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Building professional discourse in emerging markets: Language, context and the challenge of sensemaking

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Abstract

Using ethnographic evidence from the former Soviet republics, this paper examines a relatively new and mainly unobserved concept in international business literature: the phenomenon of communication disengagement that manifests itself in many emerging markets. We link it to the deficiencies of the local professional business discourse rooted in language limitations, which reflects a lack of experience with the market economy. This hampers cognitive coherence between foreign and local business entities, adding to the liability of foreignness as certain instances of professional experience fail to find adequate linguistic expression, and complicates cross-cultural adjustments, causing multinational companies (MNCs) financial losses. We contribute to the IB literature by examining cross-border semantic sensemaking through a retrospectively constructed observational study. We argue that a relative inadequacy of the national professional idiom is likely to remain a feature of the business environment in post-communist economies for some time, and therefore should be factored into business strategies of MNCs. Consequently, we recommend including discursive hazards in the risk evaluation of international projects.

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Notes

  1. According to Rose (2011), Western experts and investors in Russia do not have bureaucracy or corruption as their top concerns anymore; what worries them are questions about professionalism and the competence of key managers and the credibility of their business vision.

  2. See Holden (1996) for numerous examples of terminological problems between English and Russian, and English and Polish in the field of management.

  3. The situation has not changed, as a recent publication by Holden (2013) demonstrates. See also: Управление знаниями: Хрестоматия / Науч. ред. Т.Е.Андреева, Т.Ю.Гутникова СПб.: Изд-во «Высшая школа менеджмента», 2008, which is a translation of Holden (2002).

  4. This claim can be verified by the analysis of the numbers of attendees and presentations from the indigenous scholars from Russia at the main professional gatherings (i.e., AoM, AIB, BAM), as well as the frequency of appearances in established academic journals.

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Acknowledgements

Authors are indebted to Dr H. Yakavenka (University of Greenwich, UK) and K. Markova (UCLan, UK) for their contributions to the data collection. This study benefited from financial support by The British Academy and The Centre of South Asian Studies, University of Cambridge, UK. We are grateful to Susanne Tietze, the special issue editor, and the anonymous JIBS reviewers for the constructive and thoughtful guidance.

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  1. Lancashire Business School, University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK

    Andrei Kuznetsov

  2. Manchester Metropolitan University Business School, Manchester, UK

    Olga Kuznetsova

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Correspondence to Andrei Kuznetsov.

Appendix

Appendix

Observations and data accumulated during research and educational projects in the former Soviet Union and interaction with Russian speaking managers, businessmen and academics have been an important element of the factual foundation of this study. The details of the more important of these projects are provided below1.

Table 1 Table A1
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Kuznetsov, A., Kuznetsova, O. Building professional discourse in emerging markets: Language, context and the challenge of sensemaking. J Int Bus Stud 45, 583–599 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1057/jibs.2013.69

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