It is not only what you say, but how you say it: A language attitude perspective of skilled migrants' culture-related linguistic skills and workplace integration in multinational corporations

Jinju Xie and Vesa Peltokorpi

Journal of International Management, 2025, vol. 31, issue 2

Abstract: This study adopts an abductive approach, drawing on the language attitude perspective and interviews with 168 skilled migrants (SMs) to examine how and why culture-related language differences influence the workplace integration of SMs in Japan-based multinational corporations (MNCs). Our analysis shows that three culture-related language differences — (1) honorifics, (2) indirect expressions, and (3) empathic expressions — lead local employees to categorize SMs as outgroup members and to negatively evaluate their professional and managerial abilities. Despite having high general language proficiency, SMs continue to occupy disadvantaged positions in local MNCs, primarily due to local employees' negative assessments of actual or perceived differences in culture-related linguistic skills.

Keywords: Multinational corporation; Language proficiency; Culture-related linguistic skills; Language attitudes (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1075425325000134
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:intman:v:31:y:2025:i:2:s1075425325000134

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/601266/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 601266/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.intman.2025.101235

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of International Management is currently edited by M. Kotabe

More articles in Journal of International Management from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().