Effects of the Language Barrier on Processes and Performance of International Scientific Collaboration,Collaborators’ Participation,Organizational Integrity,and Interorganizational Relationships

Abstract

This article investigates how the language barrier influences technical communication, behavior in the workplace, and communication among international collaborators by studying a case of international collaboration between R&D laboratories—one European based and the other a major Korean company. This study finds that the language barrier is a critical handicap not only to non–English-speaking partners but also to English speakers in scientific collaboration. The language barrier hinders organizational integrity by fostering polarized attitudes toward collaboration. This study reveals a “shadow structure” in the Korean company that contributes to structural deformation due to the language barrier and that Korean engineers often suffer from identity conflicts derived from tension between their professional identity as members of the international scientific community and their lack of proficiency in English.

Keywords

international collaboration in science and technology language barrier in international scientific collaboration professional identity as scientists or engineers

Introduction

Technology is a critical component of international trade (Roman & Puett, 1983), and scientific collaboration serves a pivotal role in this highly competitive environment. Such collaboration is rapidly increasing in both industry and academia (E. Adler & Flemming, 2009; Gómez, Fernández, & Sebastián, 1999; Koutrakou, 1995; Wagner & Leydesdorff, 2005), yet the role of language in scientific collaboration remains largely unexplored (Monteiro & Keating, 2009). Studies (e.g., Kramer & Cole, 2003; Larsen & Rogers, 1984; Rogers, 2002) that have investigated technology transfer may address, but rarely target, the language issue; more attention has been paid to language barriers in interdisciplinary collaboration (e.g., Monteiro & Keating, 2009) than in international collaboration. Few studies have investigated the operation of international scientific collaboration in terms of how language affects collaboration processes and results.

This article defines “communication” as the system through which scientific collaboration is conducted. When scientific collaboration occurs in industry, communication processes involve technical and business complications in both intra- and interorganizational communications that can be exacerbated by cross-cultural and -linguistic aspects; however, little attention has been paid to how language use shapes identity issues for nonnative English-speaking engineers in international collaboration in intra- and interorganizational interactions.

Nonnative English-speaking countries face problems related to English use in their efforts to improve global competitiveness amid accelerated globalization. Recently, some Korean universities have tried establishing English language campuses; many conduct some classes in English, believing that weak global competitiveness results from inadequate English proficiency (Do, 2010). The president of Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology in Korea argues that a key to the success of universities in Singapore and Hong Kong is their English proficiency (Do, 2010). As The Korea Times (Chun, 2008) reported, “even when hiring biology professors, more and more universities are choosing candidates who can give lectures in English as well as in Korean.”

This article discusses language-related issues that arise when engineers participate in international collaboration focusing on the effects of language on intra- and interorganizational factors in international scientific collaboration and the implications for individual engineers’ professional identities. This article investigates a case of international collaboration between European-based R&D laboratories of a major multinational company and an R&D laboratory of a major Korean company.¹

To understand the international collaborative relationship between these two parties, some background is useful. The following account is based on an interview with the U.K. group leader, some promotional material provided by the Korean laboratory, and newspaper articles.

Background of the Joint Venture and Technology Collaboration

The joint venture (JV) between the Korean company and the major multinational company began in September 1999 and was based on technology independently developed in the digital display field. The mother company on the Korean side was a major global player in electronics and telecommunications.² The multinational company was ranked in the top 10 on Fortune’s list of global top 30 electronics corporations.³ Both had vast experience, long histories, and proven success in the liquid crystal display field.

During the past few decades, technological innovation has advanced rapidly in the field of liquid crystal display for monitor applications. Although the Korean company originally had the dominant market share, it faced strong competition from Japanese and Taiwanese companies. Thus, the multinational company has strived to merge skills from its European laboratories with the Korean company’s research skills. The JV was established to strengthen the Korean company’s business position by ensuring a continual flow of new technical ideas.

The research collaboration is situated within this JV. The interaction between the research organizations in the United Kingdom and Korea started around November 1999, 6 months after the JV was established. The main research activities, focused on the implementation of manufacturing technology, took place in the Korean laboratory, while the European laboratories of the multinational company⁴ mainly supported basic research (theoretical technology), working on a contractual basis and receiving funding from the Korean lab. The Korean lab possessed advanced technical skills in the area of implementation and product scale-up. In this collaboration, the Korean lab worked as a research evaluator of the market value of theories generated by the multinational laboratories.

However, the JV ended in March 2009 after the European multinational company sold its remaining stake (Kim, 2009). Researchers of the Korean company have informally mentioned language difficulties in this collaboration, but it remains unconfirmed whether the language problems contributed toward ending the partnership and, if so, how much. Additionally, it was difficult to pursue this question because interviewees were cautious about discussing matters relating to the company image and the partnership’s global competence.

Theoretical Approaches

Common Language Use in International Scientific Collaboration

Extensive research has produced studies on cross-cultural communication in various cultural aspects in the field of international business and cross-cultural management (N. J. Adler, 1997; Hall, 1977; Hampden-Turner & Trompenaars, 1998; Hofstede, 1991, 2001, 2006; Kanungo, 1980; Singer, 1976; Triandis, 1972; Usunier, 1993), and Tsui, Nifadkar, and Ou (2007) contend that the cross-cultural research field is developing based on rich cultural frameworks. Although some studies have focused on language proficiency (Babcock & Du-Babcock, 2001), power relationships in terms of language use (Charles, 2007; Charles & Marschan-Piekkari, 2002; Louhiala-Salminen, 2002; Marschan-Piekkari, Welch, & Welch, 1999; Vaara, Tienari, Piekkari, & Säntti, 2005), obstacles of English use in multilingual teams (Henderson, 2005; Lagerstrom & Andersson, 2003), and language as the gateway to culture (Clark & Clark, 1977), there is a dearth of research on language-related issues in the field of international business communication (Babcock & Du-Babcock, 2001; Charles, 2007; Henderson, 2005; Marschan-Piekkari et al., 1999). In particular, scant research has examined how language affects intra- and interorganizational behavior in international collaboration and its implications for individual identity issues (Marschan-Piekkari et al., 1999), let alone in international scientific collaboration.

