Antecedents and consequences of host nationals’ attitudes towards hybrid language in MNCs: the case of MNC-tone

Abstract

Multiple language use in multinational corporations (MNCs) crossing linguistic boundaries can lead to code-switching and the creation of hybrid languages. Hybrid languages in MNCs can facilitate or impede organizational processes. The source of such ambiguous findings may lie in individuals’ attitudes toward hybrid languages. The sociolinguistics literature suggests that language attitudes impact individuals’ in- and out-group behavior and may explain mixed findings of hybrid language use. We conduct research in the context of MNC-tone—a hybrid English-Chinese language popular in MNCs in China, which has also spilled into Chinese society among non-MNC workers. We examine the attitudes of Chinese nationals toward MNC-tone, the geo-social antecedents that contribute to attitude formation, and the consequences of such attitudes on perceived organizational attractiveness and interpersonal guanxi (informal and positive relationship between individuals facilitating processes in organizations). With survey data collected from Chinese employees in two interconnected studies (N = 342 and 502), we find that individuals from a multilingual landscape with access to foreign media and a multilingual social network have positive attitudes toward the hybrid language. Individuals with positive attitudes are likely to be attracted to work in MNCs that use the language and exercise interpersonal guanxi with others that use the hybrid language.

Keywords:

• Code-switching
• Hybrid language
• Linguistic landscape
• Intergroup contact theory
• MNCs

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Sherry Shi and Stan Shi for their assistance in the data collection process.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Ethics standard statement

The ethical aspects of this research were approved by the Australian National University Human Research Ethics Committee. All subjects in Study 1 and Study 2 provided their (online) informed consent to participate.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 72272049, 71802077), the MOE Layout Foundation of Humanities and Social Sciences (Grant No. 22YJA630112), and Natural Science Foundation of Hunan Province of China (Grant No. 2022JJ20019).