Discursive voids in emerging markets present opportunities and challenges to debate meanings and taken-for granted assumptions. This article uncovers various strategies used by the researcher and the research participants to address the discursive void and to negotiate shared meaning about employee empowerment in Russia. In the absence of a concept for empowerment in the languages of the study, the researcher and the research participants engaged in joint sensemaking to bridge discursive voids. We contribute to the discussion of qualitative cross-language research in emerging markets by identifying the strategies used not only by the researcher, whose view has dominated previous research, but also those of the research participants. The researcher in our study addressed the discursive void by taking on the dual role of researcher-translator, engaging in contextual approach to translation, consulting external interpreters, and using iteration and flexibility in the course of the research process. Our research participants resorted to proverbs to address the discursive void, make sense of empowerment, and render it locally meaningful. Proverbs are a valuable methodological tool for sensemaking and theorising about context-specific phenomena in IB research.

中文翻译：

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俄罗斯跨语言研究中的话语空白：协商共享意义的策略

新兴市场的话语空白为辩论意义和理所当然的假设提供了机遇和挑战。本文揭示了研究人员和研究参与者使用的各种策略来解决话语空白并就俄罗斯员工赋权的共同意义进行协商。在研究语言中缺乏赋权概念的情况下，研究人员和研究参与者进行了联合意义建构，以弥合话语空白。我们通过确定研究人员（其观点主导了先前的研究）以及研究参与者所使用的策略，为新兴市场的定性跨语言研究的讨论做出了贡献。我们研究中的研究人员通过承担研究人员和翻译人员的双重角色来解决话语空白，参与翻译的上下文方法，咨询外部口译员，并在研究过程中使用迭代和灵活性。我们的研究参与者诉诸谚语来解决话语空白，理解赋权并使其在当地有意义。谚语是一种有价值的方法论工具，用于对 IB 研究中的特定情境现象进行意义建构和理论化。