Webinar #6 – Language Management : From Bricolage to Strategy

January 24, 2023   4pm CET | 3pm BST | 10am EDT| 7am PDT

For the 6th GEM&L webinar on language in international business, we are delighted to welcome Dr. Natalie Wilmot from University of Bradford, U.K.

Natalie Wilmot is the Deputy Dean of the School of Management at the University of Bradford, which she joined in September 2019 as MBA Director. This followed seven years at Sheffield Hallam University as Senior Lecturer in International Business. Her research focuses on language diversity in international business, and she has published a number of works on this topic, with a research monograph on language management published by Multilingual Matters in August 2022. Her teaching interests are in the areas of international strategy and cross-cultural management. Since 2017 she has been a visiting lecturer at the University of Bordeaux, where she teaches a postgraduate course on intercultural communication.  Prior to academia, Natalie held various positions in the private sector, specializing in export sales and has worked extensively with organizations in southern Europe and Latin America.

Summary:

This talk explores how smaller organisations deal with language diversity in inter-organisational relationships by drawing on four case studies of UK-based organisations.  It particularly explores three key aspects: the role of boundary spanners, and the multi-faceted nature of their activity within smaller organisations; translation as a critical issue faced by organisations in external communication, and how this can be managed when resources are constrained; and the privileging and disadvantageous effects of Business English as a Lingua Franca on organisations based within the Anglosphere.  The talk aims to show the creativity that smaller organisations demonstrate in environments of linguistic diversity, exploiting resources which they may acquire through luck, rather than strategy.