Abstract
This study explores hegemonic linguistic processes, that is, the dominant and unreflective use of the English language in the production of textual knowledge accounts. The authors see the production of management knowledge as situated in central or peripheral locations, which they examine from an English language perspective. Their inquiry is based on an empirical study based on the perspectives of 33 management academics (not English language speakers) in (semi) peripheral locations, who have to generate and disseminate knowledge in and through the English language. Although the hegemony of the center in the knowledge production process has long been acknowledged, the specific contribution of this study is to explore how the English language operates as part of the “ideological complex” that produces and maintains this hegemony, as well as how this hegemony is manifested at the local level of publication practices in peripherally located business and management schools.
Introduction
Management academics are knowledge workers, who generate and disseminate knowledge. Their work is therefore of an analytic–symbolic character (Reich, 2001), that is to say, they trade in words, data, and representation. Thus, successful or unsuccessful participation in the creation of knowledge is dependent on their “semiotic ability to design, analyse and transform symbols in social settings” (Gee, Hull, & Lankshear, 1996, p. 66). In other words, the knowledge inquiry of management academics entails the use of language; it is language-bound in its very essence and therefore management academics have to acquire expertise in using and shaping language as part and parcel of their core activity. The language through which much of contemporary knowledge is generated and shared is the English language, to such an extent that English has become the global lingua franca of knowledge (Crystal, 2003). Indeed, the field of management and business is (almost) monolingual (Tietze, 2004). Little attention, however, is paid to the possible consequences that this situation may have for either the “players” in the field and their emotional, material, and social well-being (De Rond & Miller, 2005), nor for “knowledge” itself. Therefore, the empirical inquiry of this article is based on the experiences of management scholars who are nonnative speakers (NNS) of English, yet who have to publish and disseminate the product of their labor (knowledge) in English.
We (the authors; both female, one NNS) have had chequered publication success, which the first author has partly understood as related to her use of the English language. We proceeded to expand this conversation in a more systematic way to include other NNS management academics. In this account, we present some perspectives on the nexus of ties between the linguistic (English language) practices of the management academy and the production of (textual) knowledge. We view these practices as language-based and hegemonic. We seek to understand how this hegemony is maintained, to identify any areas of hegemonic struggle, and thus to recognize any spaces where there is potential for the transformation of the current academic status quo.
We open the article with an outline of how the English language can be understood as hegemonic, and relate this linguistic imperialism to knowledge production as praxis, in the field of management and business in particular. Our empirical study comprises the views and perspectives of 33 NNS management academics, and we have ordered their accounts in terms of the metaphorical expressions they used to capture their experience and “woes.” We provide commentary on their words as expressive and constitutive of hegemonic processes and point to specific moments of hegemonic struggle. In the discussion, we articulate the consequences of hegemonic processes for textual knowledge production.
The English Language and Hegemonic Practices
Hegemony means the rule of one social group over another. Hegemony is achieved when the dominant group successfully projects its own particular ways of seeing the world, human and social relationships, such that those who are actually subordinated by these views, come to accept them as being “common sense” or “natural.” Indeed, the thus dominated internalize the norms and ideology of the dominant group, even though this is not necessarily in their interests. Hegemony needs to be sustained, and this occurs through hegemonic practices which reproduce particular institutions and their respective fields of social relations. Hegemonic practices are everyday practices that function ideologically, but are not recognized as such, and that fix social relationships and fields of meaning, so that those relationships and institutions which protect the interests of the dominant group or coalitions become accepted as universal, true, and superior (Meriläinen, Tienari, Thomas, & Davies, 2008).
The idea of hegemony has been applied to a variety of fields (Alatas, 2000), including that of (socio) linguistics where, in particular, Phillipson’s (1992) postulate of “linguistic imperialism” focuses on the spread and use of the English language. Phillipson bases his analysis on the historically and politically situated role of the British Council and, specifically, on the ideology transmitted with, in, and through the English language, and the role of language specialists in the cultural export of English. He views English as dominant as it replaces other languages or displaces specific domains. He sees English linguistic imperialism as
The dominance of English [is] asserted and maintained by the establishment and continuous reconstitution of structural and cultural inequalities between English and other languages. Here structured refers broadly to material properties (for example institutions, financial allocations) and cultural to immaterial or ideological properties (for example, attitudes, pedagogic principles). (Phillipson, 1992, p. 47)
Phillipson’s (1992) argument has been taken up widely in the literature on political–cultural aspects of English language pedagogy (Block & Cameron, 2002; Hall & Eggington, 2000) and has also informed the debates in postcolonial studies (Kembo-Sure, 2003; Mair, 2003; Pennycook, 1994). Although different positions (cf. Anderson, 2003, for a summary) have been established with regard to the extent to which the English language is the first and foremost formative basis of hegemonic practices, there is widespread agreement in the field that the spread of English as the uncontested global lingua franca is a “fact” (Crystal, 2003). In addition, it is recognized that this spread is not innocuous and to be taken for granted but expressive and constitutive of processes of domination propelled forward and hidden beneath (English) language practices (Hassan, 2003). This domination is thus exercised invisibly and privileges the worldviews, social, cultural, and political interests of the English-speaking center, core or inner countries (initially the United Kingdom; more recently, the United States) over those of the peripheral countries. Peripheral countries may be categorized as either outer countries (where English is used as the language of administration, for example, India, Singapore) or expanding countries (e.g., Japan, Norway), where English is an increasingly learned language (Kachru, 1986) and used for the “advanced aspects of life” such as business, knowledge production/higher education, and culture. Gaining access to these communities of the (knowledge) economy requires having access to the English language, in particular, being able to draw on the words, meanings, and values of business and management in order that individuals can forge successful lives and careers (Hassan, 2003).
