I have conducted a number of empirical studies of business internationalisation and intercultural competence in companies for a range of policy bodies. Current interests include the role of intercultural communication between companies, universities and government support bodies. My work explores the links between foreign language competence, intercultural competence and international management processes. I speak French and German fluently and endeavour to imbue my research with the insights and perspectives which stem from this. I am currently leading a 14 country, 22 partner research project looking at the international student experience (ISE). Our aim is to provide an understanding of this phenomenon which is not driven by national policy or institutional conceptions or ownership of the international student. If you are interested in participating in ISE, please write to me at terrymughan@me.com. Phone: 9713477322
This talk is based on a published chapter and explores the challenge of creating a language-gener... more This talk is based on a published chapter and explores the challenge of creating a language-general curriculum for international managers. It includes the literature review supporting this concept and an outline structure for a curriculum. My keynote commences at I hour 3 minutes into this recording.
Managing Multilingual Workplaces, eds Horn S., Lecomte P. and Tietze S. Routledge, 2020
This chapter contains a review of language-sensitive literature and evaluates its contribution to... more This chapter contains a review of language-sensitive literature and evaluates its contribution to the domain of international management education. It combines the fruits of this research with language-strategy literaure and proposes an outline for an language-general curriculum for international managers.
Strategic Agility: The Critical Role of Language Sustaining competitive advantage requires a firm... more Strategic Agility: The Critical Role of Language Sustaining competitive advantage requires a firm's ability to sense, meld and thoughtfully leverage opportunities presented from throughout its global footprint in order to innovate and create value in light of ongoing market dynamism and industry change. Global strategy scholars tell us that being able to do this is the fundamental prerequisite to strategic agility. 1 What they sometimes overlook is that such activity entails frequent encounters with numerous partners and clients from all over the world, all of whom have their own native language and diverse foreign language proficiencies. Moreover, it is executed by individuals who are often displaced from their countries of origin, operating in complex cultural teams and tasked to share knowledge (which is often tacit) for the benefit of companies headquartered elsewhere, communicating in a lingua franca not their own. Then to complicate matters further, the decision-making processes needed to strategically make use of the appropriated knowledge are extensively framed, formulated, and articulated in yet another language-a firm-specific corporate language. Even with a shared lingua franca, there is never an exact fit between sending and receiving contexts and therefore there will be skidding of meaning as the transferred knowledge is recontextualized in the new context. 2 Simply put, language, in all of its forms and registers (national, functional, specialized, corporate, and so on) as the vehicle through which opportunities for growth and renewal, and valid and creative solutions to operational challenges are communicated, is a critical factor in realizing strategic agility.
My chapter in this book is entitled 'Exporting, the Multiple-market Experience and the SME Interc... more My chapter in this book is entitled 'Exporting, the Multiple-market Experience and the SME Intercultural paradigm'.
Small and medium-sized enterprises are the object of considerable investment in skills and knowledge development for exporting in the UK and elsewhere (OECD, 2006). It might be expected, in the global era, that increased and more diverse patterns of trading would lead to significant interest in the ability of SMEs to communicate effectively with an increasingly large range of international clients and partners simultaneously. There has however been little progress in modelling the intercultural experience of the SME as most investment in international skills analysis and development has continued to focus on the foreign language needs of the first-time exporter and largely ignores the intercultural dimension. Whilst interest in the intercultural strategies of large firms has blossomed our knowledge of SME behaviour and experience remains limited and is currently drawn from two separate schools: one focussing on foreign language acquisition (Hagen, 1999) and the other on international orientation (Manolova, T.S. and Manev, I.M (2004). This chapter will review the relevant literature and attempt to identify some key characteristics and determinates of intercultural competence in SMEs.
