The decision to include firms from two different sectors was initially based on the different contexts of communication that these two sectors represent. As indicated in section 2.5, financial services and manufacturing are two sectors where sector-specific characteristics could be expected to have an impact on corporate language management. Furthermore, given the different nature of these sectors, there are reasons to assume that the sector effects will differ in financial service companies and manufacturing companies. Blue-collar employees in the manufacturing industry have been found to have lower foreign language skills than white-collar employees (Barner-Rasmussen & Aarnio, 2011), which is likely to have an effect on corporate mass communication in manufacturing companies. On the other hand, we know that financial service companies are highly dependent on language and communication since such companies sell information as part of the service encounter. This nature of financial services’ customer-company relationship (see Holmquist & Grönroos, 2012; Holmquist & Van Vaerenbergh’s, 2013) is likely to create a strong force for local responsiveness (Bartlett & Ghoshal, 1989, p. 8), which according to Luo and Shenkar (2006; cf. section 2.3.4.6) could complicate the implementation of a common corporate language.
In addition to the two different sectors, the companies have also been selected on the basis of their different approaches to language management, which means that the companies constitute two matched pair cases. As a sampling strategy, the case companies’ degree of internal language management were defined as either high or low, which is a theory-driven dichotomization based on the work of e.g. Feely (2004), Feely and Winslow (2006) and CILT (2006). Feely and Winslow (2006, p. 16) for example
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discuss ‘aggregate language management scores’ when investigating the language management practices of 50 MNCs located in the UK, France and Germany, which they calculate based on the number of
‘language management modes’ that the respective companies make use of (largely consistent with the
‘language management measures’ defined in section 2.4.2). Without knowing exactly which language management tools the case companies made use of before conducting my study, the four case companies were grouped into a ‘high’ and ‘low’ category based on my initial impression of their language awareness (cf. section 2.3.4.9) and corresponding language management behaviour. Given that the purpose of this study is to examine industry effects on corporate language management, I found it appropriate to opt for a diverse selection strategy within the two industries to allow for a useful cross-case comparison also between the two financial services and manufacturing companies (Pache & Santos, 2013; Seawright & Gerring, 2008) before engaging in a cross-sector discussion. In this way I lean on Ragin (1997, p. 386), who writes that ‘case-oriented researchers often pay special attention to the diverse ways a common outcome may be reached’ – where ‘the common outcome’ in the present study may be seen as industry effects on the development of corporate language strategies.
For example, I knew from a number of previous studies that Nordea implemented their language policy in 2000 and that the company has a well-established in-house translation department to take care of both external and internal language needs (e.g. Piekkari et al., 2005; Vaara et al., 2005). I also knew from the existing literature that Grundfos implemented their language policy in 2002 (e.g. Bergenholtz et al., 2003; da Silva et al., 2003) and from my own screening process (Grundfos’ website contains a large amounts of information about the company) that the company produces an employee magazine in eight languages, which I supposed was bound to require some form of translation. Consequently, these two companies were categorised as ‘high’ language management companies, i.e. companies that displayed a high degree of language management.
In comparison, ECCO and Saxo Bank were categorised as ‘low’ language management companies based on their initial response to my project when I first contacted them. Informants in both companies explained that the company made use of English as a company language, but that no formal language policy existed. In both cases my requests were met with positive replies, but also a warning that the company didn’t have much information to share with me on the topic of language and communication.
One informant, for example wrote the following in a reply to my email (translated from Danish):
I don’t know how much we can help you, but we are positive, so why don’t we meet and talk about it – then you can make up your mind if you think we are relevant for your project.
I later held introductory meetings with three of the four case companies (ECCO; Saxo Bank; Nordea) before I started interviewing other employees in the organisation. This was a way of gaining information about the language management practices of the firm, and the meetings largely supported my initial
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impreession of the companies’ degree of language management. Due to the location of Grundfos’
headquarters (Bjerringbro, Jutland), I did not travel to Grundfos for an introductory meeting, but I spoke to an informant in the company’s communication department on the phone before going there to conduct interviews.
Consequently, the sampling strategy is based on two parameters – industry sector and degree of language management – corresponding to the two-by-two matrix below. The matrix is followed by a short presentation of the four companies and their approach to language management.
Industry sector
Degree of language management
Financial service companies
Manufacturing companies
High Nordea
Grundfos
Low Saxo Bank ECCO
Figure 3 Purposeful sampling of case companies
Nordea Bank AB is one of the leading financial services groups in the Nordic and Baltic Sea region. In addition to their eight home markets, Nordea has more than 800 branches and is present in 19 countries.4 The company employs approx. 30,000 employees world-wide. Nordea was formed as a merger between several Nordic companies in 2000, but the history of the company dates back to 1820. The company introduced English as its corporate language in 2000, and while British English is used in cross-border communication, Nordea’s language policy states that country-specific internal communication can be done in the local language. Nordea has an in-house translation unit at each head office in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland, and a staff of approximately 25 people in total that work full-time with translation.
Saxo Bank A/S is an online investment bank and provider of traditional banking services. Since its start-up in 1992, the company’s geographical footprint has expanded rapidly, and the company is now present in approx. 25 countries and employs around 1500 employees world-wide. Key informants describe Saxo Bank as a ‘born global company’, where the use of English as the common corporate language has been a natural choice. The company has not implemented a formal language policy.
Grundfos Holding A/S is one of the world’s largest producers of pumps in terms of production units. The company was founded in 1945, and consists today of more than 80 companies in 55 countries
4 All factual information about the case companies is from 2013 when the majority of interviews were conducted.
Numbers are from annual reports and other publicly available sources, cf. Appendix 1.
