Language in International Business

One of the first barriers that companies face on the path of internationalisation is differences in natural languages. Surprisingly though, language in international business remains an ignored research field.

  • Part of the reason may be that business researchers and linguists alike have been deterred by the cross-disciplinary nature of the subject.
  • Another factor may be the pre-eminence of Anglophone researchers who have a reduced perception of the importance of language.
  • A third factor might be the enormous influence of Hofstede. His work has dominated cultural research for the past decades and has been developed into a system for measuring cultural distance (Kogut & Singh, 1988, see The International Research Process) thereby providing international researchers with a practical, easy to use and "reliable" measure of culture. Sadly, the Hofstedian dimensions make no reference to language and the Kogut and Singh scale has eclipsed the earlier but more cumbersome cultural measure of Psychic Distance in which language difference was a crucial component.

However, perhaps the most serious barrier to language research in business has been the absence of clear conceptual frameworks and operationalisations. Researchers will not be able to dissect the nature and implications of language problems until they have answers to the questions "what exactly is it about language that creates the problem", "how can it be defined" and "how can it be measured"?

These questions can only be answered within the context of the socio-linguistic theory that explains how the language barrier actually works. An early version of this work was presented at the 2002 Academy of Management meeting. A paper focusing on HQ-subsidiary relationships was presented at the 2004 AoM Meeting and subsequently published in Cross-cultural Management: An International Journal. A paper on language management in MNCs was also published in Cross-cultural Management.

In 2005 I started a new project that investigates the impact of language on management practices within MNCs, funded by an ARC Discovery Grant of more than A$190,000. Using a critical incident technique data have been collected with MBA students in 20 different countries. These data have so far been used to compare ranking and rating to study cross-cultural differences (published in International Business Review, 2009).

In addition, an experimental study showed that language impacts the competitive behaviour of students. A prisoner’s dilemma game played in English leads to significantly more competitive behaviour than when the same game is played in Dutch. The resulting paper will be published in Management International Review in 2010.

A second phase of this project aims to further develop and test the language barrier model developed by Alan Feely and myself. This involved qualitative work in subsidiaries and HQs of MNCs in Japan, and Germany, and the resulting paper was accepted for a special issue of Journal of World Business. The third phase involves a large-scale mail survey in Australia/NZ, China, Japan, Korea, France, Germany, Spain, UK, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden on the role of language in HQ-subsidiary relationships, studying aspects such as expatriation, HRM practices, knowledge transfer, interaction with HQ. We have finished the data collection in 2010 with a total of 850 subsidiary responses.

Selected publications

Online papers - Full list of publications

  1. Harzing, A.W.K.; Köster, K.; Magner, U. (2010) Babel in Business: The language barrier and its solutions in the HQ-subsidiary relationship, in press for Journal of World Business. Available online...
  2. Zander, L.; Mockaitis, A.; Harzing, A.W.K. et al. (2010) Don’t just say what you mean – contextualize it: A leadership study across 17 countries, in press for Journal of World Business.
  3. Akkermans, D.; Harzing, A.W.K.; Witteloostuijn, A. van (2010) Cultural Accommodation and Language Priming. Competitive versus Cooperative Behavior in a Prisoner’s Dilemma Game, in press for Management International Review. Available online...
  4. Harzing, A.W.K.; Köster, K.; Magner, U. (2010) Babel in Business: The language barrier and its solutions in the HQ-subsidiary relationship, conference proceedings of the ANZIBA annual meeting, 15-17 April 2010, Sydney, Australia.
  5. Zander, L.; Mockaitis, A.; Harzing, A.W.K. et al. (2009) Don't just say what you mean - contextualize it: A leadership study across 17 countries, paper presented at the 68th Academy of Management Annual Meeting, August 7-11, 2009 - Chicago, Illinois.
  6. Zander, L.; Mockaitis, A.; Harzing, A.W.K. et al. (2009) Why Do Leaders Do What They Do? A 22-Country Study on Leadership Behavioral Intent, paper presented at the 2009 Academy of International Business Annual Meeting, June 27-30, San Diego, California.
  7. Harzing, A.W.K.; and 26 collaborators (2009) Rating versus ranking: what is the best way to reduce response and language bias in cross-national research?, International Business Review, vol. 18, no. 4, pp. 417-432.
  8. Zander, L.; Mockaitis, A.; Harzing, A.W.K.; et al. (2008) Getting Closer to the Action: Examining Leaders’ Behavioral Intent with Globe’s Leadership Dimensions across 22 Countries, conference proceedings of the Australian New Zealand Academy of Management, Auckland, 2-5 December 2008.
  9. Zander, L.; Mockaitis, A.; Harzing, A.W.K.; et al. (2008) Explaining cross-national differences in leadership behavior with cultural syndromes: a 22-country study, paper presented at the Academy of International Business Annual Meeting, Milan, 30 June – 3 July 2008.
  10. Akkermans, D.; Harzing, A.W.K.; Witteloostuijn, A. van (2008) Cultural Imprinting and Language Priming. Competitive versus Cooperative Behavior in a Prisoner’s Dilemma Game, conference proceedings of the 35th Annual Conference of the UK Chapter of the AIB, Portsmouth, 28-29 March.
  11. Harzing, A.W.K.; Feely, A.J. (2008) The Language Barrier and its Implications for HQ-Subsidiary Relationships, Cross Cultural Management: An International Journal, vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 49-60. Available online...
  12. Harzing, A.W.K.; and 26 collaborators (2007) Ranking and rating in native-language versus English-language questionnaires: A methodological comparison, conference proceedings of the EIBA annual meeting, 13-15 December, Catania, Italy.
  13. Harzing, A.W.K.; and 26 collaborators (2007) Ranking versus rating: What is the best way to reduce response and language bias in cross-national research?, conference proceedings of the ANZIBA annual meeting, 8-10 November 2007, Newcastle, Australia.
  14. Harzing, A.W.K. (2005) The Language Barrier and its Implications for HQ-Subsidiary Relationships, paper presented at the third JIBS frontiers conference, Rotterdam, 28-30 September.
  15. Feely, A.J.; Harzing, A.W.K. (2004) The Language Barrier and its Implications for HQ-Subsidiary Relationships, paper presented at the 64th Annual meeting of the Academy of Management, New Orleans, August 6-11. Available online...
  16. Feely, A.J.; Harzing, A.W.K. (2003) Language Management in Multinational Companies, Cross-cultural management: an international journal, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 37-52. Available online...
  17. Feely, A.J.; Harzing, A.W.K. (2002) Forgotten and neglected - Language: The orphan of International Business research, paper presented at the 62nd Annual meeting of the Academy of Management, Denver, 9-14 August. Available online...