According to some critical writers in this field (Halliday, 2003; Holland, 2002), whenever English is used, meaning is shaped in such a way that it privileges the worldview and the economic–political interests of (United States) English-speaking groups by “glossing over” alternate meaning systems. Trade and commercial relationships, for instance, maybe fixed in ways that privilege English speakers (cf. Bargiela-Chiappini’s [2001] study of a British–Italian joint venture, where English words relating to organizational roles “replaced” Italian words and resulted in a loss of “Italian” meanings and practices).
The hegemony of the English language, then, has long been recognized, and its effects on what we might call macrosocial processes (culture, politics, ideologies) has been well charted and explored in the academic literature. But this hegemony is also revealed in more localized spaces such as that which is the focus of the current article, business and management schools (Tietze, 2004). Here, the hegemony of the English language operates as part of an “ideological complex” (Fairclough, 1992, p. 92) to influence the nature of knowledge production in ways that not only run counter to the interests of scholars located in the so-called periphery, but which also have major implications for what counts as management knowledge. It is to the relationship between the hegemony of the English language and the hegemony of ideas about what counts as valuable management knowledge that we now turn.
The Production of Management Knowledge in English: Central and Peripheral Locations
Recently, there has been increased articulation and discussion of the contexts within which management knowledge is produced. Grey (2010), for example, explores the relationship between European and North American publications by analyzing the historically and politically embedded relationship of knowledge centers and margins (akin to the geographical core–periphery distinction discussed above). This relationship entails tensions and ideological assumptions about what constitutes “good and relevant” knowledge and, consequently, what therefore gets published in particular journals, or not. This process is propelled forward through globalization processes within business schools, and manifests itself in part, in increasingly rigid and hierarchical ranking systems for journals and business schools (Wedlin, 2006).
The North American influence on the field of management and organization research/knowledge is dominant and reflective of wider political power structures and historical processes (Grey, 2010), which are played out in
micro-political issues that impact upon management and organization research: the status of journals, the social and institutional norms that police who publishes, what, where and with what impact; the capacity of dominant elites and research traditions to marginalize alternative voices and intellectual dissent. (p. 682)
Here, European journals and their intellectual content are increasingly marginal to the central (North American) journals—leading, ultimately, to conformity of thought and an impoverished intellectual landscape. Also, some constituencies in the knowledge production process (e.g., postdoctoral students, untenured faculty) are particularly vulnerable to these micropolitical processes, and are, therefore, more likely to conform to the unspoken hegemonic influence of the assumptions and research requirements of centrally placed knowledge producers (Tietze, 2008; Tietze & Dick, 2009).
The relationship between central and peripheral (and therefore less influential) locations of knowledge production is, however, a complex one. Üsdiken (2010) differentiates between different knowledge movements and flows (see also Battilana, Anteby, & Sengul, 2010), and shows that European organizational research is “not as homogeneous as it is often made out to be” (p. 716). He differentiates between the core (the United States as a persistent source of influence worldwide since the end of the Second World War), a secondary center (United Kingdom), a semiperiphery (Western and Northern Europe), and a periphery (Southern and Eastern Europe). There are variations in the influence and uptake of the research logic and themes of the U.S. core in each location. There is evidence, for example, that countries occupying secondary (i.e., the United Kingdom) and, to some extent, semiperipheral locations, have distanced and differentiated themselves from the core by pursuing competing epistemological concerns that are, largely, critical of the dominant objectivist approaches valorized in the United States. Yet there are also indications that increased pressures for international publications in some semiperipheral and certainly peripheral countries, result in the emergence of a U.S. influenced, homogeneous trajectory for the development of ideas and knowledge.
The role of academic management journals and the ranking systems which are used by global business schools to differentiate themselves in an increasingly competitive marketplace are central themes in this debate (Wedlin, 2006). However, an oversight in these debates is that all of the highly ranked journals are English language journals, and it is, therefore, almost impossible to participate in the knowledge production process if one has not access to, and mastery of, the English language. 1 In this regard, the undisputed, unreflective, and taken-as-normal use of English as the business lingua franca, and as the language of knowledge for business and management (Nickerson, 2005; Tietze, 2004), can be understood to be part of the “ideological complex” (Fairclough, 1992, p. 92) through which the core maintains its dominance. While it is now almost 30 years since Kachru (1986) explored the power of the English language and its “colonizing” tendencies in countries outside the “core,” his central themes resonate with the concerns raised in the recent debates about knowledge production discussed above. In short, not only do the core countries dominate in terms of defining and regulating what is to be seen as valuable management knowledge, but this dominance is also enhanced and intensified through the colonizing effects of the English language, specifically, its influence in shaping meanings and constructing shared understandings.