Bargiela-Chiappini, Bülow-Møller, Nickerson, Poncini & Zhu” (2003) mention that native English-speaking countries do not take the language barrier seriously in the field of international business communication, because they tacitly assume that English becomes a business language. This may explain why the language issue has been overlooked in the field of international business communication also, not just in international scientific collaboration. Put simply, the language barrier is a problem of miscommunication (Harzing & Feely, 2008). The problem of language use in scientific collaboration has been suggested in some literature (Collier & Toomey, 1997; Hwang, 2005; Knorr-Cetina, 1999; Vaughan, 1999); however, most literature examines cross-disciplinary problems, such as limited communication in collaboration derived from increasing specialization (Collier & Toomey, 1997; Monteiro & Keating, 2009). Growing international cooperation requires not only understanding of terminology across disciplines but also, more directly, the use of a common language for communication among collaborators, and English has principally been used for production and dissemination of knowledge (Altbach, 1981; Crystal, 1987; Jernudd, 1981; Pennycook, 1994). Interestingly, Ynalvez and Shrum’s (2009) study shows that Filipino scientists’ English language proficiency became one reason for international collaboration with Japanese scientists whose English competency levels were low; however, scant research has focused on language use in the context of international collaboration between scientists and engineers.

Interestingly, Knorr-Cetina (1999) is optimistic about language use in international collaboration—English language competence in the area of high-energy physics was not a significant issue in international collaborations since experimenters spoke several languages. Because she connects the language problem with the competence of experiment leaders, she believes that language competence in international collaboration becomes a mere technical issue. Although her opinion stems from her observations and experiences of contemporary and local practices, she overlooks an organizational view of the relationship between language use and the collaborators’ status.

Hwang (2005) argues, “As learning English is essential for Korean scientists and engineers’ scientific activities, especially their need to acquire scientific knowledge and up-to-date information, they have to spend extra time and effort learning English. This becomes a social structural problem” (p. 420). Furthermore, Babcock and Du-Babcok (2001) explain that “in communication encounters, low proficiency second-language speakers contribute fewer ideas than do fluent second-language speakers or first-language speakers” (p. 378). Accordingly, Korean scientists and engineers will most likely experience communication problems in international collaboration and difficulties in getting their scientific knowledge accepted and recognized at the international level because English usage is rare in Korean scientific research. These communication problems may affect Korean researchers’ performance in international collaboration.

Identity Issues of Nonnative English-Speaking Engineers in International Collaboration

Cultural effects on cross-cultural communication are not easily identified by national differences because national, professional, and organizational effects are not readily isolated. Therefore, intercultural communication among engineers in international collaboration should not be viewed solely from the perspective of communication issues such as cross-cultural miscommunication or misunderstanding. Hwang (2005) supports this view by arguing that communication issues in international scientific collaboration include tension caused by the discrepancy between engineers’ self-projections as members of the international scientific community and their inadequacies regarding English, which limits their participation in that community. Thus, nonnative English-speaking engineers can suffer from identity conflict based on incompatibility between national identity (Korean language) and professional identity (international scientific community membership and English use). Baumeister, Shapiro, and Tice (1985) argue that identity conflict stems from “having a strong personal commitment to two distinct identity components that become incompatible” (p. 412). The current study addresses how this identity conflict affects partners’ participation in collaboration, organizational integrity, and attitude toward their collaboration; however, these engineers tend to exhibit self-denial regarding language problems (i.e., they believe that scientific English differs from English per se and that their scientific English competence is better than their overall English competence), which is not helpful in resolving the tension (Hwang, 2005).

Poncini (2003) argues that business contexts and individual differences should be considered relative cultural variables rather than using national cultural differences as a heuristic measure to explain international business interactions. Jameson (2007) also emphasizes that “cultural identity including such components as profession, class, geography and language and nationality is closely interlinked with power and privilege” (p. 199). Jameson’s expanded model of cultural identity stresses components of cultural identity “directly related to business, such as economic class and professional affiliation” (p. 199), which shapes a collective cultural identity without nullifying individual identity.

This study emphasizes the importance of the intertwined, language-based effects of cultural identity when engineers interact with engineers from other countries. In this case, I will consider various aspects of cultural identity, including professional and nationality identity, language, and organizational and corporate culture, utilizing Jameson’s (2007) model of components of individual cultural identity as a framework to understand individual engineers’ interactions with other engineers; however, Jameson advocates the unified concept of identity rather than layered identity—that is, “each person has layers of separate identities, one of which rises to the top at any given time” (p. 209). Jameson’s concept can explain dynamic interactions among components that illustrate how some engineers focus on one particular identity (e.g., professional identity) despite the tension between an engineer’s professional identity as a member of the international scientific community and his or her linguistic identity as a nonnative English-speaking engineer or his national identity as an engineer from a country with an immature scientific status with the condition of imbalanced basic science and applied technology.

Jameson (2007) demonstrates that corporate and professional cultures relate closely to language use, and therefore technical language and discourse become important tools to connect people to a distinctive cultural membership. This is also the case for scientists and engineers who believe that their professional identity extends across national and ethnic boundaries and technical terms apply worldwide. The tension caused by the language barrier and professional identity should be emphasized, while the interaction between language and vocation defines professional membership (Jameson, 2007; Zaidman, 2001). Additionally, language can be understood in the context of cultural identity rather than merely as a cause of miscommunication or misunderstanding.

