The recontextualisation of values in the multilingual workplace

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore how corporate values are interpreted by local and international employees in a multilingual organisation that has opted for the local language, not English, as its corporate language.Design/methodology/approachThis is a research paper exploring how the recontextualisation and resemiotisation of value terms impact on how corporate values are interpreted, employing triangulation of questionnaire and interview results.FindingsWhen values are recontextualised in employee discourse, proficiency in the corporate language and cultural background was found to have an impact on their interpretation. Internationals were found to have a broader and not exclusively professional interpretation compared to the locals. Internationals with a low level of proficiency in the local language were more sceptical than the locals as to whether there was a shared understanding of the values.Research limitations/implicationsThe questionnaire yielded fewer respondents than the authors expected, which should be taken into account when interpreting the results.Practical implicationsThe paper suggests best practices for communicating corporate values to a multilingual workforce.Social implicationsThis paper contributes to the understanding of linguistic challenges in the multilingual work contexts.Originality/valueTo the authors’ knowledge, there is little prior in-depth research on how language impacts on employees’ interpretation of corporate values. As values are cohesive devices in organisations, the language used to convey them is worth addressing as the present paper aims to demonstrate.