Corporate language policy and its implementation in Asia-Pacific business

To facilitate cross-border communication within the multinationals, corporate language policy or language standardization has been transferred from the West to the East. Given that English is regarded as a lingua franca in international business, adopting English as a common corporate language (CCL) has become a de facto policy of multinational corporations (MNCs) regardless of company origin or headquarter location. However, such “one language fits all” policy may not be applicable to Asia-Pacific business. First, solely using English is not always meaningful in the Asia-Pacific because Asians tend to build close interpersonal relationships and emphasize the long-term guanxi development with the local institutions and communities by speaking the local languages. Second, adopting English as the CCL has substantially different strategic meanings for Asia-Pacific MNCs because it is an essential way to overcome “liability of Asianness” and to attract global talent. With different functions and meanings, corporate language policy for MNCs in the Asia-Pacific should be a “product of deliberate choice.” With an attempt to address the complexity of corporate language policy in Asia-Pacific business, this chapter first reviews existing literature, which the authors regard as taking the competence-based view. This perspective has paid exclusive attention to language competence and language-sensitive human resource activities at non-English speaking subsidiaries because it is suggested it solves communication problems by improving the linguistic competence of employees. To enrich current understanding beyond competence, the authors advocate a legitimacy-based view to explain employees’ responses to corporate language policy. This alternative perspective provides novel insights and imperative implications into how MNCs in this region can leverage language as resources and devise inclusive corporate language policies.