Comisión para el Esclarecimiento de la Verdad (CEV)

The four environmental factors of time constraints, corporate power, metaphoric/denotative language use, and public/private discourse change as if on a scale depending on which job role level the communication occurs (see Figure 1 in 2.1.1). Thus time

41 In English: Can you check the figures and confirm ok to Toivonen on 10 Sept. at the latest. Can you go to the meeting on 15 Sept.?

42 In English: I can go the meeting on 15 Sept. and make sure that the figures are updated.

43 In English: Will you let Finland know that you’re coming?

44 Interestingly, Josephson (2000: 3; see also Gunnarsson 2001) expresses concern about such situations in which the work is done in Swedish but people are led in English, and argues that English becomes a more powerful language: language barriers become social barriers. However, the fact cannot be ignored that in corporations with multilingual work force, with e.g. Finnish and Swedish employees, English can be considered a neutral language in comparison to a situation in which one of the national languages is chosen as a corporate language (Säntti 2001; Tien-ari & Vaara 2001; Björkman et al. 2003; PiekkTien-ari et al. 2005; Charles & Louhiala-Salminen, in press).

constraints should be higher at the executive/managerial level, i.e. for people like Henrik, Kauko, Hannu, and Erja and lower for staff and specialist jobs.

According to Suchan & Dulek (1998: 100), the time constraint is of particular influence on document generation. In other words, because of high uncertainty tasks and busy schedules, executives and managers are more likely to delegate and review writing tasks rather than write much themselves. There were four examples of writing task delegation in the primary corpus. Once a Vice President asked a managerial level employee to send a memo of their discussion to the manager’s superior (see example 70 in 8.3.1). On three occasions a secretary sent a message on her superior’s behalf using phrases such as on behalf of (F93) in front of the superior’s name (see examples 14–15 in 9.2.1). In addition to these four examples, there was one example of Henrik assigning a reviewing task to one of his team members; messages of this type did not appear in the mailboxes of the other informants.

Example (2) is a message from a chain dealing with an English draft for a memo Henrik had received from one of his Finnish team members; the team member asked Henrik to check the memo. Henrik did not do the job himself but asked one of his Swedish team members to do it. Below, example (2) shows this Swedish message with which he forwarded the English draft to Monica, the Swedish team member.

(2) Monica

Tycker du att detta är ok? Tillägg?

Kind Regards, Henrik (hes 168/2)⁴⁵

After Monica had checked the memo and added a piece of information, she sent it back to Henrik, who then sent a message to the writer of the original (see example 10a-d in 5.2 for the whole

45 In English: Do you think this is OK? Any additions?

chain). Henrik thus only ‘managed’ the situation and did not get involved in the writing, or even reviewing, of the memo.

The second environmental factor, corporate power, also changes depending on the job role. On the executive level, power is often derived from position, whereas on the specialist level it is based on perceived expertise and content knowledge (Suchan & Dulek 1998). For example, Henrik’s ‘power’ to delegate tasks to his team was taken for granted since he was the team leader. In the same vein, Seppo’s power to pose nearly twenty detailed questions about a business issue was not questioned since he was the communication specialist responsible for writing about the issue for a large audience. If, however, another person occupying another job role had done the same, the situation would have automatically changed and would have required adjustment through, for instance, more politeness. In other words, when people were performing their legitimate tasks within their job roles, they were free to exercise their corporate power within those boundaries since the situations could be considered routine (see Chapter 10 for the textualizations of requests).

The third factor contains the scale between metaphoric and denotative language use. Suchan & Dulek (1998) argue that executives tend to favor symbolic language while specialists focus on explicit facts. As the executives or managers did not write messages about strategy or policy issues in which symbolic language and figures of speech could have been more prevalent but used the medium to run everyday business and lead their staff, the messages in the corpus could be defined as unambiguous and highly informational.

More metaphoric texts might have been found in attachments. As a matter of fact, only a couple of times was a single expression defined as somewhat metaphoric or, rather, idiomatic with the rest of the message being strictly denotative. Examples (3)–(5) illustrate the usage (in italics):

(3) Hello all,

have just been thinking old days when doing master plan for ancient CN10 (wet dream in Xplace that time)

One idea that could create more tonnage for DLC is the lamina ted displays and corrugated things, where we are very strong in Royal Xland (Dybo, Bergholm). In my opinion we could check the real total price picture DLC 185 gm2 vs. recycled coated. . . (more text follows)

regards

Kari at home forest office (F51)

(4) Hello friends,

a briefing about the present contract situation concerning Xcom pany might be needed. The situation today is as followes:

We have come to an agreement with TJH Xcompany about a contract which has an aim to move all the possible production of their grades globally into LN8 and LN9 with increased prices.

