What is that I hear? An interdisciplinary review and research agenda for non‐native accents in the workplace

Abstract

SummarySpeaking with a non‐native English accent at work is a prevalent global phenomenon. Yet, our understanding of the impact of having a non‐native accent at work is limited, in part because research on accents has been multidisciplinary, fragmented, and difficult for scholars to access and synthesize. To advance research on accents in the workplace, we provide an interdisciplinary and integrative review of research on non‐native accents drawing from the communications, social psychology, and organizational sciences literatures. First, we briefly review the dominant approaches taken in each literature. Second, we organize and integrate extant research findings using a 2 × 2 framework that incorporates the two main theoretical perspectives used to explain the effects of accents—stereotypes and processing fluency—and the two primary categories of workplace outcomes examined—interpersonal (i.e., others' evaluations of speakers with non‐native accents, such as hiring recommendations) and intrapersonal (i.e., non‐native‐accented speakers' own evaluations and experiences, such as sense of belonging). To facilitate future research, we end by articulating a research agenda including theoretical and methodological expansions related to the study of accents, identifying critical moderators, adopting an intersectional approach, and studying group‐level and potential positive effects of speaking with non‐native accents.