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Cultural and language skills as resources for boundary spanning within the MNC

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Abstract

We examine the role of cultural and language skills as resources for individuals’ boundary spanning ability in multinational corporations. Our combined qualitative and quantitative analysis shows that cultural and language skills influence the extent to which individual boundary spanners perform four functions: exchanging, linking, facilitating, and intervening. Boundary spanners with both cultural and language skills perform more functions than those with only cultural skills, and language skills are critical for performing the most demanding functions. Key boundary spanners have properties that potentially make them not only valuable organizational human capital, but also rare and difficult to imitate. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

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Notes

  1. Our data do not allow the examination of individuals with language skills but not cultural skills, as there were too few (n=5) individuals in that category to allow a robust quantitative analysis. Exploring this category closer is, however, an obvious suggestion for further research and has practical implications, for example, career trajectories.

  2. We also assessed the relationship between the above grouping variable and each of the boundary spanning functions separately. Although the detailed results of this post hoc analysis are not presented here in order to leave enough space for the qualitative analysis, the results were similar to those discussed here.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Management and Organization, Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki, Finland

    Wilhelm Barner-Rasmussen, Mats Ehrnrooth & Alexei Koveshnikov

  2. School of Business, Aalto University, Helsinki, Finland

    Kristiina Mäkelä

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  1. Wilhelm Barner-Rasmussen
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  2. Mats Ehrnrooth
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  3. Alexei Koveshnikov
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  4. Kristiina Mäkelä
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Correspondence to Wilhelm Barner-Rasmussen.

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Accepted by Mary Yoko Brannen, Deputy Editor, 4 November 2013. This paper has been with the authors for one revision.

APPENDIX

APPENDIX

The First Round of Interviews (Fall 2006)

In the first round of interviews, we were particularly interested in understanding the basic challenges, successes, and failures of inter-unit knowledge and competence transfer, and related questions concerning human and social capital, as these were at this point deemed particularly relevant for knowledge and competences. Questions included the following, and interviewees were encouraged to give practical examples:

Can you tell us about the background and current state of your investment in the unit?

  • Why was the investment made?

  • In relation to your objective with the investment, where are you now?

  • What do you see as the biggest achievements and challenges?

  • How have you gone about managing the relationships between the headquarters and the unit?

Could you give us examples of any transfers of practices that you have been involved with?

  • Successful and/or unsuccessful?

  • From the headquarters to the case unit and/or from the case unit to the headquarters?

The Second Round of Interviews (Spring 2007)

For the second round of interviews, we had identified four different sub-projects arising from the first round of data collection that we wanted to pursue further, including the role of culture and language in knowledge and competence transfer processes (the topic of individuals as boundary spanners was not specified at this point yet, but we rather sought to examine these topic in relation to inter-unit knowledge and competence transfer). Questions included the following, and interviewees were encouraged to give practical examples:

Language and competence

How have the visions and values of the mother-company been transferred to the/this subunit?

What have the reactions been? Why?

  • Did language play a role in this process? How?

  • Can you tell us about the role that language plays in the relationship between the subunit and the mother company?

  • Can you describe the language skills that people have in the subunit?

  • What impact would you say a lack of language skills have on daily operations or cooperation?

  • In what ways do language skills affect one’s position or status in the company?

Cultural differences, trust, and control

  • How would you characterize the overall relations between the mother-company and the subunit people? Are there major problems?

  • Could you elaborate on how you perceive the cultural differences in general between Finland and Russia/China?

  • How would you describe their impact on the relationship between the HQ and the Russian/Chinese?

  • Can you tell us something more about how you personally see these cultural differences in your daily work?

  • What do you perceive as the qualifications that one should have in order to manage the cultural differences successfully?

  • What has been be done within your company in order to improve the understanding of cultural differences?

  • Could you elaborate a bit more on typical prejudices that Finns/Russians/Chinese have about Chinese/Russians/Finns? Have they had any impact on cooperation?

The Third Round of Interviews Carried out Between (Fall 2007; A and B only)

Finally, in Companies A and B we deemed the challenges related to inter-unit knowledge and competence transfer to be particularly challenging from an organizational capability point of view and therefore did one more round of interviews in them focusing on the development of the key cross-border activities related to these challenges. Questions included the following, and interviewees were encouraged to give practical examples:

  • How would you describe past experiences of your company which

    1. a

      enable your company’s efforts in China/Russia today;

    2. b

      complicates your company’s efforts in China/Russia;

    3. c

      can you tell us about the status of [specific projects in the respective companies]?

  • Could you please tell us about the process whereby your company tries to (accomplish the specific projects)?

    1. a

      What are the mechanisms of knowledge articulation?

    2. b

      Who interacts with whom? What kind of interactions?

    3. c

      In what forums? Who is involved and how?

    4. d

      What are the challenges?

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Barner-Rasmussen, W., Ehrnrooth, M., Koveshnikov, A. et al. Cultural and language skills as resources for boundary spanning within the MNC. J Int Bus Stud 45, 886–905 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1057/jibs.2014.7

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