The impact of language barriers on knowledge processing in multinational teams
Introduction
To keep up with changing economic conditions and global competition (Marrone, 2010), multinational corporations (MNCs) utilize team-based approaches (Neck, Bligh, Pearce, & Kohles, 2006). Multinational teams (MNTs) are paramount for global collaboration, particularly for knowledge processing within MNC units (Backmann, Kanitz, Tian, Hoffmann, & Hoegl, 2020). As teams are defined by the interdependency between their members (Harris & Sherblom, 2018), they rely on intense communication to align their members’ contributions. This communication is highly vulnerable to language barriers, since MNTs not only include members of different national and cultural backgrounds (Earley & Gibson, 2002), but typically also unite speakers of different mother tongues (Tenzer, Pudelko, & Harzing, 2014).
MNTs’ knowledge processing is both particularly decisive for their goal fulfilment and particularly vulnerable to language barriers. Global corporations explicitly form MNTs to locate, store, allocate, and retrieve diverse knowledge (Haas & Cummings, 2015), to solve complex tasks or to take high-level decisions (Dahlin, Weingart, & Hinds, 2005). Communication is essential for knowledge processing activities like learning about what others know, bringing new knowledge into employees’ shared repository, and retrieving knowledge from the group (Kotlarsky, van den Hooff, & Houtman, 2015). Language as the vehicle of communication is therefore indispensable for these processes (Reiche, Harzing, & Pudelko, 2015; Wang, Clegg, Gajewska-De Mattos, & Buckley, 2018; Welch & Welch, 2008).
Although knowledge researchers (Ahmad, 2018; Ahmad & Widén, 2015) and international business (IB) scholars (Ahmad & Barner-Rasmussen, 2019; Peltokorpi & Vaara, 2014) agree on the disruptive potential of language barriers for knowledge processing in MNTs, their relationship has not been studied in sufficient depth. To date, IB language research has mostly been concerned with language proficiency problems, assuming that barriers can be removed by increasing MNT members’ fluency in their team’s working language (Peltokorpi & Vaara, 2014). Countering this general position, some IB studies assert that communication is bound by the socio-cognitive contexts of conversation partners (König, Fehn, Puck, & Graf-Vlachy, 2017) and that culture influences how language is used (Chen, Geluykens, & Choi, 2006; Kassis Henderson, 2005; Wang et al., 2018), suggesting that the influence of language on MNT knowledge processing may be more complex. However, this relationship has not been explored in detail and a comprehensive perspective on language effects is still missing. Therefore, we formulated our initial research question very broadly: How do language barriers influence knowledge processing in MNTs?
We tackled our research question using an inductive qualitative approach based on 90 interviews in 15 MNTs. After the first iterations between data generation and data analysis, we soon noticed that the relationship between language barriers and knowledge processing in MNTs is mediated by communication, which is also supported by the literature. Given the relevance of communication as a mediator, we break our initial, broad RQ down into two, more differentiated questions:
RQ 1: How do language barriers affect communication in MNTs?
RQ 2: How do language-induced communication impediments affect MNT knowledge processing?
Regarding RQ 1, our qualitative research highlights the relevance of two kinds of language barriers MNT members are facing, namely evident and hidden barriers, and their adverse impact on participation and sensemaking in MNT communication. More specifically, we provide evidence for the rather counter-intuitive result of communication impediments persisting even in MNTs where all members speak the working language fluently (i.e. face no evident language barriers). This reveals pernicious consequences of (hidden) language barriers for communication. Our contribution thus encourages a more comprehensive conceptualization of language barriers and the ensuing communication challenges in MNTs. With respect to RQ2, we further elucidate how language-based communication impediments hamper what we call basic and sophisticated knowledge processing activities in MNTs. Revealing these processes, our study offers a more holistic understanding of the micro-foundations of knowledge processing in multilingual settings.
On a higher conceptual level, the evident language barriers in our teams resonate with an instrumental perspective on language as a tool in the hands of corporate leaders, whereas hidden barriers reflect the need for a cultural perspective on language as a carrier and expression of culture. Interestingly, our results on knowledge processing similarly reflect the relevance of two different perspectives on knowledge. Basic knowledge processing activities support an information processing perspective on knowledge as something teams can process mathematically, store and retrieve like data on a computer, whereas sophisticated activities resonate with a socio-cognitive perspective that foregrounds complex cognitive and communicative processes such as uncovering implicit assumptions and negotiating meaning. Our findings integrate these previously contrasting perspectives into a holistic perspective and incorporate language-related IB and knowledge processing research as previously separate debates into one conceptual model.
Section snippets
Conceptual background
We built our study’s foundation on two research fields: (1) IB and contiguous social sciences research on the role of language in IB, and (2) IB and related organizational behavior research regarding the role of communication for knowledge processing in MNTs.
Methodology
To answer our research questions, we chose a qualitative research strategy, which is very well suited to examine processes (Pratt, 2009). We specifically pursued an interplay of inductive and abductive approaches. Together, induction and abduction are more likely to generate new theory than induction alone (Timmermans & Tavory, 2012).
The inductive element dominated at the beginning of our investigation. Given the competing perspectives on language, an integrated account of linguistic effects in
Findings
We organize our findings section around our two research questions. For RQ 1, we show how evident language barriers lead to reduced participation in team communication and how hidden language barriers impair joint sensemaking in MNTs. For RQ 2, we demonstrate how reduced participation hampers both basic and sophisticated knowledge processing activities and how particularly disruptive impaired sensemaking is to sophisticated knowledge processing activities.
Discussion
In response to RQ 1, we established that evident language barriers lead to reduced participation in team communication and hidden language barriers to impaired sensemaking. In addressing RQ 2, we uncovered how those language-induced communication impediments obstruct simple and sophisticated knowledge process activities of MNTs.
Conclusion
This paper advances our understanding of the intricate ways language barriers influence communication and affect knowledge processing in MNTs. Based on rich qualitative interview data, we have shown that MNTs are confronted with two kinds of language barriers, evident and hidden ones, which negatively affect participation and sensemaking in MNT communication. We further demonstrated how these communication handicaps impede various basic and more sophisticated knowledge processing activities.
Acknowledgement
We thank Anne-Wil Harzing, Cristina Gibson and Mary Maloney for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript.
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