Meanings and linguistic processes
There have been only limited (scattered) attempts to understand the influence of English on the knowledge production process. These accounts are invariably written by NNS of English or by research teams where (language based) frictions alerted researchers to the influence of English on the construction of their knowledge accounts. Ljosland (2007) reports on the language of “doctoral theses” (located in Norwegian Higher Education) and, in particular, how “82% of theses in the field of economy” (p. 396) are written in English, 16% in Norwegian, 2% in both languages, and none in any other language. This use of English is not just a technical issue (mainly because early career researchers saw it as a necessity for academic careers). Rather, the “glossing” of meaning systems that the use of English inevitably produces, potentially leads to “domain loss” and “mental colonalization” (Ljosland, 2007, p. 409) in the Norwegian academy.
This expanding use of English in the academy is at the core of those hegemonic practices that result in the closure of meaning. Effectively, because of the need to express knowledge in English, there emerges “a totalizing set of meanings” (Meriläinen et al., 2008, p. 587). For example, in a self-exploratory project of the dynamics of a Finnish–U.K. research team, Meriläinen et al. (2008) reveal and discuss the hegemonic processes at work in their own scholarly collaborations and how these shaped the knowledge production process (see also Thomas, Tienari, Davies, & Meriläinen, 2009). These two accounts provide useful examples of the very microprocesses in which knowledge is shaped in particular ways. For example, the “Finnish view” and Finnish words (even if translated) were subordinated to the (more dominant) “English” meanings by replacing them with the words of the U.K. researchers. It was through their personal and collegial struggles that the authors were able to disrupt this process.
The most comprehensive analysis of the role of English in academic textual production has been conducted by Lillis and Curry (2006a, 2006b) and Curry and Lillis (2004). Their work is positioned in the disciplinary fields of psychology, set in Portugal, Spain, Hungary, and Slovakia, which are likely to be subject to different institutional dynamics; yet they, too, find evidence that the textual production of knowledge is bounded by the English language. They also investigate the role of important agents in this process, such as literacy brokers, who influence how knowledge accounts are shaped through, for example, the editorial process. They found that the English language is the normalized means to express knowledge and that scholars are aware (and worried) about its expanding use and personal and collective consequences. This normalized and exclusive use of the English language is a further illustration of hegemonic practices, through which meanings that “fall outside the dominant ideology” (Meriläinen et al., 2008, p. 587) become considerably harder (and riskier for individual careers) to express. English is, therefore, not an “innocent” system of syntax through which words and sentences are generated, rather it is a shaping influence on the very meaning of the texts produced (cf. Tietze, 2004, pp. 9-10).
Disrupting the Hegemonic Process
We see, then, the dominant and unquestioned use of English as part of a broader, institutional set of hegemonic practices that are acting to shape management knowledge in specific ways, which primarily reflect the interests and concerns of actors occupying “center” locations. This is not a new insight. However, hegemony is never absolute and there will always exist sites of instability and conflict, which means that there is always an “unstable equilibrium” (Fairclough, 1992) and moments of “hegemonic struggle” (p. 92). Such moments occur when different meaning systems or languages meet and vie for influence, and expose opportunities to question or challenge what is being taken for granted. Meriläinen et al. (2008) and Thomas et al. (2009) provide some glimpses into such processes, where the use of English words and meanings to replace those originally expressed in Finnish created friction between the scholars, which was in turn used to disrupt the hegemony of the textual production process.
In the academic knowledge–creation process, hegemonic struggle ensues increasingly frequently over publications and journals, and how they are ranked into hierarchical orders and lists. Examples of public hegemonic struggles are illustrated in some articles that have been published in this journal (Czarniawska, 2006; Thomas et al., 2009), and also in recent debates in Organization (2011) and the Organization Studies (2010); see also Grey, 2010, for comments about the role and importance of journal lists and the contexts in which they are produced and used). These authors tend to be well respected, senior colleagues, who use their influence and standing to inform and challenge. Other struggles remain more private and less visible, yet their exponents are as much located in center (or core)–(semi) peripheral positions, and as such are engaged in questioning and contesting what is currently understood to count as interesting and important knowledge and what is worthy of publication. Such struggles have particular consequences for NNS management scholars, located in (semi) peripheral locations, especially in terms of their decisions regarding the textual production of knowledge which, as we have seen, is constituted in and through the English language. It is these scholars that are the central focus of this article. We do not claim that native speakers (NS) of English are not subject to these hegemonic language-based processes. However, based on the discussions above, our case is that the struggles of NNS of English, more immediately expose where language and knowledge become expressive of a “powerful contemporary discursive formation” (Meriläinen et al., 2008, p. 586). Thus, our interest is in extending our understanding of how the hegemony of the center is maintained and/or resisted/disrupted at a local level in (semi) peripheral locations within the context of management publication practices. We thus ask, is there evidence of hegemonic struggle in the publication practices of NNS scholars? How is this struggle manifested? More fundamentally, can this struggle disrupt or challenge the current academic status quo?
Method
This article is written by an author team, consisting of one NNS and one NS of English. As language-conscious researchers, we brought our own experiences as knowledge-generating scholars to our inquiry. Specifically, these experiences comprised situations of marginality (e.g., as female management researchers), but also experiences of “linguistic marginality” (first author) where, despite grammatical competence in the English language, tacit rules of language use remained a source of continued frustration in terms of exercising “voice” as a competent and recognized researcher. In this regard, our personal history and background influenced our topic choice (Alvesson & Sköldberg, 2009; Etherington, 2004). In discussing our experiences as native as well as NNS of English in generating and disseminating knowledge, we selected an approach to our study which would provide us with an opportunity to understand the experiences of fellow academics. In the light of gaps in the literature on the role of the English language in the management academy, we decided to focus our study on NNS of English.
