Professor Anne-Wil Harzing, Middlesex University, London Web: www.harzing.com, Twitter:@AWHarzing

Overview

•  Whirlwind tour through my research interests in this field, for details see the original papers (references all included in this presentation) or my inaugural lecture

•  http://www.harzing.com/blog/2016/04/babel-in-business-the-role-of-language-in-international-business

•  Research on the role of language in International Business (HQ-subsidiary relationships) 2000-2017

•  Research on language and cross-national research methods (2000-2012): •  Language and questionnaire response •  Language and response styles

•  Recent quasi-experimental research: •  Language and competitive behaviour •  Language and negotiation (ESCP Berlin)

•  Future research plans: •  Foreign Language use and competitive behaviour •  Foreign Language use and innovation •  Foreign Language use and business ideologies

Language in IB (1) 3

Language in IB (2)

•  Focuses mostly on the HQ-subsidiary relationship in multinational companies

•  Studies topics such as corporate language policies, as well as the impact of language choice on power balance, trust, and knowledge transfer

•  Level of analysis: mainly company level •  Research methods

•  Conceptual/review (Feely & Harzing, 2003, 2008, Tenzer, Terjesen & Harzing, 2017)

•  Cross-sectional survey in 13 countries (Harzing & Pudelko, 2013 & 2014, Reiche, Harzing & Pudelko, 2015)

•  Interview data (Harzing, Koester & Magner, 2011; Tenzer, Pudelko & Harzing, 2014; Zhang & Harzing, 2016)

Language in IB (3)

•  Feely, A.J.; Harzing, A.W. (2003) Language management in multinational companies, Cross-cultural management: an international journal, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 37-52.

•  Harzing, A.W.; Feely, A.J. (2008) The language barrier and its implications for HQ-subsidiary relationships, Cross Cultural Management: An International Journal, vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 49-60.

•  Harzing, A.W.; Köster, K.; Magner, U. (2011) Babel in Business: The language barrier and its solutions in the HQ-subsidiary relationship, Journal of World Business, vol. 46, no. 3, pp. 296-304.

•  Harzing, A.W.; Pudelko, M. (2013) Language competencies, policies and practices in multinational corporations: A comprehensive review and comparison of Anglophone, Asian, Continental European and Nordic MNCs, Journal of World Business, vol 48, no. 1, pp. 87-97.

•  Harzing, A.W.; Pudelko, M. (2014) Hablas vielleicht un peu la mia language? A comprehensive overview of the role of language differences in headquarters-subsidiary communication, International Journal of Human Resource Management, vol. 25, no. 5, pp. 696–717.

•  Tenzer, H.; Pudelko, M.; Harzing, A.W. (2014) The impact of language barriers on trust formation in multinational teams, Journal of International Business Studies, vol. 45, no. 5, pp. 508-535.

•  Reiche B.S.; Harzing, A.W.; Pudelko, M. (2015) Why and how does shared language affect subsidiary knowledge inflows? A social identity perspective, Journal of International Business Studies, vol. 46, no.5, pp. 528-551.

•  Zhang, L.E.; Harzing, A.W. (2016) From Dilemmatic Struggle to Legitimized Indifference: Expatriates’ host country language learning and its impact on the expatriate-HCE relationship, Journal of World Business, vol. 51, no. 5, pp. 774-786.

•  Tenzer, H.; Terjesen, S.; Harzing, A.W. (2017) Language in International Business: A review and agenda for future research, in press for Management International Review

Toaccesspapers,see:http://www.harzing.com/publications/by-typeandhttp://www.harzing.com/publications/online-papers

Language, questionnaire response & response styles (1)

Language, questionnaire response & response styles (2)

•  How does language influence the content of responses to questionnaires, e.g. cultural value questions

•  How does language influence response styles (ERS, MRS, ARS) and usefulness of rating vs. ranking

•  Level of analysis: individual, country (25+ countries)

•  Research methods •  Quasi-experimental •  Data collection in class •  Class split into two language treatments

Language, questionnaire response & response styles (3)

•  Harzing, A.W.; Maznevski, M.; and country collaborators (2002) The interaction between language and culture: A test of the cultural accommodation hypothesis in seven countries, Language and Intercultural Communication, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 120-139.

•  Harzing, A.W.; and 32 country collaborators (2005) Does the Use of English-language Questionnaires in Cross-national Research Obscure National Differences?, International Journal of Cross-Cultural Management, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 213-224.

•  Harzing, A.W. (2006) Response styles in cross-national mail survey research: A 26-country study, The International Journal of Crosscultural Management, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 243-266.

•  Harzing, A.W.; and 26 collaborators (2009) Rating versus ranking: what is the best way to reduce response and language bias in cross-national research?, International Business Review, vol. 18, no. 4, pp. 417-432.

•  Harzing, A.W.; Brown, M.; Köster, K., Zhao, S. (2012) Response style differences in cross-national research: dispositional and situational determinants, Management International Review, vol. 52, no. 3, pp. 341-363.

Toaccesspapers,see:http://www.harzing.com/publications/by-typeandhttp://www.harzing.com/publications/online-papers

Recent research: language and negotiation

•  ESCP Berlin (with Hannah Nagler, Robert Wilken) •  Tri-lingual German and French students negotiating in

one of three languages: German, French, English •  How does the language of negotiation influence

negotiation outcomes and satisfaction with the process? •  Do negotiations using a bridge language (English) differ

from negotiations in which one party uses their mother tongue

•  Data collection with dyads in business-to-business negotiation ongoing; coding of negotiation scripts

Recent research: Language & competition

•  Choice between collaboration and competition between two firms in a prisoner’s dilemma setting

•  Dutch students behave more competitively when playing in English •  But only if they had lived in

an Anglophone country for at least three months

30%

32%

34%

36%

38%

40%

42%

44%

46%

48%

50%

Lived in Anglo Country

Not lived in Anglo country

51% 48%

37%

45%

Percentage cooperative choices

Dutch English

Formoreinfosee:Akkermans,D.;Harzing,A.W.;Witteloostuijn,A.van(2010)Culturalaccommodationandlanguagepriming.Competitiveversuscooperativebehaviorinaprisoner’sdilemmagame,ManagementInternationalReview,50(5):559-584.

Future research (1)

•  FWO funding application with academics from University of Antwerp and Tilburg University

•  Foreign Language use and competition •  Extending our prior research to include: Belgium,

Netherlands, France, Finland, China, UK •  In-class data collection through prisoner’s dilemma game

+ pre- and post-survey

•  Foreign Language use and creativity •  Belgium, Netherlands, France, Finland, China, UK •  In-class/lab data collection: Alternate uses task, Remote

associations task + pre- and post-survey

Future research (2)

•  Leverhulme research grant application •  Foreign language use and key business concepts and

their underlying ideologies •  Data collection in 15+ countries through online

surveys with targeted audience (MBA students) •  English vs native + Spanish/Chinese/Japanese vs

native (USA/UK) •  Three stages:

•  exploratory associations •  negative/positive feelings & implicit association task •  business scenarios

Example words (based on HBR analysis)

Interdisciplinary Conceptual framework

Any questions or comments?

The End!