Business Commons^™

The Effects Of Language-Related Misunderstanding At Work, John Fiset, Devasheesh P. Bhave, Nilotpal Jha

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Demographic, technological, and global trends have brought the language used at the workplace to the forefront. A growing body of research reveals that language could result in misunderstanding at work, and influence employees' performance and attitudinal outcomes. Language at work encompasses standard language (e.g., English) as well as several hybrid forms of language (non-native accents, code-switching, and jargon). We delineate how these forms of language could result in misunderstanding. We then identify relational, affective, and informational mechanisms that underlie the relationship between language-related misunderstanding and employees' performance and attitudinal outcomes, and highlight key boundary conditions. In doing so, we uncover …

A Review Of Two Decades Of Research On Language In International Management (1997 - 2022) - Supplemental Material, Yung-Hwal Park, Kevin Lehnert

Other Faculty Publications

This research reviews over two decades of research on language within international management. This comprehensive review codes and summarizes 263 articles, highlighting the impact of language in various strategic areas of management: language policy; HRM and organizational behavior; internationalization; HQ-subsidiary relationship; knowledge sharing; corporate reporting and governance; and mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and inter-firm strategic collaboration. This study also highlights two major needs within the discipline (internal vs. external focus of language and level of analysis – individual, group and organizational), and addressed the call for a broader future research agenda.

Language In Economics And Accounting Research: The Role Of Linguistic History, Giorgio Gotti, Seán G. Roberts, Marco Fasan, Cole B. J. Robertson

School of Accountancy Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper investigates whether a consideration of linguistic history is important when studying the relationship between economic and linguistic behaviors. Several recent economic studies have suggested that differences between languages can affect the way people think and behave (linguistic relativity or Sapir–Whorf hypothesis). For example, the way a language obliges one to talk about the future might influence intertemporal decisions, such as a company’s earnings management. However, languages have historical relations that lead to shared features—they do not constitute independent observations. This can inflate correlations between variables if not dealt with appropriately (Galton’s problem). We discuss this problem …

Signaling Towards The Cultural Lanes That Inform The Map Of Corporate Culture:Surveying Employer Perceptions Of Study Abroad Impacts, Maia Correll

Honors Projects in Modern Languages

While thorough research has been conducted to assess the short-term and long-term personal and professional impacts of a study abroad experience (SAE) on an individual, there lacks no further research on how and if such effects carry forward in a student's later career. This paper identifies whether employers of employees with SAE are more satisfied with their performance as compared to the performance of employees without prior SAE. Following this line of inquiry, I investigate the most frequently recognized attributes of employees with SAE as compared to their colleagues without such experience, identifying the researched benefits of study abroad which …

Mind Your Language: The Effects Of Linguistic Ostracism On Interpersonal Work Behaviors, John Fiset, Devasheesh P. Bhave

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Business and demographic trends are conflating to bring language issues at work to the forefront. Although language has an inherent capacity for creating interpersonal bonds, it can also serve as a means of exclusion. The construct of linguistic ostracism encapsulates this phenomenon. Drawing on ethnolinguistic identity theory, we identify how linguistic ostracism influences two interpersonal work behaviors: interpersonal citizenship and interpersonal deviance. We conduct a set of studies that uses multisource data, data across time, and data from three countries. Our results reveal that linguistic ostracism was associated with the enactment of lower interpersonal citizenship behaviors and higher interpersonal deviance …

A Review Of Two Decades Of Research On Language In International And Multicultural Marketing (1997 – 2020) – Supplemental Material, Yung-Hwal Park, Kevin Lehnert

Other Faculty Publications

This comprehensive review piece investigates over two decades of research, reflecting on the crucial role of language in international marketing success. In coding and summarizing 181 articles, this work highlights how language has impacted international-marketing-related outcomes across 19 specific content areas. Those content areas are then grouped into seven broad research themes relating to language: Marketing Communications; Linguistics; Branding; Consumer Behavior; Servicescape and Retailing; Internationalization, Supply Chain and Sales; Bilingualism. We synthesize these themes and the common outcomes of the research. From these themes we highlight challenges to the field and explore future research in language in international marketing.