Given our personal interest as well as the contextual and institutional factors outlined in previous sections, our first concern was to better understand in what ways management academics who are NNS of English (management academics and who work in non-English national settings), are subjected to symbolic and material processes which bound their research and publication activities and the potential successful pursuit of their projects. Our participants were located mainly in European business schools, which had the expressed strategic intent of being “global players” or to be “a recognized part of an international elite group of business schools.” Concomitant with this vision was an institutional expectation that academic staff would publish in the “important” peer-reviewed journals (all English language based; many of them originating from the United States). Such expectations were embedded in established practices including probationary systems, performance management, and tenure systems.
Our research instrument focused on the production of accounts through which participants could express their thoughts, feelings, and experiences of having to establish themselves as competent academics. We were interested in how such academics maintain legitimacy when they have to work in and through the English language, in institutional contexts which increasingly sideline knowledge and thoughts expressed in “other languages.” We invited participants to recount instances and examples of the role of English in their “everyday lives as academics,” but also to talk to us about ritualistic events, such as conferences and meetings, as well as the social and collegial relationships they had to create and, sustain, with individual and collective actors they deemed to be influential in enabling publication success. Overall, we followed a “semistructured” approach, which allowed us to bring our themes into the discussion, but left explorative space for topics to emerge (Bryman & Bell, 2007). It is therefore important to note that the empirics of this article are based on an “explorative study” (Robson, 1993), designed to develop an initial grasp of the issues, and to enable us to articulate “follow-on” questions, rather than to provide a comprehensive investigation (p. 59).
To achieve systematic analysis of the collected “welter of data” (Hammersely & Atkinson, 1995), we identified a number of themes suggested by the data. In particular, metaphorical expressions based on “games,” “game playing,” and “being players” abounded in the data. In this regard, the empirical material confirmed Macdonald and Kam’s (2007) comment on the role of widespread “gamesmanship” and game playing in the publication practices of management studies (see also Marafioti & Perretti, 2006). The use of similar images by our respondents was therefore significant for us to understand how institutional contexts, such as increasing competition between universities, the existence of ranking systems for journals, national assessment systems for research, and so on, shape individual thinking and conduct. Through coding such expressions, we then explored the extent to which they occurred throughout the data, and whether their use differed between different categories of participants. For example, we detected concrete differences between the experiences of respondents contingent on their career stage. Thus, we established a link between early career academics as “willing players” in the academic “game”; between “reluctant players” for midcareer academics; and “liberated players” for senior academics. We also detected some evidence of differences based on the geographical location of the scholars in the study. Although our analysis followed a systematic approach, we do not propose to make claims that would reach beyond the parameters of an explorative study. We are aware that our construction of meaning worlds is metaphor driven (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980) and, as such, open to potentially different interpretations.
Research instrument
Based on our epistemological stance of wanting to explore the meanings management academics attach to working and living through a language that is not their native tongue, we used our networks and contacted 53 management academics, of which 33 participated in the study. We feel that this number of participants while, to an extent, arbitrary, is sufficient to explore experiences from a variety of perspectives. Participants were from 25 different universities and 14 countries. Based on Üsdiken’s (2010) terminology, countries comprised eight from the semiperiphery (Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Holland, Sweden, and Switzerland); five from the periphery (Croatia, Italy, Poland, Slovenia, and Spain); and one from India. All respondents are university employees and hold positions within faculties of management and business, with “global agendas and ambitions.” Individual and institutional identities are hidden, as this formed part of the agreement with the respondents. Career stages are differentiated as “early” (i.e., postdoctoral, untenured, or under probation); “middle” (i.e., lecturers or senior lecturers); or advanced (i.e., senior academic or administrative roles such as professor, head of division). Sixteen women and 17 men participated in the study. Although, in our analysis, we could not find any obvious differences in experiences regarding the use of the English language which might be attributed to gender, issues related to preferred methods and epistemologies, which are known to be gendered, were raised by participants (Knights & Richards, 2003). We return to this issue later.
The research instrument comprised a questionnaire (it was used to provide a general background about the degree of English competence of participants and the extent to which they had to use English across all their work activities. It is not reproduced here as, for the purposes of this article, its data are not referred to). We conducted detailed telephone and email conversations when it was not possible to organize face-to-face meetings. We conducted 12 face-to-face semistructured interviews, which took place at two conference meetings in Europe, and during one training event (about teaching in multicultural classrooms) at a European Business School. Each interview took about 45 to 60 min to conduct. Interviews were not transcribed; instead, notes were taken during the interviews and detailed reflections/observations were noted and added on immediately after the interview.
Given our view of the hegemony of the English language and the effects of this hegemony, it needs to be formally recorded and acknowledged that this article, too, is bounded by the very processes it endeavors to capture: It is written in English and the interviews and data generation/interpretation occurred in English (see Janssens, Lambert, & Steyaert, 2004; Venuti, 2003, for extended discussion of translation in cultural and political contexts, in general; see Blenkinsopp & Shademan Pajouh, 2010, for translation and management/business knowledge). In other words, the research process and its outcomes are imbued in the very symbolic and material power processes described, explained, and critiqued in this article: It (re)produces the status quo. However, by drawing attention to these processes and reflecting on their influences on colleagues and on ourselves, we are simultaneously questioning the status quo and thus engaging in hegemonic struggle.
