Communication Mobility and Communication Strategies Used in BELF Communication: Self-Report of Thai Human Resources Professionals in a Multinational Corporation

Abstract

This study attempted to identify and compare the frequency of communication mobility and communication strategies employed by Thai Human Resources professionals in a multinational corporation in Bangkok. To achieve the goals of a small-scale study, a self-report questionnaire was adapted and developed based on the recently introduced ‘communication mobility’ framework of Marina and Smirnova (2013), and the Strategy Use in Speaking Task Inventory ofChuanchaisit and Prapphal (2009). The questionnaire was based on the purposive sampling method and distributed to thirty participants, including Human Resources analysts, supervisors, and advisors. The key findings revealed: (1) Thai professionals often used communication mobility in their workplace, and mostly employed ‘Strategy 4: Individual active strategy’, ‘Strategy 7: Analytical strategy’, and ‘Strategy 2: Schema search strategy’; (2) they also often employed communication strategies in workplace communication; and (3) there was no significant difference in the uses of communication mobility and communication strategies among them, even though they used communication strategies that were ranked slightly higher than communication mobility. New findings have confirmed that communication mobility was another strategy for effective communication, which was used in this particular Human Resources setting almost as often as communication strategies which have been used for decades. They also pointed out the necessity of effective strategies for achieving communication goals in the Business English as a Lingua Franca (BELF) context.