languageinbusiness.com - Research by Guro Sanden

Guro Sanden conducts research within the areas of corporate communication, international business, language policies and corporate law. In her empirical studies, she often makes use of mixed methods, and she commonly draw on multiple research traditions, including organizational communication, sociolinguistics, international business and management, and law.

Guro's research in the field of language-sensitive international business research has provided insight into how multilingual companies can develop and implement effective language strategies that support employees' communication needs, for example by offering language teaching, translation services or through selective recruitment.

Some of her recent publications include:

• Language policy and corporate law: A case study from Norway (open access). This paper investigates how 492 of the largest companies in Norway comply with the language requirement of the Norwegian Accounting Act Article 3-4. The results show that 36% of the companies presented their financial statements in Norwegian only, 45% in one or more language(s) in addition to Norwegian, while 19% had been granted dispensation and presented statements in English-only. The company’s ownership, use of English as a corporate language, and industry affiliation were the three most commonly mentioned reasons for dispensation, but the findings show significant differences between industry sectors in terms of language choice. The study contributes to corporate law research by examining the interpretation and application of the Norwegian Accounting Act by the Norwegian Directorate of Taxes; to sociolinguistics by shedding new light on the concepts of domain loss and diglossia; and to language-sensitive research in international business by analyzing language use in Norwegian companies.

• Domain loss theory revisited: From multinational corporations to multicorporate nations (open access). This paper examines how multinational corporations (MNCs) act as language managers when handling linguistic diversity in the workforce, for example through corporate language policies. Cooper's status, corpus and acquisition planning framework is applied to two case companies headquartered in Scandinavia, and the findings show that the MNCs' language policy and planning (LPP) activities go beyond the boundaries of the organizations, and interfere with the LPP activities of their home countries. The paper concludes that the language planning activities of MNCs may be even more important and impactful than those of the nation-state. The term “multicorporate nations” is used to denote a shift in language management agency; a shift where the corporate level represents the new macro level and the national level the new meso level.

• Discretionary power on the front line: A bottom-up perspective on corporate language management. This paper investigates the communication practices used by front-line employees to cross language boundaries in the context of English language policies implemented by the management of three multinational corporations (MNCs) headquartered in Scandinavia. Based on an analysis of interview and document data, our findings show that employees face a number of different language boundaries in their everyday work, and that ad hoc and informal solutions in many cases are vital for successful cross-language communication. We introduce the concept of 'discretionary power' to explain how and why front-line employees diverge from the corporate language policies, and emphasize the role of individual agency in the implementation of language policy. With a focus on the communication practices of front-line employees, the paper contributes with a bottom-up, employee-centered perspective on corporate language management, emphasizing the importance of paying attention to the micro level of everyday interactions in the study of language policy and practice.

• “English is an unwritten rule here”: Non-formalised language policies in multinational corporations. The purpose of this paper is to examine the implications of corporate language policies that are implemented without formal decision-making processes. Through a qualitative case study based on three Scandinavian multinational corporations which use English as a common corporate language without formal language policy decisions, we find that non-formalized language policies are clearly distinct from formalized language policies in terms of language policy format, language policy focus, language policy formation, language planning agency and management style. Non-formalized language policies can represent a type of informal control, but the absence of a policy document leaves employees without a common reference point which may cause confusion and inter-collegial conflict. The study offers a nuanced perspective on the role of language policies in corporate communication by demonstrating that language policies may come in a variety of different forms, also as implicit assumptions about language use. Findings reveal benefits and drawbacks of the different language policy approaches.

• Language management x 3: A theory, a sub-field, and a business strategy tool. The term ‘language management’ has become a widely used expression in the sociolinguistic literature. Originally introduced by Jernudd and Neustupný in 1987, as a novel continuation of the language planning tradition stemming from the 1960/70s, language management along these lines has developed into the Language Management Theory (LMT). A second definition of language management, diverting from LMT, can be found in the work of Spolsky, who treats language management as a theoretical component of the wider concept of language policy. Furthermore, over the past 15 years a number of scholars, particularly from the international management discipline, appear to have taken an interest in language as a variable in business and corporate management. It is also common to refer to this research field as language management. This conceptual article offers a theoretically based comparison of the three definitions of language management, before discussing five main focus points, which may be used to highlight their analytical differences.

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