Standardization and contextualization: A study of language and leadership across 17 countries

With multinational corporations increasingly adopting English as a corporate language, the issue of language management and the pros and cons of language standardization have been widely debated in the literature. Our 17-country study considers whether the use of English as a common corporate langua...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of world business : JWB 2011-07, Vol.46 (3), p.296-304
Main Authors: Zander, Lena, Mockaitis, Audra I., Harzing, Anne-Wil
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Business management
Context
Cross-national analysis
Cultural accommodation
Culture
English language
Language
Language Leadership Context Culture Multinational company Cultural accommodation
Language use
Leadership
Manycountries
Multinational company
Multinational corporations
Multinational enterprises
Senior management
Studies
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Summary:With multinational corporations increasingly adopting English as a corporate language, the issue of language management and the pros and cons of language standardization have been widely debated in the literature. Our 17-country study considers whether the use of English as a common corporate language causes difficulties. We empirically examine whether managerial reactions to specific leadership scenario-based situations change as a consequence of the language they use. Our results show that the choice of language (native or English) does not matter much for the studied leadership scenarios. Instead, leadership decisions and reactions depend more on cultural and situational context.
ISSN:1090-9516
1878-5573
DOI:10.1016/j.jwb.2010.07.009