However, layered cultural identities that surface according to contexts and situations should also be considered because this layered model can explain potential tension between an engineer’s various cultural identities. In particular, according to Hwang (2005), Korean engineers experience tension caused by their professional identities as international scientific community members and their nationality-based identities.

Charles (2007) claims that “language affects perceptions of oneself and others” (p. 274), illustrating that those lacking language proficiency tend to feel frustrated, experience a sense of professional loss, and have difficulty maintaining dignity; thus, people who lack language proficiency suffer a loss of professional, personal, and organizational identities. When the concepts of Spencer-Oatey (2000) are applied to this tension, Korean participants are shown to be proud of their “identity faces” (engineers are viewed favorably by the public), but the language barrier diminishes their “quality faces” (face issues with regard to self-esteem and individual qualities, e.g., abilities and professional skills; individuals’ English proficiency indicates to the world that they are competent engineers).

Language Effects on Intra- and Interorganizational Behaviors in International Scientific Collaboration

Charles (2007) argues that employees’ language skills should be considered a serious managerial issue in intra- and interorganizational communication, although such skills are often regarded as indicators of individual competence. This is so in international scientific collaboration too.

When a common language is necessary to conduct joint work in international collaboration, those with less competence in that language are seriously disadvantaged by being unable to create multiple channels of information flow. Charles (2007) suggests that language is a powerful instrument in organizations and that people lacking proficiency in corporate language lack access to information through various information channels. Vaara et al. (2005) discussed the power implications of corporate language policy at three levels: “episodic social interaction, identity/subjectivity construction and reconstruction of structures of domination” (p. 595).

Marschan-Piekkari et al. (1999), showing how the power of language can alter formal organizational structure, call this the “shadow structure.” They add, “Because of the power of language, language clusters and individuals who were language nodes and mediators had the capacity to influence the formal communication lines and even threaten the intended functioning of the formal organization structure” (p. 437). This concept suggests that language use can be a significant issue in cross-linguistic organizational settings.

Thus, the use of a common language is more than a technical matter; it reflects various positions of the language users. When viewing language use as “a discursively mediated social action” (Charles, 2007; Pennycook, 1994), the use of a particular language as common in international collaboration represents the collaborators’ social interactions and power relationships. Charles (2007) explains this phenomenon as subjective (dis)empowerment by presenting a case in which “Finnish-speaking interviewees felt suddenly stripped of power when, after a merger of Finnish and Swedish companies, the official language was mandated to be Swedish” (p. 273). Language users may therefore perceive their positions in international collaboration through the use of a common language.

Individuals with weak English skills might feel inferior to their counterparts who possess superior English skills, leading them to feel excluded from the collaboration. Researchers in this position may use risk-avoiding communicative strategies (cf. Corder, 1987), communicating passively and avoiding communication situations. These factors could exclude the researchers with weak English from the organizational information flow and discussions, causing them to sacrifice organizational recognition because they cannot contribute effectively.

Research Questions and Interviewees

Using in-depth interviews as the primary research tool, this study investigates how international scientific collaboration operates and how the language barrier affects collaboration. In-depth interviews provide discursive data that reflect dynamic interactions between collaborators, including the systematic arrangement of communication in the organizational context, how collaborators use formal and informal communication, and how pervasively communication operates. Communication here is tied to interactions and activities in terms of interorganizational communication. Also, more delicate issues that are not easily shared due to professional etiquette, such as identity crises and individuals’ feelings about collaboration partners, expectations, and collaboration results, must be considered. Thus, in-depth interviews were appropriate.

Interview data will be analyzed thematically in narrative form without quantifying each topic and question. Because this study is exploratory and descriptive in nature, content analysis and qualifying degrees of interviewee emotions or reliability by quantifying the frequency of use of certain words in interview data are not considered in analyzing the collected data.

The analysis is based on data reduction, data display, and conclusions drawn from a thematic analysis framework developed by Miles and Huberman (1994). Transcripts were studied to identify common themes, which were then manually highlighted, described, reorganized, and interpreted in relation to the research questions.

Interviewees

The U.K. laboratory was visited to interview the U.K.-based collaborators, and the Korean laboratory was visited to interview the collaborators there (see Table 1). The U.K. group leader said that seven researchers based in the U.K. laboratory regularly contacted Korean collaborators for projects, most of whom were senior researchers and project leaders, though one was a Korean who had been working in the U.K. laboratory for 2 years. It was his first workplace in an English-speaking country, and his English had greatly improved since he started there. The leader explained that the Korean researcher was employed as an intermediary to improve communication between the two organizations. I interviewed five of the seven regular collaborators based in the U.K. laboratory, including the Korean.

Table 1.

Interview Periods (Approximate) and the Status and Roles of Interviewees.

Interviewees	Status	Roles	Interview Duration (Minutes)
U.K. collaborators
UK1	Group leader	Research management and collaboration management	70
UK2	Deputy leader	Assisting the group leader, initiating experiments, conducting projects, and communicating with the Korean partners	60
UK3	Project leader	Initiating experiments, conducting projects, and communicating with the Korean partners	60
UK4	Project leader	Initiating experiments, conducting projects, and communicating with the Korean partners	65
UK5	Researcher (the Korean exchanging person)	Initiating experiments, conducting projects, and communicating with the Korean partners	60
Korean collaborators
K1	Group leader	Research management, collaboration management	60
K2	Project leader	Stimulating collaborative projects, supporting communication with the U.K. and Dutch collaborators, and creating a web page for activating communication between collaborators	90
K3	Project leader and a counterpart of UK3	Initiating experiments, conducting projects, and communicating with the U.K. and Dutch partners	70
K4	Senior researcher	Initiating experiments, conducting projects, and communicating with the U.K. and Dutch partners	50
K5	Project leader (the Dutch exchanging person)	Initiating experiments, conducting projects, and communicating with the U.K. and Dutch partners	60