Findings
Willing players
Sixteen participants were in the very early stages of their academic careers, most of them still untenured or under probationary rule, and it was these academics who had to work hardest at learning “how to play the game” (Interview 2; Italian), to establish themselves as legitimate members of their respective academic communities. “Playing the game” was never questioned by these aspiring academics, rather they took it for granted that access to the occupation, and advancement within it, were pregiven premises. The acquisition and particular usages of English featured highly in their attempts to achieve such access and recognition. Their relative success or failure was attributed to a variety of factors, such as personal (in)ability at learning foreign languages (“I am no good at languages, so it’s hard, harder, this English thing”; Interview 4, Finnish); luck (“I was lucky as I grew up bilingual [Swedish and English], so writing in English is not impossible for me”; Interview 9); and effort (“I am working hard to learn English . . . the last two summers I attended classes in England and attended international [defined as ‘English language’] conferences”; Interview 2, Italian). There was little articulated awareness of historical or political contexts as influencing factors of language use—problems with language acquisition were attributed to personal circumstances and ability. Thus, the rules to which they need to adhere were not understood as the products of a set of historical and political factors that operate to the advantage of some groups and not others, but they were taken as “normal” and “given” aspects of becoming a management academic: Being able to express their knowledge in English was considered crucial to establishing themselves as successful “players” in their field. Similarly, there was no disagreement that knowledge had to be expressed and publishable in English: “Only knowledge expressed in English is publishable” (Interview 10; Dutch); “the actual knowledge may be questioned if the academic does not express it in English” (Interview 9; Swedish) summed up respondents’ views. Here, some young female academics struggled, in particular if doing “qualitative-ethnographic work,” to express the subtleties and nuances in meaning they found in their data, particularly if they had to translate from their language of research into English texts: “I abandoned to write my PhD in English . . . it would have been better [for my career]; I just could not get to it and find the right words. Oh, I cannot think in English and I lost what I had found” (Interview 5; Spanish). Given that it is female academics who are most likely to favor these methodological approaches (Knights & Richards, 2003), it is possible that here we have identified the further disadvantages encountered by being a female NNS English-speaking scholar.
In terms of evaluating their own competence in English, which they saw as closely linked to their overall competence as a management academic, these “early players” benchmarked themselves against their peers within their own institutions, or as met at conferences or seminars. These “fellow players” were seen as competitors as “their English and what they know, if better than I [sic], is bad for me” (Interview 7; French). Consequently, many of our respondents developed practices to become successful academics. These included using literacy brokers (Curry & Lillis, 2004): asking established (successful) colleagues to do editorial reading of their articles in return for joint authorships; paying translators and proofreaders, cultivating relationships with networks, frequently doing routine work, in exchange for access to them; “working hard at English” (Interview 4; Finnish), and closely observing established NS of English to ascertain how they should act as well as how they should speak.
These junior colleagues had to come to terms with rejection and feelings of failure and anxiety, which we would see as attributable to being subject to hegemonic processes. We make this attribution due to the fact that these scholars attempted to address these feelings by increasing their efforts to acquire higher English language competence, and to demonstrate this competence by writing in ways they felt would have appeal to their targeted journals. In four cases, for instance, our respondents experienced tensions when attempting to write about topics or ideas that fell outside privileged topics of research and knowledge. An example was a participant who had developed a new categorization for small businesses in a particular Italian region, but found that such local/regional knowledge was of no interest to the “journals I need to be in—I have to be both better at English and find a more interesting perspective on my work” (telephone conversation; Italian) or “My PhD was on local hospital management—it’s not interesting for other people, I need to compare more and find more strategic things in my data” (Interview 12; Finnish).
These comments illustrate that there is a nexus of ties between the English language and the content of research topics (cf. Tietze, 2004), and that particular themes and findings (those that can be amended to accommodate strategic and comparative aspects) are more likely to be publishable and “heard.” Thus, NNS scholars need not only to develop the requisite competence to enable them to write in English, but they also need to write in ways that render their local knowledge interesting to a global audience. We see this as echoing Bourdieu’s (1991) argument that linguistic form and content are dialectically related. That is, what can be said in any given context, such as that of academic publishing is not easily distinguishable from how it is said.
Consequently, practices were adopted to incorporate more “suitable” and more publishable perspectives of their research projects and, by the same token, downplaying and excluding those topics and themes less likely to be “of interest” and to be published. Furthermore, their work effort and the formation of collegial relationships focused on cultivating those relationships with powerful players “in the know,” who could provide opportunities to be included in the academy. Respondents demonstrated little of what we might interpret as “hegemonic struggle,” which we would suggest is because they considered themselves without much choice about the “realities of the publication game.” Their (career) survival as young academics operating in global business school context depended, in their eyes, on their ability to master English, find “interesting” research topics and themes and, by doing so, integrate themselves into powerful coalitions and networks.
