IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/126149.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The unexpected upside of high language diversity: social integration through a language advice network

Author

Listed:
  • Al-Naemi, Mai
  • Lee, Hyun Jung
  • Reade, Carol

Abstract

Evidence suggests that language diversity and the asymmetric fluency of corporate lingua franca among employees negatively affect social integration, knowledge sharing and performance in the workplace. We explore the boundary conditions that might mitigate such negative consequences. Our research context is a multilingual firm where English is mandated as the corporate lingua franca and employee English fluency is generally low. Utilizing a mixed-methods approach and longitudinal design across three studies, we discover an informal network, Language Advice Network (LAN), in which individuals with varying levels of English fluency seek and share language-related knowledge. Contrary to extant research findings, our analysis shows that individuals actively seek language advice from fluent speakers, forming ties between fluent and less-fluent English speakers across different language clusters in the organization. It is the low English fluency of the majority of employees and the strict English language mandate that drives connection between individuals who may otherwise segregate. We also find that language-advice giving is positively associated with the advisors’ annual performance rating, indicating that management recognition and rewards play an important role in sustaining the informal language advice network. Our findings provide fresh theoretical insight on the relationship between corporate lingua franca, social integration and knowledge sharing, and management implications for fostering social integration, particularly in contexts of high first-language diversity.

Suggested Citation

  • Al-Naemi, Mai & Lee, Hyun Jung & Reade, Carol, 2024. "The unexpected upside of high language diversity: social integration through a language advice network," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 126149, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
  • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:126149
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/126149/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • J50 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:126149. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.