The Englishnization of Business: challenges and strategies

Abstract

In the global business environment, the companies compete and cooperate in a common marketplace, frequently adopting a common language of communication. The use of English as a business lingua franca (BELF) in multinational and multicultural enterprises is thus no longer a novelty. Some corporations take it even further, proceeding to Englishnization, by purposefully implementing the use of English as the only language in all domains of communication and business operations. The decision of switching interactions to a specific language of choice might facilitate the communication, but it also presents new challenges to the users, due to the different cultural and linguistic backgrounds. This descriptive qualitative study takes a closer look at four reports of implementation of English as a common business language: a business organization in central Europe, two corporate mergers in Scandinavia, and the case of an online retail company in Japan, in order to identify the main difficulties encountered during the process. Based on these case-studies, the paper also summarizes a series of tools and strategies recommended to mitigate and overcome the obstacles.