Understanding the Dynamics of Language and Multilingualism in Professional Contexts

Edited by Philippe Lecomte, President of GEM&L, Retired professor of International Communication, Toulouse Business School, Mary Vigier, Professor Emeritus, Department of Management, ESC Clermont Business School, France, Claudine Gaibrois, Professor of Global and Intercultural Management, Bern University of Applied Sciences, Business School and External Lecturer in Language Diversity, Research Institute for Organizational Psychology, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland and Betty Beeler, Retired Professor of Intercultural Management, Ecole Supérieure de Commerce, Saint-Etienne, France

Contents:

Foreword xiv
Introduction to Understanding the Dynamics of Language and
Multilingualism in Professional Contexts 1
Betty Beeler, Mary Vigier, Claudine Gaibrois and Philippe Lecomte

PART I MULTILINGUALISM IN A RAPIDLY
CHANGING WORLD: NEW PERSPECTIVES
ON LANGUAGE DIFFERENCES IN ORGANISATIONS
1 Introduction to Multilingualism in a rapidly changing
world: new perspectives on language differences in organisations 7
Claudine Gaibrois
2 Recognition theory: a new lens for investigating language
differences in multilingual organisations 13
Marjana Johansson and Martyna Śliwa
3 Diversity, activation and self-support: clashing
institutional logics around the inclusion of refugees on the
labour market 30
Dorte Lønsmann
4 Agency and multilingualism in public health care:
how practitioners draw on local experiences and encounters 46
Yaron Matras, Rebecca Tipton and Leonie Gaiser

PART II LANGUAGE PRACTICES IN MULTILINGUAL
WORKPLACES AND IMPLICATIONS FOR
HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
5 Introduction to Language practices in multilingual
workplaces and implications for human resource management 62
Mary Vigier
6 Ethnographic study of a manager’s engagements with
written ‘English’ workplace genres in MNCs 67
Tiina Räisänen and Anne Kankaanranta
7 Revisiting ethnography and reflexivity for
language-sensitive workplace research 84
Kristina Humonen and Jo Angouri
8 Multilingual organisations: employee motives and human
resource management adaptive strategies 101
John Fiset

PART III ORGANISATIONS AS DISCURSIVE,
POLYPHONIC SPACES:
A MULTIDISCIPLINARY APPROACH
9 Introduction to Organisations as discursive, polyphonic
spaces: a multidisciplinary approach 119
Betty Beeler
10 Organizing through and by multilingualism: writing
languages into the study and practices of organizations 124
Marjana Johansson and Wilhelm Barner-Rasmussen
11 Revisiting identity-construction in the multilingual
workplace: an intersectional approach 140
Linda Cohen and Jane Kassis-Henderson
12 Duality of language as a tool for integration versus
mobility at work: utility of a polyphonic perspective 154
Cihat Erbil, Mustafa F. Özbilgin and Sercan Hamza Bağlama

PART IV DIFFERENT CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES
ON THE POWER OF LANGUAGE IN
INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
13 Introduction to Different critical perspectives on the
power of language in international business 169
Philippe Lecomte
14 Language in multilingual organizations: power, policies
and politics 173
Guro R. Sanden
15 Voices in the employee magazine: a critical investigation 189
Peter Kastberg and Marianne Grove Ditlevsen
16 Let us (not) speak Finnish! On language, power relations
and ambivalence 205
Janne Tienari
Conclusion to Understanding the Dynamics of Language and
Multilingualism in Professional Contexts 219
Claudine Gaibrois, Betty Beeler, Philippe Lecomte and Mary
Vigier

Index