This research examines how an international team of civil engineers navigates complex professional tasks through BELF (Business English as a lingua franca), providing crucial insights for modern multinational organisations. By gathering interactional data from an international engineering group, this study explores how multilingual professionals strategically use their linguistic resources to accomplish essential business functions such as decision-making, problem-solving, and project coordination. Through linguistic ethnography and in-depth interviews, the research aims to capture the real-world communication dynamics that drive success—or create barriers—in global business environments.

The findings of this PhD project may directly impact international business practice, informing strategies for cross-cultural team management, professional communication training, and organisational effectiveness. As businesses increasingly depend on multicultural teams operating across linguistic boundaries, understanding how professionals employ Business English in practice has never been more essential.

Contact: Evelina Lucas (Evelina.Lucas@nhh.no)

Europe faces accelerating climate extremes, yet gaps remain between producing climate adaptation knowledge and applying it in local planning. Although adaptation needs are widely recognized, local authorities often struggle to translate complex climate information into community action. This research, in collaboration with colleagues at NORCE Research, examines how adaptation knowledge is communicated across transnational city networks, focusing on challenges of turning information into local solutions. Using corpus linguistic analysis and interviews with sustainability teams in six European cities, the study traces how municipalities, NGOs, and industry actors engage in networks like ICLEI, the Climate Action Network, and Climate Alliance to create, use and share adaptation strategies. The findings contribute to climate governance and sustainability communication studies, while offering practical insights for cities, networks, and businesses collaborating to strengthen climate resilience.

Contact: Gavin Lamb (gavin.lamb@nhh.no)

Laerdal Medical is present in 25 countries worldwide, which raises the question of what strategies the organisation adopts to communicate and keep its values and mission statement alive across different linguistic and cultural backgrounds. The question is answered by conducting interviews and fieldwork observations at the subsidiary Laerdal Medical Japan. The research is a joint project between NHH and Laerdal Medical, and was funded by NHH. 

This ongoing PhD project examines the role of communication practitioners in international transfer processes within multinational companies (MNCs). Language use is vital when it comes to eliciting employee commitment to managerial initiatives. In MNCs, this may pose a challenge due to differing languages and cultures.

Recent research within language sensitive IB suggests that the work of employees who take on the role paraprofessional translators significantly impacts the strategic direction of the MNC.

This dissertation uses interviews, observations and corporate texts to shed light on the role of MNC communication practitioners, whose work frequently involves paraprofessional translation. It also highlights the need to include both the corporate texts and the employees who translates them when studying international transfer processes. 

Contact: Victoria Susanne Nydegger Schrøder (Victoria.Schroder@nhh.no)

This conversation analytic research project investigates linguistic and multimodal practices acquired and developed on a digital platform at a multinational IT company, where English is used as a shared language – a lingua franca. The project provides novel insights into how a contemporary multilingual team juggles between multiple parallel tasks and online communication channels such as video conferencing platforms, project chats, and mind-mapping tools. It also seeks to understand how the team members acquire, use and adapt linguistic, discursive and multimodal practices in and through their interactions. Discursive language management – how participants choose which language to use within their interaction – is one of the emerging topics of the project. The investigation answers a call for a more holistic research approach that takes multilingualism into consideration in second language acquisition studies, while engaging with the entirety of semiotic forms which contribute to meaning-making. Such forms can include e.g. gestures, signs, emoji, artifacts, movement and sound, in addition to spoken and written language.

Contact: Kaisa Sofia Pietikäinen (Kaisa.Pietikainen@nhh.no)

East Asia remains an economic stronghold, and previous research at the department has examined business collaborations between Norway and both Japan and South Korea. The current project focuses on the Japanese subsidiary of a Norwegian mission-driven multinational in the health sector, analysing how the headquarters’ attempts to drive organisational change through corporate values are perceived by Japanese staff. It also investigates the subsidiary’s work culture, which is distinctly multicultural despite most employees being Japanese with backgrounds in traditional domestic firms. In doing so, the study aims to offer a more nuanced understanding of contemporary Japanese workplaces.

Contact: Kristin Rygg (Kristin.rygg@nhh.no)

In Norway, over 40% of skilled migrants (HSMs) are overqualified for their position, according to a recent report (Statistics Norway, 2022). This project investigates the barriers that skilled migrants in Norway face in gaining employment that aligns with their level of experience and qualification. It also examines how proficiency in the local language can act as a glass ceiling, the strategies employed by skilled migrants to secure employment, and how migrants discursively construct their identities.

Contact: Annelise Ly (Annelise.Ly@nhh.no)

How can we best prepare students to develop the intercultural skills needed in today’s international workplace? Several of our research projects build on teaching practices that explore diverse pedagogical approaches designed to help students gain a more nuanced and reflective understanding of culture and cultural differences.

One project examines the effectiveness of intercultural teamwork by applying Team-based Learning in classes with students from diverse cultural backgrounds. Another explores how positioning theory and discourse analysis can enable students to gain deeper insights from fieldwork interviews with internationally active business expatriates, moving beyond the surface level of explicit statements. This latter project illustrates how socio-constructivist methods can add nuance and complexity to intercultural education.

Results from both projects have been published in the high-ranking journal Intercultural Education.