Reluctant and compliant players
Twelve of our respondents were in the middle stages of their career and had established themselves successfully in their institutions and their fields. They, too, acknowledged the increasing importance of competence in the English language for their continued “good standing” (Interview 8; Croatia) in their communities and also for career advancement:
You get used to it [use of English]. For example, here in the Netherlands we have this new system of assessing us. It is based on points. You get more points for certain journals, the best point for you is if you are in an international journal and they are all in English. (Interview 5; Dutch)
One midcareer academic, as well as one of their senior colleagues, had developed a “compromise strategy” in that they attempted to publish “one bit in English in the journals that count and one bit for me and the Dutch, in a journal that is only read by other audiences” (Interview 3; Dutch). Yet, these examples were sparse and, in particular, midcareer academics complied grudgingly with the institutional and peer pressure to publish in English, or accepted that their career would stagnate: “I am no good at it [English] and will not be. I am happy. I stay” (telephone conversation with midcareer academic; Italian). Despite having achieved a degree of material and symbolic security, the midcareer academics concurred that in future “more and more publications will have to be in English; if it is not in English, it does not exist” (telephone conversation; French).
In two examples, academics had expertise and practice in using qualitative and quantitative methods for research. In both cases (one a personnel specialist, one a finance specialist), they commented that they “tend to do quants-based projects these days.” “They are easier to write up [in English] and get published” (Interview 6; Spanish) and “I can do both and have successfully published in different journals [English language ones], but it is tricky to do ‘words’. Figures translate easier” (Interview 13; French). These are examples of “compliant players,” who have adjusted their practices in such ways to further their standing in their respective communities and their career, by privileging the protocols and means through which they generate knowledge. Institutionalized pressures to publish in “good journals” drive individual and collective practices in the pursuit of peer recognition and career advancement. It is also interesting to note that these two academics are from what Üsdiken (2010) terms peripheral and semiperipheral locations, locations that were identified as more likely to conform to the U.S. objectivist research tradition. Here, therefore, we see some tentative evidence that the need to avoid “messy” problems around meaning to achieve publication success, results in the privileging of quantitative methodologies, acting to reinforce the dominant paradigm of knowledge production favored in the United States.
These midcareer academics then, do not unquestioningly accept the legitimacy of the dominant academic-linguistic expectation, yet they cannot afford to “self-exclude” from those activities. Their responses suggest that they have, to some extent, acquired the “correct” language in that they have achieved a degree of mastery of the English language. As such, they can position and express their ideas with relative ease and competence. In all, the privileging of particular epistemological approaches, that is, the ones which “avoid” the messiness of words and meaning, reflect the success of hegemonic processes which respondents are unwilling to disrupt because of publication pressures, and because they have acquired the English skills to enable them to cope with these pressures. Some degree of hegemonic struggle is, however, manifested in their use of compromise strategies with regard to the journals they target for possible publications. Here, we see a questioning of the taken-for-granted superiority and value of English language journals.
Liberated players
The five respondents in advanced stages of their careers acknowledged that English language use would be of increasing importance: “Well, yes, it is new and to an extent not fair, but this is the name of the game now and for the future. I think that faculty will be international and English is part of this” (Interview 7; German). Although not always being comfortable with the perceived lack of fairness “for faculty with lower language ability,” and in the light of “the additional difficulty to publish in English” (Interview 1; Poland), open resistance was not considered a possibility in a “world of rankings and competition” (Interview 1; Denmark).
There were two examples where more active resistance was exercised. One professor refused to write and publish in English—albeit being just some years away from retirement afforded this individual a degree of invulnerability (Interview 11; Austrian). A further illustration is a head of faculty, who expressed his anger at the “status quo”:
These days I have to appraise my colleagues on the basis of number of articles published in particular journals [all English language–based ones]. Now, I don’t want to be someone who does this to people. One colleague has been working at his topic for years. There is likely to be just one or two papers, good papers—in German language journals. Does this make it any less important? I don’t like this whole thing. (telephone conversation with senior academic; Austrian)
Thus, this senior colleague expressed strong emotive opposition to the exclusionary processes underlying the premises of the appraisal procedure: It excluded knowledge produced in another language than English and it also potentially excluded the appraised colleague from achieving acknowledgment in the performance management system. Yet, practically no open resistance was possible (appraisals had to take place), so resistance took place in spaces away from the public gaze and protocols—amounting perhaps to a localized disruption of institutional space and hegemonic practices.
Thus, even though these established and senior academic colleagues are perhaps more willing to engage in hegemonic struggle, and are in a good position to do so, their levels of investment in the status quo mean that, on the whole, they avoid the self-exclusion exercised by the professor discussed above. Notable in the case of this individual is the fact that his impending retirement means he can afford to disinvest in the academic game. Moreover, in self-excluding, this professor does not succeed in changing the rules that have allowed the English language to establish its hegemony in the academy. His “belligerent response” to the hegemony of the English language in academia remains an individualistic one.
The anger expressed by the second professor discussed in the paragraph above is, again, suggestive that this scholar can afford to distance himself from the rules of the game, due to his status and position in the field. The opposition to the rules, expressed by these participants, is suggestive of a critical stance that questions the “status quo” and the hegemonic practice of “excluding knowledge not expressed in English.” These participants do appear to illustrate awareness and circumspection, in as much as they recognize a game is being played that is easier for some players to win. Yet, the participant above does not refuse to conduct performance appraisals. Thus, while he is prepared to distance himself from these rules during a conversational exchange with the researcher, he is not prepared to act out this distance by refusing to cooperate with the rules that reproduce the very domination he appears to oppose. In general, therefore, and in the context studied here, the disruption of hegemony remains “private” and “individualistic.” In practice, however, by evaluating the performance of more junior academics on the basis of English language publications, the hegemony of the English language is reproduced and with it, the particular knowledge that is seen to be critical for publication success.
