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BUSM3311
International Business
RMIT Vietnam
Language diversity a major issue
that challenges companies when
internationalizing
Nguyen Bao Hung
S3393103
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522
International Business
International Business
communicate with foreign stakeholders and regulators (Piekkari et al. 2013). During
1990s, Nokia extensively as well as strictly use English in its daily activities. Piekkari et
al. state that Nokia has a written policy of using English down to the level of tone of
voice. Nokias meetings, its writings and verbal speaking are all in English. Nokias
employees avoid using Finnish to prevent miscommunication happened to those who
do not speak Finnish (Piekkari et al. 2013). As a result, for the new generation of
Nokias managers, speaking English is very natural.
To sum up, language barrier is one of the major issues that challenges companies in
their internationalizing process because of some problems it could bring such as
misunderstanding between members and negative effect on thinking ability as well as
making decision. A possible solution to deal with this issue is using a common corporate
language such as English in order to reduce the language diversity within an
organization.
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International Business
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