Using systemic functional linguistic metafunction as a tool in identifying Agency in organizational change in cross-cultural management contexts

Abstract

This contribution addresses the echoing sentiment that the function of language is not enough focused on in management as an academic discipline even as it is acknowledged that language lies at the heart of international business (IB) activities that take place in cross-cultural management (CCM) contexts. Organizations operate in contexts of uncertainty and change, finding themselves increasingly having to navigate in cross-cultural environments in the context of globalization and international management. Yet, few studies outside the field of applied linguistics (especially discourse analysis) have used language as an instrumental tool in uncovering the subtle workings of influence in organizational change. Scholastic literature in CCM suggests that language in IB is generally studied in two broad dimensions of inquiry – language as (i) object/phenomenon (nature of language) and as (ii) process/function (nature of meaning from language). Because organizational change can be difficult to define when looking at it as a broad process over time, this article addresses the latter nature of language in CCM and IB studies in illustrating how language metafunctions can be used as a methodological tool in analysing qualitative data in order to uncover Agency or actors of influence in processes of organization change in a cross-cultural working context.