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Few studies have examined legitimation in multinational corporations from a discursive perspective. To complement the existing institutional literature, we adopt a critical discourse analysis perspective that allows us to examine the microlevel processes of discursive legitimation. We provide an example of a media text--dealing with a production unit shutdown--to demonstrate how this perspective elucidates the various textual strategies used to legitimate multinational corporations' actions and their controversial consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper marks a departure from the focus on external stakeholders in much research on legitimacy and multinational corporations, adopting a social psychological approach to study how MNCs build internal legitimacy for controversial decisions with their subsidiaries. We explore this through a longitudinal, real-time qualitative case study of a regional office relocation, since office relocations represent rare yet significant strategic decisions. We analyze the interplay between the legitimation strategies of senior managers and subsidiary legitimacy judgments, based in instrumental, relational, and moral considerations, and how the relationship between the two develops over time. From this analysis, we derive inductively a process model that reveals the dynamics of building internal legitimacy with subsidiaries, and how an MNC moves on even in the absence of full legitimacy, when dealing with controversial MNC decisions. The model highlights two important dynamics. The first is a dynamic between legitimation strategies and legitimacy judgments and how this is influenced by local subsidiary contexts. The second is a temporal dynamic in how both the legitimation strategies and legitimacy judgments evolve over time. Our model contributes to research on legitimacy in MNCs, what we know about tensions that characterize MNC-subunit relationships, and research on headquarters relocation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article develops a model which conceptualizes headquarter-subsidiary relations in the multinational corporation as a multilevel discursive struggle between key managers. At the first level, the relations are conceptualized as a discursive struggle over decisions and actions using rationalistic discourses. At the second level, they are viewed as a discursive struggle over power relations using control and autonomy discourses. Finally, underlying the first two, at the third level, headquarter-subsidiary relations are conceptualized as a discursive struggle over managers' worldviews using cultural (pre)conceptions about "the self and "the other." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper advances our understanding of managerial identity work in the context of HQ–subsidiary relations. We argue that a key part of this identity work is related to cultural stereotypes. On the basis of an analysis of two Finland-based MNCs operating in Russia, the paper elucidates three forms of stereotype-based identity work with enabling or constraining power implications. The first form, stereotypical talk, refers to identity work whereby managers enact their stereotypical conceptions of ‘the other’ to bolster their self-image and ‘inferiorize’ ‘the other’. The second form, reactive talk, is identity work that emerges as a reaction to stereotypical talk whereby managers aim at renegotiating the proposed social arrangement for their own benefit. Finally, the third form, self-reflexive talk, refers to identity work whereby managers attempt to go beyond the social arrangement produced through stereotypical and reactive talk by distancing themselves in a self-reflexive manner from essentialist cultural conceptions. Overall, the paper offers an initial attempt to elucidate how stereotype-based identity work is used to justify or resist existing power structures and power asymmetries in HQ–subsidiary relations within the MNC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we focus on the role of language in cross-border mergers and acquisitions and explore how organization members' language skills, or fluency, in the adopted lingua franca may impact their reactions to a merger. Drawing on a qualitative study of the post-merger integration between a French and Dutch airline where English was adopted as a lingua franca, we illustrate how language fluency influences the ability of individuals to give meaning to their changed circumstances. Moreover, we elaborate on how language fluency indexes social groupings and identities, and may thus be a driver of perceptions of status inequality and identity politics between different groups of employees. With our study we draw attention to the multi-faceted role of English as a lingua franca. Our findings also contribute to research on sociocultural dynamics associated with post-merger integration and the role of language in mergers and acquisitions, as well as in multinational companies more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the multifaceted role of language and language-sensitive recruitment in knowledge transfer in multinational corporations (MNCs). In particular, we develop a framework that helps to better understand how language-sensitive recruitment is related to competence, networks, identity, and power. We started by conducting a qualitative interview-based study of 101 MNC subsidiaries. This analysis elucidates the productive and counterproductive effects of language-sensitive recruitment on knowledge transfer related to communication competence, networks, identity, and power. To further understand the productive and counterproductive effects, we conducted a quantitative study in 285 MNC subsidiaries. We found an inverted U-shaped relationship between language-sensitive recruitment and knowledge transfer. Together, these two studies provide a better understanding of the multifaceted and at times counterintuitive implications of language-sensitive recruitment on knowledge transfer in MNCs. By elucidating these effects, this paper contributes to the stream of research examining the role of language in MNCs and international business more generally. It further adds to research on MNC knowledge transfer that to date has focused little attention on language. By elaborating on the potential unintended consequences of language-sensitive recruitment, this paper also has implications for international human resource management research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study adopts a recontextualization perspective on language policies and practices in wholly owned foreign subsidiaries. Drawing on a field study of 101 subsidiaries in Japan, we develop a contingency model that distinguishes between four different types of recontextualization with characteristic language policies and practices: developing/locally adaptive, developing/globally integrated, established/locally adaptive, and established/globally integrated. Our analysis shows how each of these four types is accompanied by specific problems and challenges. In particular, it