There has been much criticism of business education in the last decade, much of it focusing on th... more There has been much criticism of business education in the last decade, much of it focusing on the theory-practice divide. This article argues that this tension is particularly pronounced in the area of internationalization where practitioners are exposed to many operational challenges and cultural phenomena which were unheard of at the time the dominant theories were first formulated. It then discusses the impact classical economic thinking has had on business decision-making and international business education in particular. Relevant literature is reviewed before relating the findings to cognitive and intercultural aspects of international business. The case is made for an increased cognitive approach to international business education, including more innovative and integrated approaches to intercultural competences and languages contact. Recommendations are made as to how education may be improved, with key consideration of what type of knowledge and competences are most relevant to enable students to function effectively in complex scenarios where context-rooted problems require imaginative solutions. It is argued that this competence may be attained by means of curriculum reform based on increased collaboration between faculties, universities and businesses.
Research has linked cultural differences between a sojourner’s home and host country with their c... more Research has linked cultural differences between a sojourner’s home and host country with their cultural transformation. Nonetheless, the results of empirical studies are inconclusive due to different operationalizations of cultural differences and testing among different groups of sojourners. We extend previous investigations by examining the effects of cultural novelty (i.e., the subjective perception of cultural differences) on the experience of international students (N = 1114) in Denmark, Germany, Italy, Poland, and the USA. Drawing on acculturation and social learning theories, we conceptualized a model of students’ adjustment and satisfaction taking into account cultural novelty. We tested the model through multi-group structural equation modeling (SEM) and examined the various relationships across subsamples from all five countries. We determined the significant effects of cultural novelty and a range of factors impacting students’ intercultural experience, such as their cul...
Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference Proceedings, 2013
ABSTRACT This paper focuses on a study of Tesco Plc conducted in 2011, in which we trained a mult... more ABSTRACT This paper focuses on a study of Tesco Plc conducted in 2011, in which we trained a multicultural team of nine Asian managers to become in-house ethnographers of Tesco UK for a 3-month period studying 52 stores in the UK with dual objectives of helping Tesco (1) to understand and evaluate the core practices that comprised the essence of Tesco's home country advantage, and (2) to identify sources of learning from Tesco's foreign subsidiaries to aid in reinvigorating its core in light of increasing competition in its home market. We believe that the strategic and training dimensions of this project constitute a new contribution to the field of organisational ethnography, particularly with regard to the use of a multinational ethnographic team of non-native speakers of English.
This is a healthcare project in which I led the strategic evaluation role for the network of Euro... more This is a healthcare project in which I led the strategic evaluation role for the network of European partners. There were some ground-breaking insights into the respective national markets for healthcare and strategies for cross-national and cross-sectoral collaboration.
This paper focuses on a study of Tesco Plc conducted in 2011, in which we trained a multicultural... more This paper focuses on a study of Tesco Plc conducted in 2011, in which we trained a multicultural team of nine Asian managers to become in-house ethnographers of Tesco UK for a 3-month period studying 52 stores in the UK with dual objectives of helping Tesco (1) to understand and evaluate the core practices that comprised the essence of Tesco's home country advantage, and (2) to identify sources of learning from Tesco's foreign subsidiaries to aid in reinvigorating its core in light of increasing competition in its home market. We believe that the strategic and training dimensions of this project constitute a new contribution to the field of organisational ethnography, particularly with regard to the use of a multinational ethnographic team of non-native speakers of English.
This paper presents the results of an experiment in teaching IB students about language as a gene... more This paper presents the results of an experiment in teaching IB students about language as a general phenomenon in international companies. No specific foreign language learning is involved but students learn how to identify language obstacles in working life and how to deal with them.
Open innovation developed as a way of understanding new methods of sourcing innovation by large c... more Open innovation developed as a way of understanding new methods of sourcing innovation by large companies. Its relevance as a tool for informing small firm growth and regional economic development is not yet developed in the literature. This paper describes the background research to European Interreg project, CURA-B, which sought to link small firms with large companies and government purchasers in the assistive technologies sector.