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world-wide, and employs roughly 19,000 people in total. The company uses British English as its common corporate language, which is formalised in the company’s official language policy from 2002.
However, the language policy also states that communication within a local company should be conducted in the local language. Grundfos has a translation department that translates external material only.
ECCO Sko A/S is a Danish shoe manufacturer and producer of leather goods. From a small start-up in Denmark in 1963, the company has become a major producer of footwear, and ECCO’s products are now sold in almost 90 countries worldwide. The company employs around 19,000 employees in total.
ECCO does not have an explicitly formulated language policy, but the use of English is widespread for internal communication purposes, according to key informants. The company has recently established a new communication unit.
Maxwell (2012, pp. 71-91; see also Ragin, 1992) describes how a typical critical realist research design is characterised by high degree of flexibility and interaction between the different elements of the research process. This was also the case for my study; rather than following a linear research model consisting of distinct data collection phases I started collecting data at an early stage of the project by familiarising myself with the case companies’ different language management approaches, and the last interview was conducted less than three months before submitting the thesis. In total, the data collection
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spanned over 2.5 years, from August 2012 to February 2015. However, the last interview was an exception (to be discussed in section 8.1.2), as all other interviews were conducted in 2013 and in the beginning of 2014.
The fact that I have cooperated with multiple case companies has also had a clear impact on how the data collection took place. Evidently, in a study consisting of multiple case companies, it is not just the research design that needs to be flexible – the researcher must also be flexible. Indeed, when preparing and planning for company visits and interviews, there were times when I felt more like an administrator than a researcher, trying to schedule interview appointments in four locations (Copenhagen; Stockholm; Bredebro; Bjerringbro) and plan my own itinerary accordingly. There is no doubt that the administrative workload would have been significantly lower had I only cooperated with one case company, or cooperated with the case companies one at a time rather than simultaneously as I chose to do. However, in alignment with what Eisenhardt (1989, 1991) advocates, as mentioned above, I agree that that there is a definite value in drawing on multiple case units – i.e. case companies – and doing so at the same time; as Eisenhardt argues (1989, p. 547), one of the main benefits of building theory from cases is that ‘The likelihood of valid theory is high because the theory-building process is so intimately tied with evidence that is very likely that the resultant theory will be consistent with empirical observations’.
Having said that, it may be worth paying attention to Dyer and Wilkins (1991), who criticise Eisenhardt’s approach to multiple case study research by stating that the use of multiple cases leads to a weaker understanding of the case contexts. According to these authors, ‘the more contexts a researcher investigates, the less contextual insight he or she can communicate’ (p. 614). As a critical realist I position myself in between Eisenhardt’s positivist assumptions and Dyer and Wilkins ‘interpretive paradigm’ (p. 615) by advocating the benefits of conducting a case study that includes a small number of cases which allows for cross-case comparisons as part of the data collection (i.e. unlike Eisenhardt’s 1989, p. 542; and Yin’s 2009, p. 56 replication logic where each case is regarded as a separate entity before moving to cross-case comparisons). In practical terms, this means that when observing an interesting phenomenon when gathering data in one of the case companies, I was able to follow up on this in one of the other cases almost immediately. Thus, I believe that conducting multiple case studies simultaneously is likely to lead to a better understanding of the contexts, as it provides the opportunity to compare and contrast observations while the study is carried out, which, through a process of systematic comparison, accentuate the distinguishing features of the cases (cf. Bazeley, 2013; section 3.1) – and especially when the cases have been selected due to their diverse contextual characteristics, such as industry sectors. Triangulation of observations across case settings is also likely to reduce the subjectivity of the researcher (cf. Moran-Ellis et al., 2006, who advocate triangulation as a process rather than an outcome), which is covered only very briefly in the work of Eisenhardt (1989, 1991; see also Ravenswood, 2010). Thus, the administrative cost of conducting multiple case studies may be high, but if
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the number of cases is kept small, it is likely to ‘buy’ richer, more contextualised data, which is what Dyer and Wilkins (1991) call for.
The following three sections will discuss the main sources of data included in this study, which are written documentation, company visits and interview data.
3.3.1 Documentation
The present study makes use of a wide variety of written documentation, both internal material which I received from informants in the case companies, and publicly available material, which I obtained primarily from the companies’ websites. A complete overview of the document data is enclosed in Appendix 1.
Company-specific documentation was found to be a very valuable source of data in all four case companies. In the two ‘high’ language management companies Nordea and Grundfos, the companies’
formal language policies were naturally of great interest, and these documents are reviewed in sections 7.1.1 (Nordea) and 8.1.1 (Grundfos). Other documents directly related to the control and management of language and communication were found in writing and communication guidelines (Saxo Bank), strategy documents (Nordea and ECCO), and group policies (Grundfos).
I also examined a wide variety of other written documentation (i.e. not directly related to language and communication) in order to make myself familiar with the company and the company’s context, such as annual reports, press releases, corporate culture booklets, etc., which often contained a lot of useful information about the company and its operations. As is evident from RQ1, an important purpose of this thesis is to examine language management in context, that is, the company in which the language management activities are carried out in practice. This requires a good understanding of the particular case company. Some of the documents I reviewed which primarily serve purposes other than informing the reader about language-related issues turned out to contain valuable information about language and communication in the case companies. For example, in ECCO’s annual report from 2009 (p. 59), I learned that ‘At all ECCO’s factories, the ECCO Code of Conduct is translated into local languages and the factories are audited continuously in relation to the ten commitments’. It was natural to follow up on this piece of information when conducting interviews with employees in the company’s communication department (who produced the annual report).