When I visited the Korean laboratory, a person from one of the multinational company’s Netherlands-based laboratories was introduced to me for an interview—a senior researcher in the Dutch laboratory and project leader of a big collaborative project with a Korean entity. She voluntarily came to the Korean laboratory in a personnel exchange program for 3 months. The U.K. establishment had wanted to assign two people to the Korean laboratory in a personnel exchange program, the U.K. group leader explained, in order to improve communication and collaborative relationships, but no one was willing. Thus, I interviewed four Korean collaborators of the six or seven regular Korean collaborators and one Dutch collaborator who had been seconded to the Korean laboratory in the exchange program.

It was difficult to ascertain how many regular Korean collaborators were in direct contact with the U.K. researchers because the Korean laboratory made rapid and spontaneous organizational changes. The Korean interviewees did not specify the number of collaborators who regularly contacted their U.K. partners, but the group leader estimated six or seven. I interviewed four of the regular Korean collaborators. Importantly, the Korean group leader (K1) was the only collaborator with an educational background in the United States and with extensive experience collaborating with Westerners and Russians. The other three had neither trained nor worked outside of Korea. Thus, only the Korean group leader had English proficiency. The rest, educated in Korea, had weak spoken and written English skills.

Research Questions

This article examines the language barrier as it affects collaboration between selected Korean and British R&D laboratories, in particular, its effects on operational and practical processes, the performance of collaboration, and individual engineers’ cultural identities. Furthermore, insights were gained into interviewees’ feelings about the language barrier, their perceptions of its effects on their collaborative processes and performances, and their beliefs and attitudes toward the barrier. It is particularly important to understand their perceptions of the tension between one’s professional identity and language competence, as well as those of the effects of the language barrier on their intraorganizational politics and relationships.

Therefore, the influences of the language barrier on interorganizational communication between Korean and British laboratories were analyzed. This article also studies how the language barrier affects intraorganizational structure, communication systems, and climates in individual laboratories. Thus, this article investigates business and technical communication problems arising from language barriers.

Results and Discussion

Overall Communication Problem Arising From Language Barriers

To understand how the language barrier affects processes and performance of this particular case of international scientific collaboration, this section presents the overall communication problem. Language barriers may arise in collaborations between English-speaking and non–English-speaking collaborators. There is a tendency for the size of the language barrier to depend on non–English speaking collaborators’ level of English proficiency.

When Korean collaborators have high levels of English proficiency, usually due to their experience studying or working in English-speaking countries, their partners may experience relatively minor language barriers. The U.K. group leader and the Dutch researcher illustrate this clearly. As the U.K. group leader’s main partners were educated in the United States and Australia, having spent 3 to 5 years in English-speaking countries, he encountered no serious problems. Some younger engineers, he mentioned, lack that experience and encounter difficulties; however, the Dutch researcher’s case is worse because her partner’s English was below average for Korean researchers.

Thus, I concentrate on examining how the language barrier affects overall communication patterns and collaborative processes. Interview data analysis revealed the following (for more detailed discussion, see subsequent sections):

The language barrier limits communication channels. E-mail and face-to-face communication were predominantly used, while telephone communication was largely avoided.

The barrier generally surfaces in face-to-face communications. Also, it seemed far more problematic than expected and signifies Korean collaborators’ inability to effectively communicate with international partners.

The barrier made communication less intensive, impeding collaborators from exchanging and accumulating information and establishing an interorganizational information exchange system.

The barrier caused operational difficulties during the interorganizational exchange of ideas and technical details and during negotiation and discussion.

The barrier reduced the efficiency of informal communication. Consequently, informational communication did not efficiently help to establish organizational and personal relationships.

(A) The language barrier limited communication channels

The language barrier restricts interorganizational communication, particularly telephone conversations, which require instant understanding and responses without face-to-face interaction. Two British collaborators admitted avoiding phone conversations due to the danger of miscommunication.

Teleconferences were often used for communication among several parties; however, the language barrier limited their use. The Korean coordinator of international collaboration mentioned having the same problems in teleconferences as in telephone conversations; in teleconferences, his ability to communicate was reduced to merely reading prepared written statements rather than discussing issues. Moreover, body language, an important cue, is absent from telephone conversations and teleconferences. Consequently, both parties struggle to understand the other party’s precise meaning.

(B) The language barrier generally surfaces in face-to-face communication

All interviewees thought face-to-face communication was essential for maintaining collaborative relationships and effective collaboration processes. The most significant problem with face-to-face communication is the language barrier. For example, a British collaborator mentioned difficulty having open discussions, with questions and answers flowing back and forth. The language barrier made it difficult for the British collaborators to attain immediate and spontaneous responses from their Korean partners in meetings:

When in meetings, communication is often superficially very good. They can speak English quite well. They will use presentation materials, slides, overhead projectors, and I can follow very clearly what they are saying. When I give a presentation, I also use lots of slides, an overhead projector, and they seem to be following it. If I ask them a question either about what I have said or what they have said, we often quickly degenerate into confusion. I think they haven’t understood the question. Their language skills are not that good. So communication is often not easy. We previously had a partnership with a Japanese company, and there would always be language problems, so I expected there to be language problems. I just tend to be surprised when things seem to be going quite well and there is no sign of the lack of understanding, and then I ask a simple question and suddenly it is difficult to get an answer. So I think that initially surprised me. Now it has happened so many times I am no longer surprised.

