Understanding the linguistic diversity in organizations, specifically, the notion of language-based exclusion in Indian organizations

Abstract

Since language is closely related to the culture, the bonding tends to be higher among individuals of same languages. But effective interaction is essential among all the employees in an organization. Since diversity presents a problem for this interaction among employees in a multi cultural setting of MNC. Hence, as mentioned above, English is adopted as the organizational language by all these organizations to maintain uniformity and avoid discrimination. However, language differences among people stand as reason for lack of effective communication. Also, the employees of same native language might be able to connect well due to similarities in expression. This could be a potential threat to equal co-ordination among all the employees. The notion of being left out by the other language speaking people could lead to imbalance in the synergy at the work place. The negative consequence of such uneven co-ordination could be the reduction in performance of the employee in group situations. The perceptions of fairness in organizations also are effected by the diversity. The organizational justice as viewed by the employee is essential in his productivity. Hence, it is important to understand the interpretations of language-based issues in an organization and views about diversity in work place. It could help in improving diversity management and designing initiatives in programs for diversity training at employee and group level by HR. Roberson and Stevens found the interpretations of employees about in-group and out-group diversity situations. Also, they tried to understand the impact of perception of organizational justice. Lauring and Selmer studied the implications of introducing common language in an organizational setting. Their findings show that unlike the anticipated, the employees have positively received the enforcement of common language. They also were involved in another research regarding the diversity attitudes and group knowledge processing in multicultural organizations. In that, they found that the openness to diversity has strong associations with group knowledge processing. However, this has exception of social category diversity. There is a need for in-depth study of ingroup diversity influencing work environment. Objective: To understand the linguistic diversity in organizations, specifically, the notion of language-based exclusion in Indian organizations.