Discussion: What’s to Be Done?
The English language, through complex historical and political processes has emerged as the dominant and legitimate language in the 21st century—it has been “victorious” insofar as its use, and the development of English-based institutional practices, particularly those originating in the United States, are taken for granted in the academy and particularly so in the field of management and business studies. Of course, the existence of such a communicative resource is the prerequisite for the sharing of knowledge, for interaction between different traditions and fields, and for debate and challenge. In this regard, this article is not advocating an “anti-English” stance, as having a language of “mutual intelligibility” is paramount for the exchange of knowledge and ideas. Neither do we presume that there is a deliberate conspiracy of “senior academics,” journal editors, panel members, or colleagues, firmly rooted in particular canons of knowledge and tied to the English language. Rather, we were interested in exploring the consequences of not talking about the dominance and role of the English language for the knowledge producers (in this case, management academics), and for knowledge itself. Here, it should be mentioned that the processes we discussed are talked about; yet only in private and personal settings, behind closed doors so to speak. Articulating them in a public setting, and rendering them subject to debate, is part of making them less powerful and influential. In this regard, we want to continue the public conversation and debate started by some colleagues, and we offer, perhaps, an extension of their thoughts on closures of meaning and respective social and collegial relationships.
Responses to hegemonic struggle
The three groups of knowledge workers we identified, experienced and expressed strong emotions about their research and work, and about the production and publication of texts, notwithstanding their exact location in the periphery. Junior colleagues were beset by anxiety, “I worry about the numbers of rejections” (Interview 2; Italian); a sense of frustration, “I don’t want to change my topic of research, but I also need to play safe!” (Interview 4; Finnish); and feelings of personal and intellectual failure and challenge, “It seems that everyone is good at this [publishing in English]—just not me” (Interview 5; Spanish). They responded, in kind, by attempts to “master” the English language, working harder and cultivating such practices and behaviors to gain access to important networks and “power brokers.” It has been argued that junior or untenured researchers are more susceptible to hegemonic processes and the power of institutionalized norms (Boyacigiller & Adler, 1991). Although our findings confirm the vulnerability of these academics, they do not appear to be particularly aware of the historical–political processes they are part of and subjected to. Success and failure were mainly attributed to individual circumstance and contextual factors downplayed as “a given fact.”
Colleagues in the middle and senior stages of their careers complied and compromised, sometimes with a sense of disgruntlement and sense of resignation. They could exercise a greater degree of choice, including, in some instances, the refusal to engage with the English language, dominant ideas, and particular journals. Senior colleagues, in particular, expressed anger and frustration at the practices that “enforced” on them meaning systems, and a language, that categorized their staff as “successful” or “unsuccessful.” We see these expressions as immediate and genuine responses to hegemony (in the same way that Meriläinen et al., 2008, and Thomas et al., 2009, whose articles we discussed above, experienced emotive responses such as puzzlement, surprise, and a sense of frustration).
The consequences of hegemony for the production of text-based knowledge are also clear: certain meaning systems gain advantage over others; certain epistemological and methodological positions are favored as “messy” epistemologies and approaches are to be avoided. We see these as instances of a “closure of meaning.” Here, the concurrent existence of English as the “medium” of communication, together with the vocabulary of management/business discourses originating from the U.S. core, further the use of positivist–realist epistemologies. Such epistemologies are less concerned with the nuances of context and situation; more concerned with generating generalizable truths. They result in articles that are easier to publish in “the journals that matter.” In turn, this leads to greater conservatism and parochialism in management research and knowledge (Grey, 2010; Tsui, 2007), because research questions need to be formulated in English and tied to topics and approaches which are seen to be relevant and interesting to those power holders at the center (Canagarajah, 1996, 2002). Thus, the “triumph” of the subjectivist challenge to objectivist research valorized in the United States may be one that has, as Üsdiken (2010) argues, only limited success in challenging the hegemony of the United States in terms of knowledge production. Nonetheless, we need to acknowledge that there exists a strong and substantive non-English management literature in the semi (periphery), producing knowledge that is relevant to those locations and of interest to actors within and outside those locations (e.g., Wood & Paes de Paula, 2008). What we wish to understand are the processes that might enable this knowledge to gain more influence and more impact within our field.
Reflecting and reflexivity
Agents act and, while they do so within an already constituted network of established material and cultural/ideological properties (Phillipson, 1992), the dialectical relationship between these properties can be shaped and changed. Hegemonic practices shape these networks and are powerful in doing so, because they are, by and large “hidden,” that is, they are rarely formally debated or discussed. Therefore, “talking about it” disrupts its influence by making it subject to debate. We concur with the U.K./Finnish author team that discussions of the “power relations” in research networks, including the exploration of culture, language, academic conventions, and preferred interpretive repertoires (Thomas et al., 2009) are akin to the practice of “radical reflexivity” (pp. 321-322). Here researchers take on responsibility to openly discuss the existence of hegemony and power in the knowledge production process, including the formation of the relational networks between researchers themselves. Although Thomas and colleagues are senior and respected peers in terms of their standing in the research community and organizational positions, we add to the current state of debate, by pointing to the hierarchical differences between colleagues in the academy. Junior researchers, in business schools which operate tenure systems and where passing probationary periods is directly linked to the number of articles published in English language–based journals, are in precarious positions. They are not in the position to be evangelical with regards to their decisions about topic choice and approach, and therefore the potential for this group to engage in hegemonic struggle seems remote.
