Jérôme Saulière – WORKING PAPER – 8th Organization Studies Workshop, Mykonos, May 2013 1 When English does not take: A work team’s response to imposed anglicization Jérôme Saulière - Centre de Recherche en Gestion - Ecole Polytechnique/CNRS Bâtiment Ensta - 828, Boulevard des Maréchaux - 91762 Palaiseau Cedex (France) jerome.sauliere@polytechnique.edu ABSTRACT This paper uses an ethnographically-inspired methodology to look at the dynamics of anglicization and resistance against it in a culturally and linguistically homogeneous project team. We show that changing working language can be extremely disruptive to team work. Over the surface, efficiency is impaired as ǁoƌkiŶg iŶ a foƌeigŶ laŶguage ƌestƌiĐts speakeƌs aĐĐuƌaĐLJ, fluency and willingness to speak. The team leaders iŵpoƌtaŶt aŶd delicate role is to limit losses. Under the surface, the language change turns out to strike a new balance of power, in response to which potentially harmful individual strategies emerge to in- or decrease the weight of English in team work, notably through language-switching. Ambiguity as a policy reaches its limits there, although explicit negotiation may not be an option. Corporate language policy should in any case be thought of as dialectically co-constructed by decision-makers and language-users themselves. Anglicization 1 , intended as the increasing use of English as a working language, sometimes (though not necessarily) sanctioned by its adoption as a corporate language, poses a major challenge to multinational companies, especially in terms of efficient collaboration (Henderson 2005) and human resources (HR) management (Marschan-Piekkari, Welch, et Welch 1999a). A foreign language, even shared, is insufficient in some professional situations, especially those involving informal relationships, for which the local language – the mother tongue of many if not most employees – proves more efficient or satisfactory (Lauring et Tange 2010). A common corporate language remains, however, a sensible remedy to address the language barrier problem that results from the development of international operations (Feely et Harzing 2003). And since no language can compete globally with English as a hypercentral language today (De Swaan 2001) it is almost inevitable that English should be gaining ground in global companies. The global hegemony of English is bound to meet with resistance. At a macro-level, voices are raised against a new form of imperialism brought about by economic globalization and information technology (Truchot 2002; Dor 2004). At a micro-level, it appears that imposing English as the only official working language in a non-Anglo-Saxon company is not always realistic or feasible: like it or not, the local language will maintain a role alongside the mandated lingua franca (Fredriksson, Barner-Rasmussen, et Piekkari 2006). It is an often forgotten fact in the literature on management and language that people, not organizations, change language. People may welcome language change – or they may resist it, just like any other change, if they do not expect advantages from it. It is also wrong, we think, to take anglicization as a given of the business world and resistance from employees merely as an obstacle to be overcome by the management (Neeley 2012b). Resistance makes sense. A 1 We pƌefeƌ the Ŷeat, LatiŶate aŶgliĐizatioŶ to the stƌaŶge etLJŵologiĐal Đoŵposite EŶglishizatioŶ of Dor (2004) – Ŷot to ŵeŶtioŶ the all too ďizaƌƌe EŶglishŶizatioŶ of Neeley (2012a).