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Defining and measuring readability in the context of financial disclosures becomes important with the increasing use of textual analysis and the Securities and Exchange Commission's plain English initiative. We propose defining readability as the effective communication of valuation-relevant information. The Fog Index—the most commonly applied readability measure—is shown to be poorly specified in financial applications. Of Fog's two components, one is misspecified and the other is difficult to measure. We report that 10-K document file size provides a simple readability proxy that outperforms the Fog Index, does not require document parsing, facilitates replication, and is correlated with alternative readability constructs.

We study the effects of linguistic distance and lingua franca proficiency on the equity stake taken by acquirers from 67 countries in 59,092 acquisition targets in 69 host countries. We theorize and find that acquirers take lower equity stakes in foreign targets when linguistic distance and differences in lingua franca proficiency between them are high, and take higher stakes when the combined lingua franca proficiency of the parties is high. We also find that linguistic and cultural distance reduce the impact of the combined lingua franca proficiency of the parties on the level of equity taken, which shows that the effective use of a lingua franca is affected by the native tongues and cultures of the parties. Our results clearly demonstrate that governance research and international business studies can benefit from incorporating language into their explanatory models.

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.

In this paper, we problematise the way translation has been treated in international business (IB) research. We start by conducting an interpretive content analysis of both qualitative and quantitative cross-language studies published in four core IB journals over the course of a decade. Our analysis shows the dominance of a technicist view of translation associated with the equivalence paradigm. In contrast, we advocate a shift to a more contextualised approach informed by theoretical developments in translation studies. More specifically, we focus on two theoretical perspectives–skopos theory and cultural politics-which offer related but distinct approaches to rethinking equivalence. We conclude by advocating that the translation process be reframed as a process of intercultural interaction, rather than a lexical transfer of meaning. This reconceptualisation would, we argue, open up what is currently a \"black box\" in most IB studies. The contextualised approach that we offer has the potential not just to enrich the findings of studies, but also provide insights that are of multidisciplinary relevance.

This article explores how within-country diversity of both language and religion influences the ownership structure of foreign acquisitions. Commentators have acknowledged the potential importance of \"within-country diversity,\" but to date this issue has received minimal empirical attention. We propose that diversity plays two distinct roles. Namely, diversity within the host country may be an additional source of behavioral uncertainty and information asymmetry, over and above the effects arising from cross-national differences. Moreover, diversity within the home country may increase the cognitive complexity of the decision makers, moderating the firm's response to the distance and diversity of the host country. Results based on foreign acquisitions across 67 acquirer and 69 target countries confirm both of these roles. While the main focus of this article is on the role that within-country diversity plays in international business decisions, it also makes contributions in terms of expanding the range of dimensions of distance investigated in the cross-border acquisition literature, in highlighting a potentially positive role that diversity might play in such acquisitions, and in providing a potential explanation for asymmetries in distance – that is, differences in cognitive complexity.

The spread and use of English as the lingua franca of international business (IB) - \"corporate Englishization\" - has received increasing scholarly attention in recent years but the focus has mostly been on the communication benefits and challenges of using English as a shared language inside multinationals. In this article we examine how English is used externally in the provision of business services and apply a postcolonial perspective to frame our analysis. Drawing on fieldwork in India within the call center units of two outsourcing organizations serving Anglo-American firms, we show how corporate Englishization (1) relies on, and contributes to producing, comprador managerial cadres; (2) serves to construct a transnational intra-linguistic hierarchy of power and privilege; and (3) undercuts own effectiveness by simultaneously eliminating and maintaining the alterity of the \"Other\" through processes of mimicry. We thus show how corporate Englishization does not merely overcome or, conversely, worsen transnational communication problems; it also (re)-produces colonial-style power relations between the \"Anglosphere\" and the \"Rest\". Our analysis deepens our understanding of corporate Englishization and opens a new avenue for postcolonial research on the role of language in IB. Our analysis also advances the field of postcolonial organization studies and has implications for IB scholarship more generally.

