ABSTRACT
With increased globalization, corporations are paying attention to the languages in which they conduct their business. Businesses that operate globally bring together people from different cultures and traditions, who were educated through different learning processes, and who operate in different political systems in regions with different levels of industrial development. Language affects the ability of multinational organizations to function in the global market. Yet, the need for corporate language policies has not been adequately recognized in strategic management literature or
prior to the 1960s. Until the mid-1960s the concept of the economics of language was not well understood or articulated. Since the mid1960s, however, linguists have begun to pay attention to the link between language and economics. As of 1996, there were reportedly just more than a hundred academic articles and books published by economists on language matters. Interestingly, a majority of these works had the specific focus of exploring the evolution of language status and language use in business organizations within Quebec, Canada (Grin, 1996: 18; Dhir and Savage, 2002). Although the business of foreign language education continues to thrive today due to growth in international trade, scientific
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With corporations operating in an increasingly globalized environment, many are paying attention to the languages in which they conduct their business. This chapter introduces the concept of language as corporate asset. Analogies between money and message and between, currency and language, form the basis of the ideas developed here. The role of language in emerging knowledge economies, globalization of business and workforce diversity is examined while the economics of corporate vocabulary and language is discussed from the perspective of corporate planners. Finally, an example illustrates how a global corporation may formulate its language policy.