International Business Education: What We Know And What We Have Yet To Develop, Anton Klarin, Boris Inkizhinov, Dashi Nazarov, Elena Gorenskaia

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

International business education (IBE) scholarship is extensive and is continuously growing. Nevertheless, to date there is no systems perspective overview of the literature dedicated to this topic. Using latest advancements in scientometric analysis, this study structures and visualizes the entire IBE scholarship, which allows to identify gaps in research and propose a number of future research directions. Data extracted from 894 peer-reviewed documents made available through the Scopus database allows to map the scholarship across five identified research directions in IBE – IB, political economy environment, and education; student learning and experience; the lingua franca and communication; interrelationship of IBE …

Managing The Global Virtual Workforce: Reducing The Liability Of Foreignness, Carol M. Sanchez, Rebekah Arndt

Peer Reviewed Articles

Effective management of global virtual workforces may reduce the liability of foreignness. As more organizations do business across borders, global workforce effectiveness is critical given logistic, language and cultural distances. Based on theories of global workforces, virtual technology use, cultural differences, and common language policy, we posit that global virtual workforces will better succeed if organizations (1) select appropriate communication technology, (2) train members to navigate cultural differences, and (2) adopt a language policy. We highlight strategies with examples from conversations with managers of several organizations, and we emphasize unexpected benefits to organizations that successfully manage their global virtual workforce.

Future-Time Framing: The Effect Of Language On Corporate Future Orientation, Hao Liang, Christopher Marquis, Luc Renneboog, Sunny Li Sun

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We examine how international variation in corporate future-oriented behavior, such as corporate social responsibility and research and development investment, could partially stem from characteristics of the languages spoken at firms. We develop a future-time framing perspective rooted in the literatures on organizational categorization and framing. Our theory and hypotheses focus on how companies with working languages that obligatorily separate the future tense and the present tense engage less in future-oriented behaviors, and this effect is attenuated by exposure to multilingual environments. The results based on a large global sample of firms from 39 countries support our theory, highlighting the importance …

Talking The Talk: The Effect Of Vocalics In An Interview, Marilena Phillips

Honors Projects in Communication

Our voices carry more than just content. People continuously make assumptions of one’s intelligence, credibility, personality, and other characteristics merely based on the way we talk. As the diversity of individuals in the workplace increases, so too do the differences in how those individuals talk. It is important that we understand how these different ways of speaking are being perceived in the workplace. More specifically, how are individuals being perceived prior to being hired via the interview process? This Honors Capstone project aims to understand the impact that vocal characteristics in an individual have on the interviewer’s perception of the …

The Branding Of Fake News And Its Economic Consequences, Diane Vitale Mba, Pauline Sutcliffe Msw, Ma

Faculty Works: Business (1973-2022)

In our 2016 Northeast Business and Economics Association paper, “The Trump Branding Machine,” we pointed out that the Trump Presidential campaign was unlike any we have ever witnessed. Donald Trump is now the President of the United States of America. This paper examines some of the extra and unusual dimensions he brings to the office of the Presidency, the White House and the public consciousness. (Vitale/Sutcliffe, 2016)

Trump’s Presidency has raised the level of political awareness – whether it is dividing or unifying. These conversations point to heightened levels of consciousness as it relates to political discourse within industry, classroom, …

The Branding Of Fake News: Trumpmania, Diane Vitale Mba, Pauline Sutcliffe Msw, Ma

Faculty Works: Business (1973-2022)

A presentation that accompanied the paper "The Branding of Fake News and its Economic Consequences: Trumpmania."

In our 2016 Northeast Business and Economics Association paper, “The Trump Branding Machine,” we pointed out that the Trump Presidential campaign was unlike any we have ever witnessed. Donald Trump is now the President of the United States of America. This paper examines some of the extra and unusual dimensions he brings to the office of the Presidency, the White House and the public consciousness.

The Evolution Of Vocabularies And Its Relation To Investigation Of White-Collar Crimes: An Institutional Work Perspective, Abhijeet K. Vadera, Ruth V. Aguilera

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

White-collar crimes are illegal and unethical actions by agents of an organization. In this paper, we address two related research questions concerning white-collar crime-how did the language of white-collar crime evolve? And how did this language co-evolve with the investigation of white-collar crime? Building on research on institutional work, we find that key institutional actors such as the Presidential Office are likely to use frames and adopt a particular language (i.e., the term "white-collar crime") in order to legitimize institutional practices (i.e., investigation of white-collar crimes). Conversely, less powerful actors such as the law enforcement agencies are then likely to …

Speaking Of Corporate Social Responsibility, Hao Liang, Christopher Marquis, Luc Renneboog, Sunny Li Sun