This statement indicates how the language barrier surfaces in interactive verbal communication that demands instant understanding and responses in English. Additionally, intensive short-term preparation does not help participants overcome the language barrier in interactive verbal communication because discussions and negotiations—the most essential aspects of meetings—require spontaneous interaction.

The Korean researcher in the British laboratory said he saw the language barrier restrict technical communication and dramatically reduce the amount and quality of technical knowledge that his Korean colleagues could deliver during face-to-face communication. The Korean collaborators produced only short, simple sentences in English, he said, and when explaining a technical topic, used 10 words in English where they would use 100 words in Korean. Thus, communication is reduced drastically, hindering collaboration quality. Regardless of possessing profound technical knowledge, if an individual’s communication is limited, his or her knowledge cannot be adequately shared. In practice, the language barrier rendered Korean collaborators almost incapable of communication. No small matter, this may actually determine the collaboration’s outcome. A British collaborator described a comparable experience collaborating with Japanese colleagues in Kobe, which led them to end the collaboration because of poor communication.

The Korean collaborator in the U.K. laboratory offered a remarkable example of his team’s frustration with the language barrier in face-to-face meetings:

Once I had a strong reaction from my colleagues about the Korean collaborator who visited here alone. My colleagues prepared a lot for meetings, but the Korean collaborator’s English was so poor that I had to translate his Korean into English. After he left, my colleagues mentioned that they did not understand why on earth he came here. My colleagues understand the Korean collaborators cannot speak English very well, but they prefer somebody with strong English.

Their frustration arose from expectations that the Korean collaborators’ average English competence was high; however, this frustration was not formally discussed among collaborators, and the Korean collaborators did not notice it, according to interviews with the Koreans. The U.K. team may have avoided discussing their frustration in hopes of maintaining a good collaborative relationship with the Korean collaborators.

(C) The language barrier makes communication less intensive

When collaboration occurs between geographically remote sites, separate work is essential and constitutes the main way of operating. When the two parties conduct projects remotely, the language barrier is reduced and is less critical, except when telephone communication is required. E-mail communication apparently reduces the language barrier, according to the British collaborators; Dumlao and Duke (2003) suggest that e-mail communication reduces the language difficulty; however, the U.K. collaborators did not realize how much the language barrier in e-mail communication troubled the Korean collaborators—it was not mutual. The barrier demanded that Korean collaborators spend extra time and effort on e-mail communication, resulting in communication that is less intensive overall because e-mail was the primary communication channel in their collaboration. The Korean leader reported having to frequently correct English in e-mails written by Korean collaborators with weak English skills. This demonstrates the Korean collaborators’ practical difficulties in writing e-mails in English as well as the fact that e-mail communication requires extra time and effort. One of the British collaborators mentioned receiving replies only to important issues and wondering why Korean collaborators did not reply in an adequate fashion.

Dissatisfied with the amount of communication they received from their Korean colleagues, the U.K. collaborators presumed that the Korean collaborators were too busy to reply; however, the extra time and effort involved in e-mail communication in English caused the Koreans to respond only to important issues and ignore others. The Korean leader confirmed this. Thus, the language barrier factors importantly in reducing the communication intensity of collaboration, even in e-mail communication. The language barrier makes it difficult to exchange and accumulate information and to establish an interorganizational information exchange system. Less intensive communication may cause low levels of trust because collaborators might suspect their partners of withholding information. According to Shrum, Genuth, and Chompalov (2007), one of the most serious types of intergroup conflict reported by informants between teams occurs often over issues such as resources, communication, and credit as well as control of the project.

(D) The language barrier causes operational difficulties with the inter-organizational exchange of ideas and technical details as well as problems with negotiation and discussion

At the project operation level, where collaborators need to exchange ideas and technical information, negotiate tasks, and discuss results, the language barrier becomes highly problematic. The Korean leader pointed out that low-level English proficiency was the primary cause of inappropriate responses in negotiations, discussions, and interactions during the exchange of ideas and technical data. In fact, he said that they had been able to share only 20% to 30% of their research during the past several months, stating,

Direct collaborators should carry out fine tunings and negotiations on the operative actions of the project. But in the course of performing the project, the members of a research team have difficulties in negotiating what to do because of the Korean researchers’ limitations in expressing delicate details. In the process of conducting the collaboration, this problem makes the Korean researchers dissatisfied with the U.K. collaborators’ change of agreed action points arranged at the managerial level. The Korean researchers cannot directly solve this problem for themselves because of the language barrier.

Clearly, the language barrier hinders technical information exchange and negotiation of tasks at the practical level, and Korean collaborators take an indirect path in the negotiation of tasks through manager-level communication. The language barrier requires extra layers of communication, which may decrease the level of trust between partners because the U.K. collaborators misunderstand their Korean counterparts’ lack of direct communication.

(E) The language barrier reduces the efficiency of informal communication

Informal communication includes activities that occur after official meetings—for example, dining or drinking together, which plays a crucial role in establishing solid collaboration relationships. Additionally, informal communication elevates official relationships to the level of personal relationships in which collaborators do favors for one another.

However, the language barrier weakens the efficiency of informal communication. The language barrier actually limited the degree of informal communication, the Dutch collaborator explained, making informal communication a mere formality that allowed collaborators to have a pleasant relationship. The Korean collaborator in the British lab agreed that informal communication helped communication and the forming of good relationships despite cultural differences, but the language barrier made conversation choppy and short-lived.

Because informal communication is not regarded as critical for performing projects and collaboration, collaborators are more tolerant toward language barriers in informal than in formal communication. In a social as opposed to a technical context, collaborators rarely want a specific answer, one British collaborator said, and different questions often help when miscommunication occurs.