Nonetheless, we should not underestimate the tactical power (Foss & Rogers, 1994) illustrated by the junior researchers in this study. Tactical power is based on “well-timed interventions and temporary incursions into the spaces occupied by the powerful” (Foss & Rogers, 1994, p. 162). In this sense, the tactics used by these researchers, such as identifying literacy brokers and networking, represent opportunities for the local emergence of resistance: thus empowered, these junior researchers can enter the academy and, with time, start to influence what gets said (and written) and how. Of course, there is always the age-old problem that those who succeed in a particular system are unlikely to try and change it (Ferguson, 1984). However, the experiences and emotions expressed by the scholars at different stages of their careers in this study are indicative that the hegemony of the English language is unlikely to remain unchallenged. The experiences they articulate may, in short, reflect the “lucidity of the excluded” (Bourdieu, 1977) and act as a set of enabling conditions for future incursions into the hegemonic space occupied by the English language.
Tactical power, however, relies on time. Thus, exposing hegemonic processes needs to be done, we believe, more immediately, by senior colleagues, who are in a position to address issues of hierarchy and performance assessment (e.g., appraisal systems; promotion, and tenure decisions). Moreover, our findings are suggestive that, with seniority comes greater awareness of the structural causes of publication “success,” as well as a degree of freedom from publication pressures. While what we have called midcareer scholars, also show some awareness of these processes, their investment in their careers means it is unlikely that they would seek to disrupt a system that it is in their interests to maintain. Yet, they too display the tactical power of their more junior colleagues, by, for example, refusing to write completely for English language journals and publically expressing discontent with the status quo.
Senior research leaders of cross-cultural research teams can disrupt hegemony within their projects by unearthing some of the “taken-for-granteds” of research collaborations and remain alert to the potentiality of different meaning systems and languages. Senior research leaders and managers, editors and reviewers could discuss language strategies and offer assistance, technical and otherwise. Together, these groups of power, knowledge, and literacy brokers are in key privileged positions to disrupt the hegemony of the English language. A recent example of such hegemonic disruption can be seen in the recent debate in Organization (2011). Here hegemony, as manifested in the power of a particular journal ranking list to define what counted as good versus less good publications is publically disputed. We would like to see such debates extending to the processes of linguistic imperialism, that is, a discussion of how the use of English in management journals has deep historical roots, which shape beliefs and values:
Speakers of one language come to feel it necessary to use another language, to the point where they believe they can and should use only that foreign language when it comes to transactions dealing with the more advanced aspects of life. (Sliwaliwa, 2008, cited in Blenkinsopp & Shademan Pajouh, 2010, p. 39)
The exercise of reflexive textual practices (Alvesson, Hardy, & Harley, 2008) thus becomes more than just a means to address unbalanced and “single voice” research texts. We propose that in multicultural/linguistic research groups, publically addressing and debating issues of “translation” and interpretation (cf. Meriläinen et al., 2008, and Thomas et al., 2009) is a means to avoid the hegemonic closure of meaning, not just in the dynamics of the interacting group, but also in the production of the text itself. We consider this article to contribute to that call.
Conclusion
Knowledge is always produced by human agents who are situated in particular historical, political, and cultural/linguistic conditions. Here, the academy’s function of bestowing legitimacy on some agents by creating positions of authority for them, but not on others, needs to be investigated more systematically and seriously: For example, “What are the opportunities to disrupt existing institutional spaces?” “Who is in a position to do so?” “Under which circumstances are such attempts successful and develop momentum?” and “Which discourses and languages help or hinder such disruptions?” are questions which need to be asked and addressed.
The scholars we talked to were dedicated to the themes and topic of their research work, and also displayed integrity in the pursuit of the themes and topics they were interested in and saw as important. However, they were also constrained, as their knowledge could increasingly be expressed only “in English,” or “in certain journals,” as if English and its outlets were the only linguistic/institutional currencies of any value. Yet, our stance is not to boycott English and English-based management journals; this would be counterproductive to the academic project, as well as a material impossibility for the vast majority of management academics. Rather, believing our own credo that the social world is enacted and created through symbolic and language-based practices and actions, we propose that scholars should attempt to publish in those journals they feel affinity with, whether they are top ranked or not; should engage in research that is of local and regional importance; and should attend conferences whether international (English language based) or not. Czarniawska (2006) cites a moment of historic significance, when members of the Polish Solidarity party prepared for the Pope’s visit “as if they were living in a free, democratic country” (p. 334). In Table 1, we have drawn together the findings of this study as related to different career stages. Yet, a common venture would be for all agents to respond, in kind, to Czarniawska’s Utopian image and, in anticipation of changes to come, to collaborate, research, and write as if we lived in a world of free and unconstrained flow of knowledge.
Responses to Hegemony
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.