Management von Sprachenvielfalt in mehrsprachigen Teams. Implikationen für strategisches internationales Managment.

Language creates reality (Hansmann, 2010) and therefore does not only shape international collaboration but also how individuals work in multilingual teams. Hence, this thesis analyses the following research question: “Which challenges regarding communication and collaboration do individuals working in multilingual teams face and how can these challenges be mitigated by strategic international management?”. The aim is to provide a clear overview of the subject of multilingual teams as well as explicit implications for strategic international management, both in the broader context of language diversity in internationally operating organizations. This thesis examines the various factors both benefiting and hindering collaboration in multilingual teams. It shows the importance of finding a balance between making strategic use of such factors as much as possible while reducing their negative impact. As will be further elaborated in details throughout the thesis, the adoption of a simple language along with implementing language and awareness training have a notably beneficial impact. Further, code-switching is a highly discussed aspect throughout the project, showcasing great advantages for collaborating in multilingual teams as switching between languages can boost clarity and efficiency, however, it can simultaneously create out-groups, diminishing transparency. As evident from this research, language diversity should be seen and used as an explicit resource, not as a barrier which has to be overcome. The project follows a quantitative approach, adopting a self-completed online questionnaire covering the topics of communication dynamics, the impact of language diversity on team morale and engagement, and outlining challenges of language diversity for team collaboration as well as the impact of such multilingual challenges on individuals. Lastly, questions covering helpful learnings in overcoming language barriers and perceived hindering issues were included in the questionnaire, laying the basis for explicit recommendations for strategic international management.