Boundaryless Careers or Career Boundaries? The Impact of Language Barriers on Academic Careers in International Business Schools

Abstract

Following the globalization of higher management education and the view of academics as autonomous professionals, academic careers in business schools are deemed to typify the boundaryless careers of the 21st century. We scrutinize the validity of this assumption, focusing on the language barriers internationally mobile management scholars are facing. Based on qualitative interviews with foreign faculty working at leading business schools in Finland, Japan, Spain, and the United States, we investigate how careers in different national academic systems are bounded by the dual challenge to speak both English and the local language. In revealing different degrees of linguistic challenges across national academic systems, we contribute to career research by presenting language barriers as an impediment to global careers in business schools and by establishing “knowing where” as a previously neglected career competency. Our study also maps the process of academic “Englishization,” shows that different career antecedents are influenced by different types of language barriers, and suggests a classification scheme for national academic systems according to their “linguistic difficulty level” for foreigners. On this basis, we develop important practical recommendations for internationally mobile management scholars and business schools aiming to attract international faculty.