Their CEO has accepted the contract proposal, but it’s still sub ject to THF Group Chairman approval which we should get on the 17.2. only. (Of course there is a risk, but let’s not think about it now, we have a job to do!) . . . (more text follows)

This is a golden opportunity! The end users will be the final de cision makers, but why should they resist good quality? So we have the ball.

Best regards, Pekka (F92)

(5) Hello Peter,

First, thanks for your understanding of the market situation. As I mentioned you earlier I will fly today with Mike to Xland and Tuesday – Wednesday visit his customer and so I believe to get more information of the market. I fully agree with you it might be better to hold on our horses before we get more information of the market.

Best regards, Matti (F69)

Examples (3)–(5) were written by managerial level employees:

(5) shows the message in its entirety, (3) and (4) represent excerpts.

Example (3) was addressed to three men, which makes the wet dream sound somewhat humorous, especially combined with the

signature indicating the base of the writer in an unusual way. In example (4) the idiomatic expression having the ball is further emphasized with the golden opportunity and the rhetorical question preceding it. Indeed, the vivid language supports the Promotional orientation of the message (see 4.3). In (5) Matti is responding to Peter’s message about the feasibility of an unusually favorable offer to the customer in Xland. In the preceding message Peter had expressed some doubt about the possibility to win the custom with a low price and had closed his message with the phrase In other words are we damned even if we go for this price decrease? (S67).

The denotative meaning of Matti’s metaphoric holding [on] horses reflects the same doubtful attitude. The examples show that since these were the only examples coming even close to being metaphoric, overall the language use in the email messages was highly denotative, concrete, and factual (for more, see 5.3). This type of denotative language use might have also resulted from the fact that English was used as a shared code, a lingua franca, between the participants; it was a foreign language and maybe the writers did not master metaphoric or symbolic language use in English in spite of the fact that their proficiency seemed to be quite high.

The fourth factor, public-private, is closely connected to metaphoric and denotative communication. Staff and specialist communication has a limited audience while managerial and executive communication is more public (Suchan & Dulek 1998).

The corpus seems to confirm Suchan & Dulek’s (1998: 101) notion of public discourse being typical of executive and managerial communication and private discourse of specialist and staff communication. The lowest percentages for the messages to one recipient were found in the Vice President’s (Henrik) and the local manager’s (Kauko) mailboxes, 24% and 8% respectively. The highest percentages of messages to one recipient, in contrast, were recorded by one of the specialists, Berit, with 60%, and the secretary to the Vice President, Leena, with 85%. Interestingly, the secretary to the local manager, Monica, only had 33% of her email exchange

between two people (cf. 85% for Leena). This may be explained by her extended job description at a local mill since she was also the ‘information officer’ of the location, which meant that she forwarded press releases and appointment news to the staff at the mill, thus reaching large audiences.

To summarize, it seems that the organizational position and job description had an influence on the number of people that the employee was in touch with. For example, when Henrik, the Vice President, received messages from his superior or his colleagues, the distribution lists were often long; similarly, when he was touch with his own staff, he sent messages to multiple recipients although there were those to single recipients as well. If, on the other hand, the specialist staff was answering questions related to their expertise, sorting out non-delivery of telephone directories, etc., there was no need to increase the information overload by copying in more recipients. Nickerson’s (2000: 148; see also Louhiala-Sal-minen 1999a: 113) study on internal email communication seems to confirm the findings of the present study in the sense that only 5% of her managerial email messages were sent to single recipients, whereas the equivalent figure was almost 40%⁴⁶ in the present study having subjects from all four job roles.⁴⁷

The discussion in this section has recognized the complex interactions in the corporate environment that shape the nature of on-the-job e-writing in Stora Enso. The influences of the corporate environment on writing in each corporate job role were varied.

As the corpus of the present study contained messages from the representatives of all the four job roles, the messages written and received by them reflected the various forces and interactions at

4 6 In addition, 18% of the messages were addressed to one recipient (with the salutation to one person) but had one or more people copied in. If this 18% is added to the figure of 40%, the percentage indicating the share of messages to single recipients will rise to 58%.

4 7 However, although Nickerson collected her data from managerial staff, it is unlikely that the messages these managers received all originate from other managers, which suggests that her data also included messages from representatives of other job roles.

play in the corporate environment. Thus, the present sample of messages provided a glimpse into the way Stora Enso operationalizes its mission and vision into the everyday activities of its employees through their textual products.