Support or Barrier? A Front-line Perspective on Corporate Language Management

This study offers a critical look at how corporate-level language management influences front-line language practices among employees in three multinational corporations (MNCs) headquartered in Scandinavia. Based on interview and document data, we examine, firstly, what front-line practices employees use to cross language boundaries in their everyday work, and, secondly, how these practices relate to top-down language management in the case companies. Our findings show that employees are often dependent on ad hoc and informal solutions in cross- language situations, which leads us to a discussion of how a company’s language policy may be seen as both support and a barrier.