Understanding the Dynamics of Language and Multilingualism in Professional Contexts: Advances in Language-Sensitive Management Research

This book provides readers with the latest research on the dynamics of language and language diversity in professional contexts. Bringing together novel findings from a range of disciplines, it challenges practitioners and management scholars to question the conventional understanding of language as a tool that can be managed by language policies that ‘standardize’ language.

Each of the contributions is designed to recognize the strides that have been made in the past two decades in research on language and languages in organizational settings while addressing remaining blind spots and emerging issues. Particular attention is given to multilingualism, sociolinguistic approaches to language in the workplace, migration challenges, critical perspectives on the power of language use and the management of organizations as dialogical, discursive spaces.

Understanding the Dynamics of Language and Multilingualism in Professional Contexts offers new insights into familiar and less familiar issues for international business scholars, sociolinguists, management practitioners and business communication scholars and experts, and brings understanding to the central role that language usage and linguistic diversity play in organisational processes.

Edited by Philippe Lecomte, President of GEM&L, Retired professor of International Communication, Toulouse Business School, Mary Vigier, Professor Emeritus, Department of Management, ESC Clermont Business School, France, Claudine Gaibrois, Professor of Global and Intercultural Management, Bern University of Applied Sciences, Business School and External Lecturer in Language Diversity, Research Institute for Organizational Psychology, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland and Betty Beeler, Retired Professor of Intercultural Management, Ecole Supérieure de Commerce, Saint-Etienne, France