elucidates five important aspects of language implementation: (1) the emergence of language praxis from the interplay of headquarters strategies and local responses; (2) the hybridization of language practices; (3) the central role of key actors such as subsidiary presidents in recontextualization; (4) the pervasive power implications of language policies and practices; and (5) the multifaceted implications for strategic human resource management. By so doing, our analysis opens up new avenues for context-specific and practice-oriented studies of language in multinational companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although extant research has highlighted the role of discourse in the cultural construction of organizations, there is a need to elucidate the use of narratives as central discursive resources in unfolding organizational change. Hence, the objective of this article is to develop a new kind of antenarrative approach for the cultural analysis of organizational change. We use merging multinational corporations (MNCs) as a case in point. Our empirical analysis focuses on a revelatory case: the financial services group Nordea, which was built by combining Swedish, Finnish, Danish, and Norwegian corporations. We distinguish three types of antenarrative that provided alternatives for making sense of the merger: globalist, nationalist, and regionalist (Nordic) antenarratives. We focus on how these antenarratives were mobilized in intentional organizational storytelling to legitimate or resist change: globalist storytelling as a means to legitimate the merger and to create MNC identity, nationalist storytelling to relegitimate national identities and interests, Nordic storytelling to create regional identity, and the critical use of the globalist storytelling to challenge the Nordic identity. We conclude that organizational storytelling is characterized by polyphonic, stylistic, chronotopic, and architectonic dialogisms and by a dynamic between centering and decentering forces. This paper contributes to discourse-cultural studies of organizations by explaining how narrative constructions of identities and interests are used to legitimate or resist change. Furthermore, this analysis elucidates the dialogical dynamics of organizational storytelling and thereby opens up new avenues for the cultural analysis of organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In spite of the proliferation of research on cultural differences in international mergers and acquisitions, we lack systematic analyses of the impact of cultural factors on knowledge transfer. In this paper, we argue that both national and organizational cultural differences and cultural integration in the form of cultural convergence and crossvergence affect knowledge transfer in acquisitions. We develop specific hypotheses concerning the nature of these effects, and test our hypotheses with data on international acquisitions carried out by Finnish corporations. The analyses performed show that national cultural differences provide great potential for knowledge transfer in international acquisitions. Furthermore, organizational cultural convergence and crossvergence have a significant positive impact on knowledge transfer. In particular, convergence and crossvergence moderate the impact of national cultural differences on knowledge transfer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to address gender and management in contemporary globalization by focusing on the ways in which male top managers in a multinational corporation (MNC) construct their identities in interviews with researchers. Design/methodology/approach – Qualitative analysis based on interviews with virtually all top managers in the Nordic financial services company Nordea (53 men and two women). Findings – It is found that becoming international induces a particular masculine identity for the top managers. In becoming international, however, their national identification persists. The unstability of the MNC as a political constellation leaves room for questioning the transnational identity offered. Originality/value – This paper's findings suggest that in the global world of business, national identity can also be interpreted as something positive and productive, contrary to how it has been previously treated in feminist and men's studies literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an integrative model of the impact of cultural differences on capability transfer in cross-border acquisitions. We propose that cultural differences affect the post-acquisition capability transfer through their impact on social integration, potential absorptive capacity, and capability complementarity. Two dynamic variables -- the use of social integration mechanisms, and the degree of operational integration of the acquired unit -- are proposed to moderate the effects of cultural differences on social integration and potential absorptive capacity. The implications for acquisition research and practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We argue in this paper that corporate language policies have significant power implications that are easily overlooked. By drawing on previous work on power in organizations (Clegg, 1989), we examine the complex power implications of language policy decisions by looking at three levels of analysis: episodic social interaction, identity/subjectivity construction, and reconstruction of structures of domination. In our empirical analysis, we focus on the power implications of the choice of Swedish as the corporate language in the case of the recent banking sector merger between the Finnish Merita and the Swedish Nordbanken. Our findings show how language skills become empowering or disempowering resources in organizational communication, how these skills are associated with professional competence, and how this leads to the creation of new social networks. The case also illustrates how language skills are an essential element in the construction of international confrontation, lead to a construction of superiority and inferiority, and also reproduce post-colonial identities in the merging bank. Finally, we also point out how such policies ultimately lead to the reification of post-colonial and neo-colonial structures of domination in multinational corporations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on cultural identity-building in the cross-border merger context. To provide an alternative to the dominant essentialist analyses of cultures and cultural differences, cultural identity-building is conceptualized as a metaphoric process. The focus is on two processes inherent in the cross-border merger context: construction of images of Us and Them and construction of images of a Common Future. Based on an analysis of a special metaphor exercise carried out in a recent Finnish-Swedish merger, the article illustrates how the metaphorical perspective reveals specific cognitive, emotional and political aspects of cultural identity-building that easily remain 'hidden' in the case of more traditional approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]