To understand how recipients respond to radical change over time across cognitive, affective, and behavioral dimensions, we conducted a longitudinal study of a mandated language change at a Chilean subsidiary of a large U.S. multinational organization. The engineering-focused subsidiary aiming to facilitate cross-border interactions embedded language-acquisition experts to transition all employees from Spanish to English full time. We gathered survey data and objective fluency scores from the language change recipients at five points over a period of two years. Using variable- and personcentered exploratory analyses, our results suggest that recipients' negative affective responses to the language change precede their cognitive responses or self-efficacy, predicting their current language learning. Further, we find that recipients' cognitive and affective responses over time differentially influence two future behavioral outcomes: intention to leave the organization and willingness to adopt the change. Although cognitive rather than affective responses over time drive recipients' intentions to leave, affective responses influence recipients' willingness to adopt English. Finally, we show that change recipients followed three trajectories of cognitive responses and two trajectories of affective responses over time. We discuss theoretical and practical implications to the literature on organizational change, emotions, and language in global organizations.

PurposeLanguage plays a complex role in coaching, facilitating communication, comprehension and meaning construction. Yet, the implications of coaching in a non-native language are uncertain and under-researched. This study explores the role of non-native language (NNL) in dyadic workplace coaching practice. Specifically, it explores how working in a NNL influences the coaching experience from the coach’s perspective.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative approach was chosen to explore the way coaches view coaching in a NNL. Twenty-three semi-structured interviews were conducted with coaches experienced in coaching in NNL. Reflexive thematic analysis (RTA) was applied for data analysis.FindingsNNL coaching presents a paradoxical mix of negative and positive tensions for the coach and coachee in communication, relationship and insight. NNL coaching is nuanced and may be accommodated using coaching competencies to mitigate the potential for misunderstanding and relationship rupture. It offers alternative perspectives to existing worldviews, eliciting deeper insights. Coaches’ confidence in coaching in a NNL varies from a challenging struggle that perceptually hinders performance, through ambivalence, to a sense of greater resourcefulness.Originality/valueThe study contributes to the stream of literature on language in international business, sociolinguistic research and how meaning is constructed in a coaching process. First, the work develops a distinction between coaching in a native language (NL) and a NNL. Second, study results indicate that the context of NNL creates challenges as well as opportunities in a dyadic coaching process, particularly regarding aspects of the coach–coachee relationship and insight elicitation via alternative perspectives. Moreover, several practical implications of the study for the coaching practice are discussed.

The aim of this paper is to examine the effects of evaluations of non-native speaking staff's spoken English in international business settings. We adopt a sociolinguistic perspective on power and inequalities in linguistically diverse organizations in an Anglophone environment. The interpretive qualitative study draws on 54 interviews with non-native English-speaking staff in 19 UK business schools. We analyze, along the dimensions of status, solidarity and dynamism, the ways in which non-native speakers, on the basis of their spoken English, are evaluated by themselves and by listeners. We show how such evaluations refer to issues beyond the speaker's linguistic fluency, and have consequences for her or his actions. The study contributes to the literature on language and power in international business through offering fine-grained insights into and elucidating how the interconnected evaluative processes impact the formation and perpetuation of organizational power relations and inequalities. It also puts forward implications for managing the officially monolingual, yet linguistically diverse organizations.

Machine translation (MT), i.e., automatic translation, is a growing field in artificial intelligence with huge impacts on societies and businesses. Despite its importance for traveling and tourism communication, it has not been approached within tourism research. This study aims to fill this gap in knowledge by analyzing how attitudes toward machine translation are related to tourists’ profiles, travel behaviors, and language mindsets. It comprises two parts. The first one concerns a sample of 2535 individuals, while the second concerns a sub-sample of 907 language tourists (LTs). Specific research goals are set for each study: (1) to compare individuals with opposing viewpoints on the importance of MT in terms of profiles and attitudes toward languages; and (2) to understand how LTs’ profiles and travel experiences differed according to their agreement with the importance of MT in their most significant language trip. Statistical exploratory and inferential analyses have been conducted. We conclude that those with more positive views of MT tend to be younger and less educated, report poorer language skills, and attribute greater importance to the role of English as a lingua franca. Concerning LTs, those who rate MT as less important are more likely to have acquired language skills formally, engage more in cultural activities, and have closer contact with locals during their language trips. Acknowledging the role of MT in their most significant language trip is neither associated with a more unfavorable attitude towards the role of language in tourism nor with perceived diminished travel outcomes.