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 16^th 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.