Contact: Annelise Ly (Annelise.Ly@nhh.no); Kristin Rygg (Kristin.Rygg@nhh.no)

Our previous research investigated intercultural misunderstandings that arose when the Norwegian Navy commissioned the construction of a logistics vessel at a South Korean shipyard. While most studies of intercultural teamwork focus on conflicts rooted in national cultural differences, our latest research highlights how organisational and occupational cultures can be equally significant sources of tension. The study centres on a German–Norwegian joint project team collaborating on a submarine-building project. As a NATO showcase, the initiative represents a pioneering effort to implement joint design specifications through a binational project office.

Contact: Kristin Rygg (Kristin.Rygg@nhh.no)

This PhD project explores second language socialisation and learning in a multilingual workplace, focusing on a salmon processing plant in Norway employing over 600 staff from more than 40 nationalities.

In the Nordic context, employment is often seen as central to integration. Policies therefore prioritise rapid entry into work, assuming that, after initial language courses, further learning will take place naturally on the job. However, little is known about how employees experience this process, or what conditions enable or restrict workplace learning.

The project investigates how workers navigate such conditions and how multilingual practices influence both communication and learning. Using qualitative methods – interviews, ethnographic observation, and video recordings – it aims to illuminate the opportunities and challenges of language learning in real-world, multilingual settings.

Contact: Ina Celise Sortland (Ina.Sortland@nhh.no)

This PhD project focuses on language practices and language learning in the multilingual workplace, specifically at a fish farming factory in Norway. With over 500 employees from 35 different nationalities, the factory provides an ideal setting to investigate how language learning is experienced and perceived by second language users of Norwegian. The project aims to explore how the language learning conditions in the workplace align with the language learning policies of the company and the government, and how workers navigate these conditions.

The overall goal of this dissertation is to contribute to the growing literature on language learning in real-world contexts and shed light on workers’ experiences of language practices and learning in a multilingual environment. By examining the impact of multilingualism on language practices and learning, the project aims to offer a nuanced understanding of the subject.

To achieve these goals, the study employs qualitative research methods, including interviews with workers, ethnographic observations, and video recordings of naturally occurring interaction at the multilingual workplace.

Contact person: Ina Celise Sortland

In 2024, tourism contributed about 10% of global GDP, yet the industry faces growing uncertainty due to sustainability challenges. Mass tourism creates environmental pressures, while strained stakeholder dialogue hampers effective destination management, particularly under climate change. My research explores how collaboration networks in nature-based tourism address these issues. Using ethnographic discourse analysis, I investigate how stakeholders from diverse cultural and professional backgrounds use communication to advance sustainability. The study follows two lines: first, how tourism stakeholders employ different modes of communication to shape pro-environmental behavior; second, how actors such as local communities, tourism operators, and conservation organizations build collaborative networks to support sustainable destination management. This work advances tourism management and sustainability communication, offering insights for practitioners and policy makers to foster more sustainable and inclusive approaches to nature-based tourism.

Contact: Gavin Lamb (gavin.lamb@nhh.no)

The PhD dissertation explores the connection between communication, perception and implementation of global paternity leave in multinational corporations. By examining how global parental leave policies are communicated and perceived across cultures, I uncover insights that can help businesses create more inclusive and sustainable work environments. This study highlights the importance of effective communication in implementing global policies that resonate with employees in different cultural contexts.

The findings from this research are highly relevant for business schools, as they provide actionable knowledge for leaders and HR professionals navigating the complexities of global talent management. In an increasingly interconnected world, understanding how to build inclusive policies that align with diverse cultural values is essential for creating workplaces where everyone can thrive.

Contact: Agnes Bamford (agnes.bamford@nhh.no)

This project brings students from different business schools together in a realistic negotiation scenario to practice pragmatic strategies based on English as a business lingua franca (BELF) research. Such strategies entail for example accommodation, where speakers increase clarity to prevent miscommunication, maintaining a win-win business mentality and a focusing on building positive relationships. Through an action research study spanning three semesters, our project develops a pedagogic solution that uses casework in a single virtual exchange session to hone business students’ skills in intercultural negotiation and BELF communication. The developed solution can be fitted into existing Business English curricula without the need to rearrange the course or invest in longer exchange programs. The second part of the project uses conversation analysis to explore students’ interactions to better understand the specific communicative challenges the students face, to further develop the activity and to advance BELF pedagogy overall.

Contact: Kaisa Sofia Pietikäinen (Kaisa.Pietikainen@nhh.no)

The Language Management

The Language Management project focuses on the challenges posed by the dramatic increase in the number of linguistically diverse organisations, where one of the most common strategies is to adopt English as the functional language for organisational communicative purposes.

Another aspect is the use of the local language in this function, exemplified by the use of Norwegian in multinational organisations located in Norway. The concept of sensemaking is used to describe how members of an organisation interpret their environment and try to reduce equivocality by creating a shared understanding of experienced situations.

This project is part of NHH's research programme Future-Oriented Corporate Solutions (FOCUS), and addresses questions concerning how language issues affect international knowledge workers working in Norway.

FOCUS

Contact person: Annelise Ly

South Korea - Norway business collaborations