Sergi Casals has successfully defended his doctoral dissertation

Dissertation title: Managing meaning in multinational corporations: A critical realist study of corporate terminology across boundaries

Supervisor: Professor Juan Carlos Díaz-Vásquez (Universidad EAFIT)
Universidad EAFIT, Business School, Global Management Academic Area

Doctoral committee: Professor Rebecca Piekkari (Aalto University), Professor Mary Yoko Brannen (San Jose State University), Professor María Alejandra González-Pérez (Universidad EAFIT)

Abstract
Multinational corporations face the challenge of preserving the core meaning of their practices, knowledge, and products while making necessary contextual adaptations as they operate across diverse international markets. This dissertation examines how corporate terminology—the specialized terms MNCs use to name organizational elements—is managed to address this tension between meaning consistency and local responsiveness.
This study takes terminology out of the language box to examine it as a distinct organizational element that managers can leverage. Using a critical realist approach, the research investigates how corporate terminology is managed to support strategic objectives across international boundaries through a qualitative case study of a multinational credit insurance company, analyzing four cases of cross-market product/service translation.
The findings reveal that corporate terminology functions as a knowledge organization mechanism that transcends communication, enabling MNCs to maintain conceptual clarity while adapting linguistic labels to diverse contexts. Rather than pursuing homogenization, effective terminology management organizes variation to balance context-specific adaptations with internal coherence.
This research contributes by reconceptualizing corporate terminology as a distinct organizational element and revealing its integrative role in cross-boundary knowledge transfer. Practically, it highlights terminology’s strategic potential and provides frameworks for managers to leverage terminology to achieve strategic goals across international boundaries.

Congratulations Sergi!