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We argue that the language spoken by corporate decision makers influences their firms’ social responsibility and sustainability practices. Linguists suggest that obligatory future-time-reference (FTR) in a language reduces the psychological importance of the future. Prior research has shown that speakers of strong FTR languages (such as English, French, and Spanish) exhibit less future-oriented behavior (Chen, 2013). Yet, research has not established how this mechanism may affect the future-oriented activities of corporations. We theorize that companies with strong-FTR languages as their official/working language would have less of a future orientation and so perform worse in future-oriented activities such as corporate social …

Practitioner Implications On Sample Frame For Single Language Products, Joe Schwartz

Association of Marketing Theory and Practice Proceedings 2010

When a marketing research project is undertaken in a single language the potential for bias through misrepresentation of those who do not speak the language is always an inherent risk. That bias can greatly increase in a market with a significant population that does not speak that language. In practice there are a small number of U.S. markets that can be significantly impacted when addressing this concern. The author identifies the conditions under which this bias can be so great as to skew results. The author extends this to show how the bias can be a significant factor in marketing …

La Mondialisation Qui Menace L’Identité Française Et Ses Relations Avec Le Commerce, Kelly Mcbrien

Senior Honors Projects

Globalization is an integral part of our society today: economically, socially and politically. Some may see Globalization as the world coming together through the ease and speed of capital, goods, services, ideas, information, and technology across our “shrinking” borders. Others may hold a more negative view of Globalization, and may see it as simply growing conflicts between nations and cultures. One of the central problems of globalization is the fear of homogenization or Americanization. Many cultures see globalization as cultural uniformity. As Benedict Anderson has said, “one man’s imagined community is another mans political prison.” This quote can help to …

A Prolegomenon To The Relation Between Accounting, Language And Ethics, Cecil E. Arrington

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This essay outlines the preliminary structure of a moral ontology of accounting understood as discourse. To speak of an ontology of accounting is to speak of the most general features of accounting, those features of its existence that are present irrespective of variations in observed “accountings,” of ways in which accounting manifests itself in lived experience. To speak of a moral ontology is to construe those general features as products of human choices and actions which follow from axiological (value-based) commitments to pursue the good and just life, however that life might be understood, and indeed understood differently by different …

Vol. Vi, Tab 38 - Ex. 32 - Language Learning In The United States Of America, Rosetta Stone

Rosetta Stone v. Google (Joint Appendix)

Exhibits from the un-sealed joint appendix for Rosetta Stone Ltd., v. Google Inc., No. 10-2007, on appeal to the 4th Circuit. Issue presented: Under the Lanham Act, does the use of trademarked terms in keyword advertising result in infringement when there is evidence of actual confusion?

Scripted Thought: Processing Korean Hancha And Hangul In A Multimedia Context, Nader T. Tavassoli, Jin K. Han

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We compare the cognitive processing of words written in alphabetic scripts with the cognitive processing of words written in logographic scripts. We suggest that the processing of words written in alphabetic scripts relies more heavily on the storage of--and the serial rehearsal properties of--short-term memory's phonological loop. In contrast, the processing of words written in logographic scripts relies more on the storage of--and the spatial-relational rehearsal properties of--visual short-term memory. A series of three experiments investigates implications of these processing differences within a single language, Korean, where words can be written in the alphabetic Hangul or in the logographic Han-cha. …

In The Beginning Was The Word...: The Sanctification Of An Accounting Language, K. M. Mccombie, K. Cooper

Faculty of Business - Accounting & Finance Working Papers

Traditional theories of language fail to recognise the social/political/historical influences on an accounting language. It is with a "critical" perspective that our paper addresses a problematic formation of accounting language. Specifically, we are concerned with the fact that some have the ability to be heard in accounting situations, while others are ignored, or reinterpreted. Our explanation of this is that accounting has experienced linguistic unification, which has resulted in the accounting profession imposing an "official" accounting language and maintaining control over it's use. This "official" accounting language is (re)produced continually, and our hope is that this cycle will be broken.

Analyzing The Language Of Finance: The Case Of Assessing Risk, Gail E. Farrelly, Michael F. Van Breda

Historical Working Papers

Analysis of the finanacial reports of the 50 largest banks and comparison with data in Value Line Investment Survey was undertaken to determine the relationship between numerical data and textual data. Conclusions report that there is a relationship and one that may be useful in at least short range prediction of actual financial returns.