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language policies. With rare exceptions
(Marschan et al., 1997; Dhir and Goke-Pariola,
2002), the need for corporate language policies
has not been adequately recognized in
either the strategic management literature or
the communication literature. Dhir and
Savage (2002) offer a judgment-analytic
approach for corporations to assess the economic
value of languages. They posit that different
organizations may receive different
value from delivered functions of a language.
It is imperative that the assessed value account
for not only those functional properties and
qualities of the language in question, but also
the context of the strategic environment in
which the organization assessing it exists and
operates. For a given corporation, the value of
a language may be determined by various factors.
Examples of these factors provided by
Dhir and Savage (2002) are the degree to
which:
1 the language is used in the demographic
community defining the organization’s
strategic environment relative to other
available languages;
2 the demographic community defining the
organization’s internal environment has
collectively invested in the language relative
to other available languages;
3 the language is demanded as a commodity
within the demographic community
defining the organization’s strategic environment,
both external and internal, relative
to other available languages;
4 the demographic community defining
the multinational business organization’s
strategic environment, both external
and internal, creates knowledge in the
language relative to other available languages;
and,
5 the language can be developed as the
multinational business organization’s economic
means of production within the
time frame of its strategic plan relative to
other available languages.
With such conception of language, corporations
can begin to think in terms of a portfolio
of language assets much in the same way
as it thinks of a portfolio of financial currency
assets. It is noteworthy that the analogy between
language and currency holds even in
situations where nations (e.g. India) seek
improved communication efficiency through
adoption of a language not indigenous to
them (e.g. English), and improved financial
efficiency through replacement of their
national currency (e.g. quetzals in Guatemala,
colóns in El Salvador, balboas in Panama, and
sucres in Ecuador) with a currency of another
nation (US dollar) as legal tender. The adoption
of both language and currency may be
formal or informal, and official or unofficial.
For more information on currency replacement,
a process usually referred to as dollarization,
see Calvo (1999), Antinolfi and Keister
(2001) and Edwards (2001).
Workforce diversity
Since the 1990s, considerable attention has
been paid to the conditions under which
cultural diversity enhances or detracts from
work group functioning. There is considerable
literature recommending that managers
should increase workforce diversity to
enhance work group effectiveness, both in
domestic and global organizations (Thomas,
1991; Jackson and Associates, 1992;
Morrison, 1992; Cox, 1993). However, empirical
research in support of these recommendations
is limited. Studies have been reported on
the impact of diversity in (1) identity of group
memberships, in terms of race and sex (Cox,
© 2004 Sandra Oliver for editorial matter and selection;
individual chapters, the contributors