Dear colleagues and GEM&L friends
This is a kind reminder. Apologies for cross posting.
Find the full CfP here:
https://geml.eu/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/GEML-Paris-2023_Call-for-papers.pdf
*16th GEM&L International Conference on Management & Language*
*ISIT Paris, France*
*10-12 May 2023*
*Call for Papers*
*Language-sensitive research in IB and management:*
*Current perspectives on societal challenges*
Language is at the heart of how we make sense of and interact with the
world around us. Languages, as a primary means of communication, can be
described as systems of meanings central to the understanding of
organizational, social, and global realities (Tietze et al., 2003). These
realities are continuously changing, influenced by such forces as climate
change, the recent pandemic, digitalization, and political conflict (Piekkari
et al., 2021), and infused with societal tensions related to values, norms,
and attitudes (Beugelsdijk et al., 2022). Organizations of all kinds are
currently experiencing, but also driving, the volatile dynamics of these
grand challenges and many are grappling with pressing issues concerning
their environmental, social, and corporate governance in which language is
present in a myriad of ways.
Against this backdrop, we invite researchers and practitioners focusing on
language in international business (IB) and management to respond to this
call for papers with proposals that consider how we – as a
language-sensitive research community – can contribute to a better
understanding of current societal and organizational challenges. With
GEM&L’s overarching focus on language, IB and management, the topics below
serve as a reference and inspiration for a constructive dialogue at
the 16th annual
conference. The call cross-cuttingly extends to proposals revolving around
multilingual IB and management communication as well as translated IB and
management language and discourse in connection with current societal
challenges.
1: Language, management, and the United Nations Sustainable Development
Goals
Scholars of all disciplines have been called to respond to the grand
societal challenges articulated in the United Nations (UN) Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs), and scholars working on IB issues, specifically
(Montiel et al., 2021; Sinkovics et al., 2022). Currently, the notions of
language, language diversity, and language management – the key concepts in
IB – are surprisingly absent in the SDGs, much to the surprise and the
dismay of many scholars (Harding-Esch & Coleman, 2021). In this light, we
ask:
- How can language-sensitive research contribute to addressing the
societal challenges that have been identified in the UN Sustainable
Development goals? Specifically:
- Goal 4: ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and
promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all.
- Goal 8: promoting sustained, inclusive, and sustainable economic
growth, full and productive employment, and decent work for all.
- Goal 10: helping to reduce inequality within and among countries.
- How do language management and language-related organizational issues
make a difference in achieving these goals or hindering progress towards
them?
2: Migration, the multilingual workplace, and the consequences for
organizations
Organizations and societies are becoming increasingly heterogenous due to
migration movements (Barmeyer et al., 2021) driven by forces of political
instability, war, and climate change. A World Bank report (2021) estimates
that climate change could displace more than 200 million people by 2050,
especially those from the Global South. As such, organizations are becoming
increasingly multilingual workplaces (Horn et al., 2020) where multiple
languages intermingle. Moreover, organizations are key actors in the
integration processes for migrants (Grosskopf et al., 2021), combining not
only national languages, but also dialects and sociolects, professional or
generational languages (Piekkari et al., 2014). Since language represents
the social worlds of its speakers, it is subject to hybridization
(Gaibrois, 2018) and change, as shown by the examples of “Sheng” – a
Swahili-English hybrid language spoken by young people in Kenya, or
“Spanglish” – a mixture of Spanish and English, spoken by many of the
descendants of Latin immigrants in the United States. Migration from rural
areas to cities, or from emerging markets to developing countries, may even
provoke the death of a language in the long run, directly affecting
individual identities and organizations.
Contributions to this track could address, among others, the following
questions:
· How do migration movements change language practices in
organizations?
· What role do organizations and their approaches to understanding of
language play in the integration of migrants?
· How can migration literature enrich and alter language-sensitive
research on organizations and IB?
3: Beyond Global North perspectives on multilingualism
As language-sensitive research in IB and organizational studies has focused
on Global North language contexts (mainly European and North American), we
specifically call for research from and with a strong focus on contexts in
the Global South, Middle East, Central and South America, and Southern Asia
(Heugh & Stroud, 2019). Practice and recent theoretical developments on
plurilingual realities from the Global South contexts are currently
enriching and challenging the academic knowledge on language and language
management (Ndhlovu & Makalela, 2021). Pushing forward in this direction is
crucial to maintaining the relevance of IB and management research.
We thus invite language-sensitive IB scholars to move beyond the
inter-lingual conceptualization of language (Tenzer et al., 2014) to
intra-lingual conceptualizations (Selinker & Gass, 2008) by, for instance,
considering:
- In what ways and to what extent do existing theories from
language-sensitive IB research include or exclude Global South contexts, as
well as find resonance or dissonance in them?
- How do realities in previously understudied language contexts
challenge and develop current theory?
- How much is Western hegemony present in language scholarship? What
forms does it take and how can it be challenged?
4: Language and multilingualism in the digital era
Digitalization and the use of digital technology are the current reality in
organizations. The recent pandemic has intensified the need to adopt
digital technology and altered how people, teams, and organizations
communicate. Research has addressed, for example, the impact of language
use and choice on virtual teams (Klitmøller & Lauring, 2013; Selmer et al.,
2022; Taylor, 2021) or cross-border digital knowledge flows (Wang et al.,
2020). Moreover, automated translation software may both facilitate and
challenge cross-border communication (Barmeyer et al., 2021).
