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2017 | OriginalPaper | Buchkapitel

3. Language Barriers in Different Forms of International Assignments

verfasst von : Helene Tenzer, Tassilo Schuster

Erschienen in: Expatriate Management

Verlag: Palgrave Macmillan UK

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Abstract

International business activities are always accompanied by language-related barriers as companies are confronted with multiple local languages and a multinational workforce. To increase the efficiency of corporate communication, documentation and cross-national teamwork, an increasing number of companies have implemented common language policies in both their headquarters and their foreign subsidiaries and made English their official corporate language. However, introducing a common corporate language also creates friction among a multinational firm’s workforce and is fraught with challenges. To deepen our understanding of the language-related barriers that expatriates experience during international assignments, this study takes different tasks expatriates have to execute while being abroad into account and shows which types of international assignments are particularly vulnerable to the language effects. In particular, the study reveals that language causes negative emotional responses among employees of multinational corporations, restrains a common social identity, constitutes an obstacle to trust building and distorts organizational power relations. Finally, the study illustrates that not only a low absolute language proficiency of expatriates and local colleagues but also relative differences in proficiency levels among the multinational corporation’s workforce can hamper expatriate success.

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Vorheriges Kapitel An Experience-based Typology of the International Workforce

Nächstes Kapitel A Social Network Perspective on International Assignments: The Role of Social Support

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All 30 companies of the German stock index were contacted in November 2014 and asked about their corporate language policy.

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Titel: Language Barriers in Different Forms of International Assignments
verfasst von: Helene Tenzer
Tassilo Schuster
Verlag: Palgrave Macmillan UK
Buch: Expatriate Management
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-57405-3

Electronic ISBN: 978-1-137-57406-0

Copyright-Jahr: 2017
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57406-0_3