Attitudes Toward the Language Barrier

Attitudes toward the language barrier are closely related to the prevailing perspective among scientific actors that verbal communication is unimportant in scientific work; scientists believe that data with figures and technical terms constitute a more universal means of communication in scientific work than verbal communication (Hwang, 2005). All interviewees claimed that technical terms helped minimize language barriers. Technical language, they emphasized, was clearly differentiated from the sociocultural language, serving as a universal language for scientists and engineers. When the belief in this notion is strong, the language barrier can be disregarded somewhat. Indeed, this notion may justify ignoring the language barrier. One account of a Korean collaborator (whose English was poor, according to other Korean collaborators) exemplifies this well. He said,

I have never been outside of Korea. Of course, we have the language problem. I think it is still difficult for those who have stayed for 5 or 6 years in America or the U.K. to think, pronounce, and talk as the Americans or English do. But scientists and engineers understand technical terms. We think the same and have common backgrounds and the same interests, so my partners can understand what I want to say, even if I don’t speak English very well.

Most interviewees believed that important technical issues could be understood and goals reached regardless of the language barrier’s severity. This also demonstrates the Korean interviewees’ strong cultural identity as members of the international scientific community and suggests how the tension between professional identity and the language barrier makes collaborators unable to face this serious operational problem. Additionally, the Korean group leader acknowledged the severity of the language barrier that impedes the progress of technical work but denied that it could be critical in this collaboration.

Considering the severity of the barrier, from the interview data, I can extrapolate that prevalent beliefs and norms in science and technology toward communication strongly influenced the interviewees’ attitudes. Furthermore, interviewees seemed uneasy about giving the impression that the language barrier was a serious problem or possible hindrance to successful collaboration. When I asked UK4, “Do you still have communication problems?” he answered, “Well, it’s something that one has to learn to live with. It’s not going to rapidly change. I am worried about digging a hole here and making it a bigger issue.” UK4 regarded the barrier as a real problem but tried not to regard it as critical.

Three underlying causes can explain this result. One is the predominant belief that disregards the communication aspect of science and technology (Hwang, 2005), which is closely aligned with strong professional cultural identity, believed here to be the most decisive cause. Another is interviewees’ discomfort about openly admitting the existence of the language barrier in a cooperative environment where they want to avoid causing any unpleasantness in the relationship. This point may be closely related to interviewees’ unease about discussing matters associated with the company image and the global competence of the partnership mentioned earlier. Third, English competence is often regarded as an individual ability (Charles, 2007). If that is so, the language barrier could create the perception that the Korean collaborators are incompetent in conducting international collaboration.

Changes in Leadership in Korean Organization (Shadow Structure)

Analysis of interview data shows a leadership problem of project teams in the Korean laboratory, which supports the “shadow structure” concept (Marschan-Piekkari et al., 1999). Occasionally, the language problem in face-to-face communication gives rise to situations where a collaborator with little technical expertise has to lead the communication among partners. The Korean group leader stated,

When I am present in meetings between the U.K. collaborators and Korean researchers with weak English, I am mainly responsible for the presentation and technical discussion of results with the U.K. partners. This happens even for specific technical topics in which I am not an expert.

The Dutch collaborator reinforced this point, describing how a Korean project leader who had studied in America dominated the meeting and how project team members with weak English skills refrained from participating. In the meetings, the project leader asked project team members who performed the work about specific results and technical details in Korean and then translated them into English for their British and Dutch collaborators. Accordingly, the language barrier reduces the number of participants in face-to-face communication to those with good English regardless of whether they have direct technical knowledge related to technical issues, which constitutes deviant organizational practice, since this organization is based on technical expertise.

Regardless of the hierarchical structure or individual collaborators’ technical expertise in a project, it is common in the Korean laboratory for a member with strong English skills to lead a project team. The Korean group leader indicated this:

This is an actual difficulty. When a researcher of a project team speaks better English than the project leader in his group, the researcher takes the main role of communication with the U.K. partners. In this case, the researcher leads communication for his group, and the project leader of his group acts passively in communication.

In e-mail communication, according to the level of English, sometimes a junior researcher plays a main communication role within the team. Job allocation for the project is also predetermined by the team members’ English capacity. So, a communication leader is predetermined by the language skill, and this is not a normal practice in the laboratory.

This indicates that English proficiency tends to alter the leadership in collaborative projects. The language barrier led to a nonstandard organizational practice in the Korean laboratory, which may generate an organizational integrity problem in the Korean establishment. The Korean group leader said,

But the others whose English does not reach the required level, for cowork, could not participate actively in collaboration. Some researchers, whose English is not adequate for the collaboration, have been depressed. Researchers cannot blame anybody for this, but they get depressed by the fact that they have weak English skills. Everybody shares the need for collaboration, and they do not object to collaboration itself. But the problem is that some people are excluded from collaboration and forced to participate in collaboration passively because of the language problem.

The language barrier hindered Korean collaborators with weaker English skills from integrating themselves into the collaboration. Thus, the language barrier substantially violated the organizational structure of the Korean laboratory by causing a mutation in leadership, which supports the “shadow structure” proposed by Marschan-Piekkari et al. (1999); this prevented Korean researchers from being integrated into international collaboration.

Language Barrier in the Personnel Exchange Scheme

Exchanging personnel is an organizational method to surmount cross-cultural miscommunication. This exchange aims to facilitate understanding in the sociocultural aspects of the collaborators’ society, including the mental framework of how to think, how to work, and how to react in order to establish long-term relationships. Realizing that their collaboration has great potential to generate intercultural miscommunication between East and West, both parties seconded people to their partner laboratories.

