ENHANCING BUSINESS COMMUNICATION IN MULTINATIONAL TEAMS: A CASE STUDY ON REFINING BUSINESS ENGLISH CURRICULA
Olena Gonchar
Keywords:
Business English, code-switching, multinational team, design education, Hall’s context theoryAbstract
In the current global environment, integration processes unite nations, establishing unified markets, and expanding international projects. This tendency compels designers to work in multicultural teams, where diverse worldviews, languages, and communication styles converge, with English as the standard medium for business communication. Such dynamics call for pivotal changes in design education. The research, firmly grounded in a real-life case study involving observations and questionnaires from multinational design team members in a design competition, delves into the collaborative experiences of design students from Poland, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Georgia. It uncovers the real challenges they face in business communication methods. The results provide educators, students, and professionals in international settings with insights that could improve the quality of teaching Business English programs to enhance the students` cross-cultural business interactions.
References
Adair, W.L., Buchan, N.R., Chen, XP., Liu, L.A. (2024). Listening and Speaking Without Words: Effective Communication in Multicultural Teams. In: What Isn’t Being Said. Springer Series in Emerging Cultural Perspectives in Work, Organizational, and Personnel Studies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-53645-8_4.
Adendorff, R. (1996). The functions of code-switching among high school teachers and students in Kwazulu and implications for teacher education. In: K. Biley & D. Nunan (eds.). Voices from the language classroom: Qualitative research in second language education (pp. 388–406). Cambridge University Press.
Cogo, A. (2010). Strategic use and perceptions of English as a lingua franca. Poznan Studies in Contemporary Linguistics, 46(3), 295–312.
Duff, P. (2008). Case study research in applied linguistics. Erlbaum/Taylor & Francis.
Fano, R.M. (1950). The information theory point of view in speech communication. Journal of Acoustical Society of America, 22, 691–696.
Feely, A. & Harzing, A.-W. (2003). Language management in multinational companies. Cross Cultural Management: An International Journal, 10(2), 37–52.
Fries, W. & Pike, K. (1949). Coexistent phonemic systems. Language, 25(1), 29–50. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/409907.
Gumperz, J.J. (1982). Discourse strategies. Cambridge University Press.
Hall, E.T. (1976). Beyond culture. Doubleday.
Hall, E.T. (1959). The Silent Language. Garden City, Doubleday & Company, Inc.
Hall, E.T., Hall, M.R. (1990). Understanding cultural differences: Germans, French and Americans. Intercultural Press.
Haugen, E. (1956). Bilingualism in the Americas: A bibliography and research guide. University of Alabama Press: Publication of the American Dialect Society.
Kankaanranta, A., Planken, B. (2010). BELF competence as business knowledge of internationally operating business professionals. Journal
of Business Communication, 47(4), 380–407.
Klimpfinger, T. (2009). “She’s mixing the two languages together”: forms and functions of code-switching in English as a lingua franca. In A. Mauranen, E. Ranta (eds.), English as a Lingua Franca: Studies and Findings (pp. 348-371). Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Krysachenko, V. (2022). National values of Ukraine: Essence, diversity, consolidation potential. Ukrainian Studies, 1(82), 28–50.
Myers-Scotton, C. (1993). Dueling languages: Grammatical structure in code-switching. Clarendon.
Meyer, E. (2015). The culture map: Decoding how people think, lead, and get things done across cultures. Public Affairs.
Poplack, S. (1978). Dialect acquisition among Puerto Rican bilinguals. Language in Society, 7, 89–103.
Prykarpatska, I. (2008). Why are you late? Cross-Cultural Pragmatic Study of Complaints in American English and Ukrainian. Revista Alicantina de Estudios Ingleses. http://dx.doi.org/10.14198/raei.2008.21.05.
Romaine, S. (1995). Bilingualism. Blackwell.
Tay, M.W. (1989). Code switching and code-mixing as a communicative strategy in multilingual discourse. World Englishes, 8, 407–417.
Tietze, S. (2014). Keynote speech: exploring company performance from a language perspective: evidence from research and future research directions. 8th International GEM&L Conference. Toulouse Business School, France.
Tenzer, H., Pudelko, M., Harzing, A.-W. (2014). The impact of language barriers on trust formation in multinational teams. Journal of International Business Studies, 45(5), 508–535.
Virkkula-Räisänen, T. (2010). Linguistic repertoires and semiotic resources in interaction: a Finnish manager as a mediator in a multilingual meeting. Journal of Business Communication, 47(4), 505–531.
Voevoda, E. (2020). Intercultural communication in multicultural education space. Training, Language and Culture, 4(2), 11–20. http://dx.doi.org/10.22363/2521-442X-2020-4-2-11-20.
Vogt, H. (1954). Language contacts. Word, 10, 363–374.
Wedawatta, G., Ingirige, M., Amaratunga, R. (2011). Case study as a research strategy: Investigating extreme weather resilience of construction SMEs in the UK. ARCOM doctoral workshop, International conference on building resilience. Kandalama, Sri Lanka.
Weinreich, U. (1968). Languages in contact. Mouton.
