The emotional benefits and performance costs of building a psychologically safe language climate in MNCs

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A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä

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en

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15

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Journal of World Business, Volume 55, issue 4

Abstract

How employees cope with the requirement to work in a foreign language has received little scholarly attention. To narrow this gap, we conducted an ethnographic study at KONE and NOKIA, companies using English as a lingua franca. Results indicate that employees who are non-native lingua franca speakers may cope collectively with the language demands by building a psychologically safe language climate. Although benefitting them emotionally, psychologically safe language climate may simplify the lingua franca and, in turn, decrease innovative performance. Our findings contribute to research on language-coping mechanisms and psychological safety in adding language as a potential barrier to innovativeness.

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Nurmi, N & Koroma, J 2020, 'The emotional benefits and performance costs of building a psychologically safe language climate in MNCs', Journal of World Business, vol. 55, no. 4, 101093. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jwb.2020.101093