The language barrier was maximized in interactions between seconded collaborators and local researchers, as the seconded Dutch collaborator’s case clearly showed. She was a seconded researcher who went from the Dutch laboratory to the Korean laboratory as part of a personnel exchange scheme. During the exchange, she experienced the language barrier in its severest form. She initially pointed out the difficulty of the language barrier, saying,

I think the language barrier is the first thing that has to be solved. Even two people with the same language can have miscommunications; that’s normal, I think. But if two people from different countries speak to each other, they should understand the same language about 80% of the time for a good collaboration.

When I asked, “Do you think your Korean collaborators reach that level?” she answered, “No. Most people don’t reach that level. That’s a big difficulty.”

She emphasized having experienced serious difficulties in conducting her project because of her Korean partner’s low English proficiency. The language barrier she encountered with her direct collaborator severely impeded her work’s progress and posed a significant problem in performing collaborative projects:

I am working in this experimental room, which is divided into two. There is one part where I would like to be, and another where I must not go. They told me this at the beginning, and I knew this already. I wanted to do a special experiment which I did before with her. It takes place in the room which I am not allowed to enter, so I have to go together with her. So I asked her I wanted to do this special experiment again, and then she told me I couldn’t go in there. But now I was thinking “I know I can’t go in there, so why you are telling me this?”

Then I thought that other people might have complained that I go in there. So, at that time, I felt terrible because I was thinking that other people must be complaining about me going in there, and I knew I wasn’t going in there. All she wanted to say was, “you can’t go there because you are not allowed to go there” and that we have to go together. But I knew all this already. It is a very good example of a misunderstanding, just because she didn’t understand my question.

The Dutch collaborator expressed being unsatisfied with the work and collaboration processes due to the lack of communication.

Interestingly, the Korean researcher in the U.K. laboratory, a participant in the personnel exchange, was in a very different situation and showed a different attitude toward the language barrier. He had never studied or worked in English-speaking countries. Even though his English competence was relatively low, the Korean collaborator in the U.K. laboratory did not encounter the same degree of difficulty arising from the language barrier as the Dutch collaborator. The difference seems mainly due to the fact that the Korean collaborator himself was responsible for solving the problem, whereas the Dutch collaborator was dependent on the other party’s English skills. The Korean collaborator actively improved his English in an optimal environment of immersion learning. In fact, his primary reason for coming to the United Kingdom, he explained, was to learn English.

To some extent, the Korean collaborator had the power to overcome the language barrier, whereas the Dutch collaborator had none. The Korean laboratory proposed no organizational solution to the language problem. The Korean leader acknowledged the Dutch collaborator’s severe frustration with the language barrier but would not employ a translator and could not remedy this problem. In practical terms, the language barrier becomes not only a critical handicap to non–English-speaking scientists and engineers but a severe disadvantage to English-speaking scientists and engineers too. A British collaborator supported this by saying,

I do not speak Korean at all, so it’s all up to them. That makes it difficult for me to be critical of them, knowing they are doing far more in the communication link than I am. Nevertheless, there is still a problem.

The individual laboratories approach the language problem differently in the personnel exchange scheme. The Korean laboratory proposed no organizational solution to the language problem and left the language barrier unchanged. Additionally, the Korean laboratory saw the personnel exchange scheme as a chance to share information, where communication malfunctions among their collaborators. In contrast, the U.K. organization took advantage of this personnel exchange scheme to positively solve the language problem by establishing an intermediary to minimize language and cultural barriers by addressing culturally or linguistically driven communication problems. Similarly, seconded people can be recognized as intermediaries bridging the gap between organizations and reducing culturally driven misunderstandings. This collaboration also involved an interesting case of an intermediary conducting one of the projects.

One collaborative project had links with another organization in California that belonged to a multinational company. The main project leader in this organization was a Korean American. Consequently, he played the role of intermediary between the Korean and the U.K. collaborators. One of the British collaborators indicated that they use other ways to communicate, including phone conversations between them and the Korean American project leader in California. In turn, the Korean American project leader also had phone conversations with the Korean laboratory. The British collaborator mentioned that this kind of communication helped clarify things because the Korean American project leader spoke to the Koreans in Korean.

The British collaborator disclosed the extent to which the Korean collaborators relied on the Korean American project leader as an intermediary, saying,

We also have questions about technical matters. I must say often they come via our colleague in California, which is a little curious. Often, they have obviously been discussing problems and questions with him, and so he then sends them in English to us. Not always, but that has happened quite a few times.

When I asked, “He is working for the multinational company, not for the Korean company, isn’t he?” he answered, “Yes. It’s curious.” Additionally, he showed how the intermediary role minimizes severe language problems and cultural misunderstandings and did not think they could manage without the Korean American’s assistance, saying that it was as though they had their own technical interpreter always present.

One interesting point about the role of the intermediary with regard to the language barrier is that only Korean collaborators can play this role because seconded Korean collaborators to the U.K. or Dutch laboratories were supposed to improve their English under optimal conditions, and thus could use two languages interchangeably; however, neither the U.K. nor the Dutch collaborators tended to learn Korean, nor was such learning encouraged by the organization. Therefore, they could not play an intermediary role in overcoming the language barrier. This exacerbated the situation because they had to depend wholly on the Korean collaborators.

Polarized Attitudes Toward Collaboration

Korean collaborators had polarized attitudes toward collaboration, while the British collaborators had a uniformly positive attitude. The Korean group leader said that researchers with strong English skills and high levels of experience with international collaboration had positive attitudes in the Korean laboratory, but those with weak English had negative attitudes. The Korean coordinator also pointed out the dichotomously divided attitudes—individuals harboring negative attitudes were not convinced that they would receive beneficial results from the collaboration, especially when they had to use English. The Korean collaborators incessantly asked why they should collaborate with the U.K. and Dutch partners, which cost extra time and effort, when their scientific competence was not inferior to that of their collaborators. Korean collaborators may feel disempowered due to their inferior language competence, which causes an organizational integrity problem.

