in which national and cultural borders do not matter any more: national idiosyncrasies are as abundant as ever and even the most transnational of corporations retain a form of national identity, despite their global presence. Rather, it depicts a world which is becoming more complex, perhaps less stable, and more interconnected. It does not deny the existence of boundaries and borders; rather it proposes that some might have become permeable or eroded, but others might have become firmer and more defined. Thus managers can still be viewed as communicators across different organizational as well as national and cultural boundaries. However, the character and relationships between such boundaries has become more complex and frequently complicated.

The terms ‘language’ or ‘discourse’ are conspicuously absent in the above definition – a fact Phillipson (2003: 3) points to when he says that ‘in the copious literature on European integration and globalization, the language dimension tends to be absent, except in specialist works on the sociology of language and nationalism’. It is my hope that this book does go beyond the specialism of a particular discipline or school of thought in that it pulls together the topics and themes from the field of management studies as well as linguistics and in doing so raises the profile of language and discourse in global processes.

However, it would be premature and unfair to say that language and discourse have been completely sidelined and ignored in scholarly works. There are indeed plenty of contributions in different fields which are related to global as well as linguistic processes – to reiterate: the purpose of the book being to create some intellectual synergy between them. Three areas, which have received scholarly attention are introduced here as they provide important parameters for the purpose and rationale of the book. They will be revisited in more detail in subsequent chapters.

• English language: There is a huge body of literature which describes and assesses the role of the English language in global contexts. There are different strands of literatures, each of which focuses on different aspects. For example, there is a strand which looks at globalization processes in the light of language teaching and in particular English language teaching (e.g. Block and Cameron 2002) whereas other strands look at (national or European) language policies (Phillipson 2003) or the consequences of language competence for national and individual identities (Pavlenko and Blackledge 2004). The literatures of international business and management focus on the use of English and/or other languages in international or global organizational contexts (Bargiela-Chiappini 2006; Nickerson 2005); whereas a more general-oriented strand of literature discusses the consequences of the spread of English for other languages and cultures, the entailed possibilities and dangers (Crystal 2003).

• Global discourses: Scholars have claimed that there are discourses which are becoming increasingly spread and which transgress national and cultural boundaries. These discourses provide both the words and accompanying practices for describing and understanding the global world. Fairclough (2002) provides the discourse of ‘new public management’ (i.e. the transferability of the private sector as a role model for the public one) as one example of a discourse which has transcended national boundaries. Gee et al. (1996) refer to ‘Total Quality Management’ and ‘teamwork’ as similar examples of ‘words and practices’ which have achieved a globalized meaning, i.e. which are recognized as meaningful and important in multiple and diverse organizational contexts. Also, they argue that such globalized discourses have consequences for the identities of people who use them or are subjected to them.

• Global identities: A theme which criss-crosses several of the strands of literatures addresses issues of changing and emerging identities. Some scholars comment on the emergence of global identities, which quite often they see formulated within the global discourses (Gee et al. 1996), associated with the use of English as a global communicative means. Their evaluation of such possibilities of identity construction is varied, though the academic literature tends to be sceptical and reserved vis-à-vis claims that such identity convergence exists and/or that it might be a beneficial development (Elgin Haden 2000; Tietze 2004).

Thus, there is indeed a plethora of contributions – however, they derive from such diverse traditions and approaches, that they have yet to develop common projects and interests. Indeed, up to date there is only a handful of studies which concern themselves with the relationship between both language and (management) discourse – which entails questions about whether it matters that the discourses of management are mainly produced and reproduced in the English language; whether the incorporation of English/American management idioms and terminology into other languages and cultures implies an increasing convergence of their values and identity. Whereas such questions have been addressed by linguists and culture researchers in their own respective domains, they have not been examined from a combined language and (management) discourse perspective.

Rationale, purpose, audience

The overall reason to write this book is to create synergy between these mentioned fields and in doing so to advance knowledge. Although it is a theoretically informed book, it is not necessarily exclusively written for scholars. Rather its target audience also includes teachers and students in the field of organization, management and international business studies. Also, teachers and students of culture and language might find aspects of this book interesting as discussions about the relationship between language and culture feature in this book. Finally, the book is also written with practitioners and managers in mind. I am aware that – in the words of my colleague Professor Nigel Holden – ‘the word communication lights up eyes’, whereas the word ‘language makes them glaze over’ – and that a book on communication, in particular an intercultural one, would render the book more interesting for particular audiences. However, there are two good reasons not to write a book on communication: a) a useful body of materials already exists and I have nothing new to add to the books which have been published in the area of (intercultural) communication; b) I believe that understanding how communication works is not possible without an understanding of how language works and the role it plays in social life. Such understanding can be achieved by providing a theoretically grounded understanding of language. Rather than providing prescriptive advice to the imagined readership, the book’s philosophies can best be expressed in the words of the linguist Deborah Cameron (2000: 180): ‘a competent speaker is one who understands the “grammar of consequences” and can judge which of the available choices will come closest to producing the desired interpretation in a particular set of circumstances’. Practically then, the book provides a repertoire of ideas, theories and examples to inform and guide the making of choices in an increasingly complex and connected world.

Structure of the book

Before I proceed to present a chapter-by-chapter outline of this book, it is necessary to comment on its hybrid character. It is difficult to pigeonhole this book using established categories. It is not a conventional textbook, although it does present overviews over particular bodies of knowledge and also includes features associated with textbooks (such as case studies; text boxes; questions for the reader). It is not a straightforward review of the literature – although it does present and comment upon a large volume of research materials from across the world. It is not a research monograph – although it is a theoretically – and conceptually informed book and includes (in particular in part two) original research findings. On reflection, I wonder whether it is possible to claim that the very hybrid character of this book expresses something not unlike the blurring of clear-cut boundaries that seem to be associated with globalization processes and which are indicative of different ways of framing and thinking about a subject.

Taken as a whole the chapters of the book complete different intellectual tasks, including theoretical positioning; conceptual clarification; discussion of empirical research and assessment of theoretically grounded research; presentation of empirical work and discussion of the presented material.

The book is divided into three parts. Part I sets out the theoretical orientation of the book and introduces its ‘working tools’, i.e. concepts and ideas. It also outlines the different research approaches and studies conducted by scholars in the field of management. It would be misleading, though, to describe Part I as being of a purely ‘theoretical/conceptual’ nature as it also includes many examples and applications taken from work contexts. Part II consists of se...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Figures
• List of Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Setting the scene
• Theories, ideas and approaches
• Language matters
• Management and language
• International management and language
• English as the global lingua franca
• Spreading the management gospel – in English
• Applications
• German A language of management designed for Klarheit
• Russia's long struggle with Western terms of management and the concepts behind them
• Language and careers in multinational corporations
• The business-unit concept at AKZO and the interpreting role of the CEO
• Communication strategies and cultural assumptions An analysis of French–Japanese business meetings
• An Italian perspective on international meetings, management and language
• Humour and management in England
• Conclusions
• Management in other languages How a philological approach opens up new cross-cultural vistas
• Conclusion International management and translation
• References
• Index