Contributions to this track could be guided by the following questions:
- How does language diversity influence digital collaboration across
borders?
- Which implications does digital communication have on the management
of language and linguistic diversity?
- What are the avenues for future practice and research on language in
human-machine interaction?
5: The language-culture connection
Most contemporary organizations are multilingual and multicultural (Horn et
al., 2020; Steyaert et al., 2011), either operating in international and
thus “foreign” language contexts, or integrating people from a diversity of
cultural and linguistic backgrounds. As a system of signs with a cultural
value (Kramsch, 1998), language is closely related with culture, and the
two phenomena are important elements of identity, expression, and
organizational dynamics influenced by diversity management practices and
choices (Wilczewski et al., 2018).
We encourage proposals that consider the interrelationship of language and
culture (Piekkari et al., 2013; Piekkari et al., 2020). Languages and
cultures are not to be reduced to national constructs, but rather encompass
multiple levels such as regional, organization, industry, or gender
(Brannen et al., 2014; Church-Morel & Bartel-Radic, 2016; Piekkari et al.,
2014). The submissions could address, among others, the following questions:
- How does the intersection of language and culture affect researchers’
approach to organizations?
- What role does translation play in communication in multilingual and
multicultural organizational settings?
- How can we develop IB theory when analyzing culture-specific
terminologies and difficult-to-translate practices in IB communication
(e.g. Blenkingsopp & Pajouh, 2010)?
6: Methodological advancements in language-sensitive IB research
Language-sensitive researchers and practitioners face many methodological
questions. We welcome contributions with a strong methodological
perspective, for example, in relation to research design, data collection,
or data analysis. We also welcome submissions that aim to break new
theoretical grounds by considering the existing literature through the lens
of language-sensitive IB research (Chidlow et al., 2014). Relevant
submissions might include:
· Literature reviews of relevant and current state-of-the-art
publications that can conceptually advance the field of language-sensitive
IB research.
- Ethical considerations related to IB communication research.
- Underutilized qualitative methodologies such as multi-sited
ethnographies, but also large-scale comparative quantitative studies, and
mixed-method studies that employ a combination of quantitative and/or
qualitative methods.
7: Critical perspectives on language in IB
GEM&L welcomes critical contributions from various perspectives and
theoretical frameworks that explore themes linking language and language
diversity with power struggles, social hierarchies, inequalities, and
conflicts in the social world (Ristolainen et al., 2021; Romani et al.,
2014; Boussebaa et al., 2014; Boussebaa & Brown, 2017; Vigier & Bryant,
2022). With this track, we explicitly call for papers that aim at providing
alternative perspectives and/or explore the issue of redressing current
circumstances to serve transformative, emancipatory, or equality purposes (Kim
& Angouri, 2022; Piekkari et al., 2022; Wilmot & Tietze, 2022).
Contributions submitted to the track on critical perspectives might be
conceptual or empirical. More experimental formats such as essay-like
papers are also welcome.
Contributions can address, but need not to be exclusive, to the following
questions:
- How do power and inequality influence language practices in
organizations?
- How can critical theory enhance our understanding of language and
power in organizations?
- How do critical approaches to language in IB shed light on and
question approaches that do not fall in this category and the ways in which
management literature considers performance and effectiveness?
8: Open track on IB, education and training
Scholars working within such fields as linguistics, communications, and
management sciences are welcome to use this open track to submit work that
does not directly fall under any of the above-mentioned tracks, but still
deals with language in IB. We welcome empirical studies or conceptual
pieces that focus on various organizational contexts, including for-profit
private businesses, academic and teaching organizations, and
non-governmental organizations or inter-organizational questions. We also
invite consultants, trainers, and managers working in multilingual contexts
to contribute to this track with relevant practitioner-oriented proposals.
*Instructions and deadlines*
The short paper should indicate the key theoretical, methodological and
empirical questions addressed in the paper, the conceptual field(s)
informing the paper, if applicable the data set used in the paper and the
major theoretical and empirical contributions of the paper. All submissions
must be original and should not have been previously accepted for
publication.
*Submission deadline: *Proposals in French or in English in Word format to
be uploaded on the GEM&L website, www.geml.eu by *16 January 2023.*
*General instructions:*
- Length of short paper: between 3000 and 4000 words, excluding
references.
- Abstract (around 10 lines) to be included in the final program, with
4-6 keywords.
All submissions will be subjected to a double-blind competitive review
process on the basis of originality, rigor, and relevance. No author
information or other identifying information should appear anywhere in the
submission.
Please note that the conference will host a doctoral session, which will
offer PhD students the possibility of discussing their doctoral thesis
project with research fellows and prominent senior scholars in this field
of research. The review process of PhD students’ papers is subjected to the
same rules as for regular papers.
All authors will be informed about the outcome of the review process no
later than *20 March 2023*.
At least one author of each paper must register for the workshop and
present the paper. A final paper is not required before the conference.
Find the full CfP here:
https://geml.eu/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/GEML-Paris-2023_Call-for-papers.pdf
--
saludos cordiales / kind regards / mit freundlichen Grüßen / com os
melhores cumprimentos
Madeleine Bausch, PhD, Assistant Professor of International Business
Faculty of Economics and Business / Facultad de Economía y Negocios (FEN)
University of Chile
*Researchgate * <https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Madeleine_Bausch>|
*Linkedin* <https://www.linkedin.com/in/madeleine-bausch-156ba3165/>
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