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The Silence Syndrome: What Multinationals Get Wrong About Corporate Language
New research on corporate language, socialization, and the conditions under which knowledge actually transfers
Picture this: a U.S.-based subsidiary in Shanghai introduces “English-only Fridays” to encourage use of the corporate language. The result is not better communication. It is silence. Employees disengage, avoid conversations, and curtail the very knowledge-sharing the policy was designed to promote. Researchers have called this the “silence syndrome,” and it captures a problem that far too many multinationals encounter without fully understanding.
Our new study published in the Asia Pacific Journal of Management sets out to explain why corporate language mandates so often fail to deliver on their promise, and what organizations should do instead.
The policy versus the practice
The study draws on data from 132 subsidiaries of foreign MNEs operating in Jiangsu Province, China, representing parent firms from 22 countries across Europe, Asia, North America, and Australia. Its starting point is a distinction that sounds simple but has substantial implications: there is a meaningful difference between formally adopting a corporate language and actually using it. Most of the literature has treated these as the same thing. They are not.
The formal adoption of a corporate language, typically English, is a top-down directive. It specifies what language communication should happen in. What it does not do is ensure that the resulting communication is meaningful to those on the receiving end. Subsidiaries can comply with such policies on paper while the practical reality on the ground looks quite different, a phenomenon organizational scholars have called ceremonial adoption. Our data show that formal adoption is actually negatively associated with communication quality. The mandate, in other words, can make things worse before it makes them better.
The relevance problem
To make sense of this, the study applies relevance theory, drawn from linguistics, to the organizational context. The core insight is straightforward: for communication to be effective, recipients must perceive the information as relevant, which means it must be cognitively accessible and contextually meaningful, not merely linguistically comprehensible. A message delivered in a language you are uncomfortable with, about practices whose organizational rationale you do not fully grasp, does not transfer knowledge. It generates cognitive burden and communicative withdrawal.
This reframes the challenge for MNEs considerably. The question is not simply which language to use but whether the information being communicated lands as relevant to subsidiary employees. That depends on communication quality, on socialization, and on employees’ actual proficiency in the corporate language, and these three factors interact.
What the findings show
Three empirical findings stand out. First, while formal corporate language adoption does not directly improve communication quality, high-quality communication does significantly improve knowledge transfer. The practical implication is that MNEs need to invest in how information is conveyed, not just in which language it is delivered. Clarity, contextual fit, and directness matter. Expatriate managers in high-context environments like China need to tailor communication to local cognitive frameworks, not simply translate headquarters messages and transmit them downward.
Second, when host country nationals actually use the corporate language in their daily interactions, this generates higher levels of socialization, both formal and informal, which in turn drives knowledge transfer. The causal pathway matters: it is not language use per se that helps transfer knowledge, but the social interactions that language use opens up. Joint meetings, cross-national teams, shared training programs, socializing during and outside working hours are the mechanisms through which knowledge becomes meaningful and transferable. Importantly, socialization substitutes to some extent for high-quality formal communication. Subsidiaries with rich socialization depend less on the clarity of formal channels because informal interaction fills in the contextual gaps.
Third, and perhaps most counterintuitively, language proficiency moderates these processes in ways that complicate the standard managerial prescription. The socialization pathway is most important precisely in subsidiaries where proficiency is lower. Where employees struggle with the corporate language, face-to-face interaction and deliberate socialization become more, not less, critical. Waiting until proficiency improves before investing in socialization is the wrong sequence. The research also finds that a high level of proficiency is not a prerequisite for effective knowledge transfer; employees can engage productively through socialization even with imperfect command of the corporate language.
What this means in practice
For MNEs operating across significant linguistic and cultural distance, these findings reframe the managerial task. Language training remains valuable, but it should be designed around high-relevance, practically grounded skills rather than formal proficiency benchmarks. More importantly, organizations need to build the social infrastructure through which language becomes a vehicle for shared meaning rather than a barrier to it. In the Chinese context specifically, this means attending to guanxi, to the development of personal relationships between expatriates and host country nationals, and to the creation of deliberate opportunities for interaction that bridge the in-group/out-group dynamics that can otherwise shut down knowledge exchange.
The broader lesson is simple but easy to overlook. A language mandate tells employees what to speak. It cannot, on its own, ensure they are actually heard.
Read more: Mockaitis, A.I., Tan, J., Zhu, J., Zhu, C.J., & Chen, Z. (2026). Corporate language and knowledge transfer in MNE subsidiaries: A relevance lens. Asia Pacific Journal of Management. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10490-025-10063-z
Explore the Elgar Encyclopedia of Cross-Cultural Management
The Elgar Encyclopedia of Cross-Cultural Management is available now! Access the first chapter and introductory content for FREE here.
The Elgar Encyclopedia of Cross-Cultural Management, edited by Professor Audra I. Mockaitis (Maynooth University) and Professor Christina L. Butler (Kingston University), is the first reference book of its kind in the field. The book reflects the eclectic and interdisciplinary nature of cross-cultural management. It includes entries from scholars in cross-cultural psychology, business and management, anthropology, linguistics, sociology, and political science. These contributions form a collective discourse about the evolution and trajectory of the field. Authors present a range of perspectives, theories, and concepts. They challenge traditional paradigms. Together, they offer new multi-paradigmatic explanations to cross-cultural phenomena. Suitable for scholars, students and practitioners, the collection presents the state-of-the art in the cross-cultural management field.
