Language clustering and knowledge sharing in multilingual organizations: A social perspective on language

Knowledge sharing is a product of the collaborative and supportive environment shaped by socialization and informal communication between employees. Under the pressure of globalization and business internationalization, workforces have become increasingly diverse, particularly in terms of language. This has implications for knowledge sharing. It has been observed that employees tend to gravitate towards their own language communities, leading to language clustering (language-based grouping), which affects informal communication and knowledge mobility in organizations negatively. Although the existence of such clusters has been reported in many previous studies, we do not clearly understand how and why language brings these clusters into being and what kind of implications this has for knowledge sharing. This paper draws upon the theory of the semiotic processes of linguistic differentiation taken from linguistic anthropology to provide a theoretical framework capable of explaining the dynamics of language creating language clusters. Unlike previous knowledge management studies, which largely focus on the instrumental aspect of language, this paper adopts a social perspective on language. It is argued that, to deal with language clustering, we have to explore the dynamics operating behind it in detail. This will not only allow us to understand its implications for knowledge sharing but will also be helpful in devising potent knowledge management initiatives in multilingual workplaces.<br/

Leveraging student-led interviews in the multilingual workplace

Descriptive and Comparative Linguistic

Domain loss theory revisited: From multinational corporations to multicorporate nations

This paper examines how multinational corporations (MNCs) act as language managers when handling linguistic diversity in the workforce, for example through corporate language policies. Cooper's status, corpus and acquisition planning framework is applied to two case companies headquartered in Scandinavia, and the findings show that the MNCs' language policy and planning (LPP) activities go beyond the boundaries of the organisations, and interfere with the LPP activities of their home countries. The paper concludes that the language planning activities of MNCs may be even more important and impactful than those of the nation‐state. The term “multicorporate nations” is used to denote a shift in language management agency; a shift where the corporate level represents the new macro level and the national level the new meso level