Language Management in a Japanese Multinational Company: A Data-Driven Approach

Globalization poses a challenge for businesses with linguistically diverse staff, prompting the choice of English as the default corporate language. In Japan, research on the use of English in business contexts from both corporate and employees' perspectives is very limited, let alone studies adopting a data-driven approach. This study focuses on Rakuten, a Japanese multinational corporation (MNC), with the aim of illustrating the key challenges the company faces when it adopts English as its official language. The research is interdisciplinary and is positioned at the intersection of business communication, computational sociolinguistics, and language management. The first article, "Content analysis of language-sensitive recruitment influenced by corporate language policy using topic modeling", explores the match (or mismatch) between language-sensitive recruitment (English, Japanese, or bilingual) and corporate language policy. The second article, "It is all about TOEIC: discovering topics and trends m employee perceptions of corporate language policy", examines the barriers m multinational companies that have adopted a foreign language and analyzes employees' attitudes. The third and final article, "Analyzing cultural expatriates' attitude toward 'Englishnization' using dynamic topic modeling", investigates changes in employee' perceptions of Japanese work practices and values over time. The results of my study have implications for the implementation of language-sensitive recruitment in a multilingual corporate context. Furthermore, the thesis also highlights the evolutionary nature of corporate language policy topics by exploring and categorizing large amounts of text. Overall, the results presented in the three articles expand the understanding of the challenges associated with the use of English in a Japanese busines

Analyzing cultural expatriates' attitudes toward “Englishnization” using dynamic topic modeling

[EN] Several Japanese multinational corporations (MNCs) have recently adopted an English-only policy known as “Englishnization”. This study examines the impact of this policy using computer-assisted text analysis to investigate changes in cultural expatriates’ perceptions of Japanese work practices and values over time. Cultural expatriates are a significant but underexplored outcome of globalization. Despite the recent proliferation of studies on the internationalization of Japanese MNCs, few studies have focused on cultural expatriates' perceptions of corporate language policy in social media texts. This study analyzes a corpus of 208 posts from Rakuten, a Japanese MNC, on Glassdoor from 2009 to 2020. The findings suggest that these posts can be divided into three content groups: the threat of a foreign corporate culture, embracing the Rakuten way, and perceptions of leadership and marginalized status. Further, the posts reveal how Rakuten’s corporate language policy, as an instrument of internal internationalization, impacts external internationalization. The dynamics of “Englishnization’’ reveal a pressing issue facing Rakuten: namely, how to balance multinational cohesion with monolingualism and multiculturalism. This paper aims to demonstrate that dynamic topic modeling could enhance our understanding of the manner in which cultural expatriates and the English-only policy affect the internationalization of Japanese MNCs. It contributes to the literature by examining cultural expatriates’ perceptions of Japanese work practices and values from a diachronic perspective.Zhang, Z. (2021). Analyzing cultural expatriates' attitudes toward “Englishnization” using dynamic topic modeling. Journal of Computer-Assisted Linguistic Research. 5(1):1-26. https://doi.org/10.4995/jclr.2021.15909OJS12651Alalwan, Ali Abdallah. 2018. 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Beyond liking and subscribing: How college women perceive and navigate their relationships with beauty YouTubers

HonorsDepartment of Communication and MediaUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/169430/1/yvonnezy.pd

Content Analysis of Language-Sensitive Recruitment Influenced by Corporate Language Policy Using Topic Modeling

Language-sensitive recruitment is a language management tool frequently used by corporate organizations. However, its relationship with corporate policy is lacking; hence, this study aims to consider language-sensitive job advertisements from a computational text analysis perspective and explore the match (or mismatch) between language-sensitive recruitment (English, Japanese, or bilingual) and corporate language policy. This study uses corpus methods combined with topic modeling and text analysis to investigate the influence of corporate language policy on the textual practice of language-sensitive recruitment in a Japanese multinational corporation (MNC). This study finds a considerable discrepancy between recruitment needs and corporate language policy. It also finds that bilinguals still play a key role in crossing language boundaries 10 years post-mandate of the English language policy in this Japanese MNC. The study contributes to business language by exploring an additional scenario for linking language competency with actual recruitment needs. Thus, this study sheds light on the implementation of language-sensitive recruitment in a multilingual corporate context, affecting the communication patterns and recruitment tactics

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