The power of language: Challenges for international business
The power of language: Challenges for international business
Ever since the invention of language, its use has been associated with power, prestige, ability to obtain and act on knowledge, negotiations over status, reputation and identity. In essence, the evolution of language is a story of power. This talk focuses on power struggles around language use in multilingual organizations, particularly multinational corporations. By drawing on theory and empirical evidence from existing language-sensitive research in international business and management, the talk examines the power of language, and the ways in which language can be misused in organizational contexts. Based on the publication “Ten reason why corporate language policies can create more problems than they solve” (Sanden, 2020), we shed light on critical language policy challenges faced in international business and management.