The Development of a Survey Instrument to Measure the Impact of Employee's Language Misfit on Perceived Individual Performance

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Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Perustieteiden korkeakoulu | Master's thesis

Authors

Date

2014-12-03

Department

Major/Subject

Strategic Management

Mcode

TU2006

Degree programme

Master’s Degree Programme in Strategy

Language

en

Pages

116+114

Series

Abstract

The objective of this thesis is to present the conceptual and methodological process involved in the development of a survey instrument that can be used to observe the impacts of an employee’s language skills on their perceived performance at the work place. The instrument evaluates the suitability of an employee’s language skills based on the demands of the working environment and investigates how the above measure affects perceived performance. An analysis of the existing literature in the field of international business communication and human resource management reveals a noticeable lack of empirical work relating to language skills and performance. The reason for this existing research gap can be attributed to the unsuitability of the existing language constructs and their inability to holistically measure and observe the impacts of language. To overcome the above issue, the author proposes a novel framework that relies on the recently introduced multi-level language misfit construct to investigate the possible effects of employee’s language misfit at the organisation, work group, supervisor and job level on perceived task and extra-role performance. Based on this framework, the author presents a piloted and translated set of survey instruments that can be used to test this relationship at the supervisor-subordinate dyadic level in the context of multinational organisations. The thesis shares detailed insights on the steps involved in the development of the theoretical framework and the construction of the instrument. Implementing this survey instrument would have two main benefits for MNCs. First, it would provide a realistic snapshot of how well the linguistic abilities of their employees match the needs of the working environment. Secondly, insights gained through the statistical analysis of the results will help managers to better plan and align their human resource management schemes in order to more appropriately respond to the demands of today’s multi-lingual workplaces.

Description

Supervisor

Jääskeläinen, Mikko

Thesis advisor

Piekkari, Rebecca

Keywords

language misfit, language competency, performance, MNC

Other note

Citation

Permanent link to this item

https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:aalto-201412163237

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[dipl] Perustieteiden korkeakoulu / SCI