Shrum et al. (2007) argue that trust between individual scientists is not perceived by collaborators as critical for the operation and success of large scientific projects in “Big Science”; however, trust matters because trust is associated with conflict—for example, lower trust is associated with high conflict between collaboration partners as well as high conflict between participating scientists and collaboration management. The collaboration analyzed in this article is not characterized as “Big Science” or strictly a bureaucratic structure studied by Shrum et al. (2007); however, it shows conflict caused mainly by communication (i.e., language barrier) between collaborators, and between participating engineers and management. In particular, the interorganizational conflict may be related to less intensive communication and low levels of information sharing, due to the language barrier, as discussed earlier. On the other hand, Korean collaborators’ dichotomous attitude toward the collaboration reflects the intraorganizational conflict and the conflict between participating engineers and management. The Korean coordinator mentioned, “Not so many efforts are made to unify the attitudes. In our company culture, if a boss makes a decision, we just follow, regardless of whether some of us do not agree with it.” In this statement, the conflict between collaborators and management seems invisible; however, the management’s unilateral decision and the language barrier result in a negative attitude toward the collaboration.

Conclusions

By investigating a case of international scientific collaboration between Korean and European engineers, this article demonstrates how the language barrier can seriously influence scientific collaboration. Furthermore, low-quality communication and lack of communication, shaped by the language barrier, can cause dissatisfaction with the scientific collaboration. This dissatisfaction might cause negative attitudes toward the collaboration, along with affecting trust levels toward one’s colleagues. As Babcock and Du-Babcok (2001) argue, low proficiency of second-language speakers results in less contribution; Korean collaborators’ passive communication, derived from their poor English skills, inevitably resulted in limited contributions. Korean collaborators’ limited contributions led some to feel excluded from the project, and possibly precipitated their identity conflict.

The Korean collaborators believed their level of scientific competence was equal, or superior, to that of their collaborators; however, their use of English forced them to be regarded as inferior scientists and engineers, which felt unfair. Korean collaborators’ frustrations and feelings of powerlessness contributed to a professional identity conflict, which inhibited their active participation in the collaboration and gave rise to negative attitudes toward it. Hence, the language barrier hindered organizational integrity in the collaboration.

The collaboration case analyzed here also shows a deviant organizational phenomenon: Researchers with good English worked as key communicators, not those who actually conducted the research and possessed technical knowledge and experience, clearly illustrating the “shadow structure” phenomenon. This phenomenon and the Korean collaborators’ dichotomous attitude toward collaboration, which results in distrust, can harm organizational integrity. This problem may be exacerbated by the Korean collaborators’ feelings of disempowerment and professional identity conflict, which in turn result in dissatisfaction with the collaboration process and results.

Interestingly, this article has found not only that the language barrier is a great disadvantage in non–English-speaking organizations but also that it becomes a severe disadvantage in English-speaking organizations too. Korean collaborators with poor English skills brought about communication barriers when visiting the British laboratory; however, the Dutch collaborator’s excellent English proficiency in a Korean context did not help resolve the language barrier. This case indicates the asymmetric feature of the language barrier. English-speaking scientists and engineers have to rely completely on the quality of English spoken by nonnative English-speaking ones. For nonnative English-speaking scientists and engineers, English becomes an extra burden in international collaboration. When communication cannot be achieved at the desired level, collaborative relationships cannot be established. This is not a one-sided difficulty but rather a mutual problem in interorganizational communication.

However, the interviewees still had an overall tendency to disregard the language barrier as a critical factor in collaboration. The evidential point in relation to the organizational aspect is that this prevailing negative attitude toward openly acknowledging the language barrier might prevent both laboratories from actively pursuing an organizational solution to the communication problem. When I asked Korean and British interviewees whether they tried to include communication in their official evaluation criteria, both answered that they had not even contemplated it. This is clearly reflected in the fact that they do not include communication aspects in the official evaluation criteria of their collaboration. Three factors are believed to influence the interviewees’ negative attitudes toward acknowledging the language barrier: prevailing beliefs about the communication aspect of science and technology, the cooperative environment in collaboration, and a predominant notion of language competence being an individual skill. These prevailing beliefs and norms in science and technology—that is, professional cultural identity—can be regarded as the initial and most seminal factors in shaping the interviewees’ overall attitudes. One important point to address is the Korean social tendency to consider English competence as part of scientific competence, which may make Korean collaborators feel uneasy admitting their individual language problem. This point highlights Korean collaborators’ difficulties stemming from the identity conflict and the tension between their professional identity and inappropriate English skills.

This study reveals how the language barrier becomes a problem for both English-speaking and non–English-speaking organizations in international scientific collaboration. Scientists and engineers commonly believe that scientific English is easy and that using English technical terms minimizes language barriers; however, this is a misconception. One can easily anticipate the language barrier in international scientific collaboration, and even feel sympathetic to collaborators’ difficulties; yet this study highlights the serious nature of the language barrier, which may exceed expectations of simple language problems. The language barrier challenged their professional identity and resulted in an identity conflict—that is, English use imposed an extra burden on the Korean engineers and made them feel inferior to their international collaborators. Thus, this study shows that language use and skills are not mere technical issues but rather critical issues and potential causes of an identity conflict characterized by feelings of disempowerment, frustration, powerlessness, and inferiority.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Bio

Kumju Hwang is an assistant professor in the Department of Business Administration, Chung-Ang University, Korea. She earned her PhD in 2003 from Imperial College at the University of London. Her research focuses on communication and management problems in scientific collaboration, international collaboration in science and technology, and consumer decision making for sustainable technology and green marketing.

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