Multicultural organizations: Common language and group cohesiveness

Abstract

There is growing evidence that the use and management of language have important implications in international organizations. However, still only few empirical studies have been conducted in this theoretical field. Especially there has been a lack of quantitative insights into how language affects group processes and group performance in multicultural organizations. This paper outlines the results from a questionnaire directed electronically towards members of academic multicultural departments in Denmark. Results showed that consistency in English management communication was the dominating factor with strong relationships with all of the three investigated group cohesiveness variables: group involvement, group conflict and group trust. Communication frequency and English personal communication had an association with some of the group cohesiveness variables but not with all of them. The number of languages spoken did not have a relationship with any of the group cohesiveness variables. Since there are no similar large-scale studies on international language management, the findings may be of considerable theoretical and practical importance. Implications of these findings are discussed in detail.

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