On Language, Culture and Bilingualism
I have had the fortune of teaching cross-cultural management in international business courses in a university context for two decades. As a native of the USA, I was raised speaking two languages – Lithuanian and English, in two relatively separate language communities, and studied several other languages in my youth and adulthood. The topics of language and culture are of great interest and relevance to me, and this interest has only increased after having my daughter, whom I raise as a bicultural bilingual.
Code-switching is the process of switching between two languages with relative ease, usually within a single conversation, or sentence. I have done this all of my life with my Lithuanian-American bilingual friends, and continue to do so with native English speakers of Lithuanian heritage in Australia (and I admit that I even do so with my daughter). It is a natural process that sometimes occurs instinctively, and always depends on to whom I am speaking, but I am always fully aware that I am doing it. For someone who is not fully bilingual in the two languages, code-switching may give the impression that the speakers are more comfortable with one or the other language, but this is not always the case. I am equally comfortable with speaking the two languages, however, the reason for doing so often lies in the context (for example whether or not there is a shared context with the speaker, or whether there is an unconscious desire to try to establish such shared meaning).
Cultural code-switching also occurs, when individuals change their behaviors in accordance with the norms of another culture. Although it depends on situational factors, the extent of disparity between cultures, familiarity with cultural norms and cultural values, psychological comfort and other factors [1], switching between cultures is common for individuals who are raised as biculturals. Our cultural values only fully take shape in our later adolescent and early adulthood years, yet children have a sense about cultural norms already from an early age.
As a community language school principal, I have been able to observe children’s behaviors in different situations. As one example, bilingual children may address Lithuanian-speaking adults and English-speaking adults (and children) in different ways, such as with formal forms of address despite insistence from some adults that they use informal forms – first names [2]. Although this is solely anecdotal, as it is not possible for me to actually measure the children’s comprehension of cultural norms, it has led me to think about some of the factors that affect bilingualism and the relationship between culture and language in bilingual families.
The relationship between language and culture is undisputed in the literature. I hold a strong view that language is a primary mechanism for transferring cultural values and norms. We can certainly learn (about) another culture, but without knowledge of the language, I do not think it is possible to fully understand cultural context, nuance and norms of behavior. The more fluency a child has in a language, the easier the transfer of the culture associated with the language will be. Is it possible for a person to be bilingual but not bicultural? Yes.
Active bilinguals use the two languages regularly in their everyday lives [3]. There are varying degrees of bilingualism. Passive bilingualism or receptive bilingualism means that a person does not actively use the second language, but may understand it. This can occur in children who begin speaking a language at home, but then gradually (or suddenly) refuse to speak it as they gain more exposure to the mainstream language. There are many reasons as to why this may occur, however, this does not mean that the language is lost, although some scholars do claim that passive bilinguals are at risk of losing the language. Children may hear the language at home but not produce it themselves; these children are less likely to speak the language to their own children, while active bilingual children from mixed language families are more likely to establish friendships with other active bilinguals and preserve the language themselves [4].
Scholars have empirically found that consistency in language use by parents is key to language acquisition and retention – it depends on parental effort and motivation. Children who seldom hear the language or whose parents do not use it at home will not use the language actively [5]. This is often difficult in households where only one parent speaks the minority language, because the child is aware that she or he can revert to the dominant language. Parents often lament that their child has decided not to speak the language, and thus they themselves revert to speaking English in the home. However, even if the language is not actively used by a child, consistent exposure (e.g., parental effort) to it ensures that it is retained and can be revived when the child is motivated to use the language [6].
Language and culture are transferred through socialization – from parent to child, within the language community, via consistent exposure. It is thus up to the parent – not the child – to preserve them. Children do not make informed decisions about language and culture use. But their linguistic and cultural environments are determined and shaped by the values, attitudes, beliefs (and behaviors) of the people who make up their environment.
Thus, do not worry about code-switching, mixing languages, accents or even total fluency in the language. The important thing to focus on by parents is to ensure that the child hears the language in a consistent manner on a regular basis.
Click here for some insight and advice about bilingualism in children by renowned psycholinguist François Grosjean.
References
[1] Molinsky, A. (2007). Cultural code-switching: The psychological challenges of adapting behavior in foreign cultural interactions. The Academy of Management Review, 32 (2): 622-640.
[2] In fact, in a cross-national study on forms of address, Lithuanian adults indicated the lowest preference among 22 countries for using first names to address someone in an authority position. See: Harzing, A.W., Mockaitis, A.I. et al. (2010). What’s in a Name? Cross Country Differences in Preferred Ways of Address for University Teachers. AIB Insights, 10 (3): 3-8.
[3] Grosjean, F. (2001). Life with Two Languages: An Introduction to Bilingualism. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
[4] De Houwer, A. (1999). Environmental factors in early bilingual development: the role of parental beliefs and attitudes.In G. Extra & L.Verhoeven, eds., Bilingualism and Migration. Berlin, Germany: Mouton de Gruyter, 75-95
[5] Ibid.
[6] Kasuya, H. (1998). Determinants of language choice in bilingual children: The role of input. International Journal of Bilingualism, 2 (3): 327-346.
Professor Audra I. Mockaitis 