The place of culture in language learning is current-ly a subject of interest to foreign language... more The place of culture in language learning is current-ly a subject of interest to foreign language teachers, materials authors and linguisticians. Many are looking for means of systematically incorporating information about the foreign culture into syllabus and materials design. This interest is ...
United States Association For Small Business and Entrepreneurship Conference Proceedings, 2008
This paper is based on a 45 country survey undertaken by the OECD/APEC economies titled 'Rem... more This paper is based on a 45 country survey undertaken by the OECD/APEC economies titled 'Removing barriers to SME Access to International Markets'. The project aimed to gain a better understanding of the barriers to internationalising (defined as all those constraints that ...
This paper draws on the key findings and issues to emerge from an 18-month research project funde... more This paper draws on the key findings and issues to emerge from an 18-month research project funded by the East of England Development Agency and carried out by Anglia Polytechnic University1. It involved a study of need and support for small and medium sized enterprises in the Eastern region in the internationalisation of their business operations. The aim of the project was to identify successful aspects of international business planning, resource management, international networking, market intelligence gathering and global skills and knowledge development that can be made transferable across business sectors via training, educational, development and recruitment programmes. A number of studies into related areas have recently been completed both within the region and nationally, and we have drawn upon these reports to help inform our findings. These studies have either been quantitative or qualitative whereas this study is rather rare in that it is both quantitative and qualitat...
This talk is based on a published chapter and explores the challenge of creating a language-gener... more This talk is based on a published chapter and explores the challenge of creating a language-general curriculum for international managers. It includes the literature review supporting this concept and an outline structure for a curriculum. My keynote commences at I hour 3 minutes into this recording.
Managing Multilingual Workplaces, eds Horn S., Lecomte P. and Tietze S. Routledge, 2020
This chapter contains a review of language-sensitive literature and evaluates its contribution to... more This chapter contains a review of language-sensitive literature and evaluates its contribution to the domain of international management education. It combines the fruits of this research with language-strategy literaure and proposes an outline for an language-general curriculum for international managers.
Strategic Agility: The Critical Role of Language Sustaining competitive advantage requires a firm... more Strategic Agility: The Critical Role of Language Sustaining competitive advantage requires a firm's ability to sense, meld and thoughtfully leverage opportunities presented from throughout its global footprint in order to innovate and create value in light of ongoing market dynamism and industry change. Global strategy scholars tell us that being able to do this is the fundamental prerequisite to strategic agility. 1 What they sometimes overlook is that such activity entails frequent encounters with numerous partners and clients from all over the world, all of whom have their own native language and diverse foreign language proficiencies. Moreover, it is executed by individuals who are often displaced from their countries of origin, operating in complex cultural teams and tasked to share knowledge (which is often tacit) for the benefit of companies headquartered elsewhere, communicating in a lingua franca not their own. Then to complicate matters further, the decision-making processes needed to strategically make use of the appropriated knowledge are extensively framed, formulated, and articulated in yet another language-a firm-specific corporate language. Even with a shared lingua franca, there is never an exact fit between sending and receiving contexts and therefore there will be skidding of meaning as the transferred knowledge is recontextualized in the new context. 2 Simply put, language, in all of its forms and registers (national, functional, specialized, corporate, and so on) as the vehicle through which opportunities for growth and renewal, and valid and creative solutions to operational challenges are communicated, is a critical factor in realizing strategic agility.
My chapter in this book is entitled 'Exporting, the Multiple-market Experience and the SME Interc... more My chapter in this book is entitled 'Exporting, the Multiple-market Experience and the SME Intercultural paradigm'.
Small and medium-sized enterprises are the object of considerable investment in skills and knowledge development for exporting in the UK and elsewhere (OECD, 2006). It might be expected, in the global era, that increased and more diverse patterns of trading would lead to significant interest in the ability of SMEs to communicate effectively with an increasingly large range of international clients and partners simultaneously. There has however been little progress in modelling the intercultural experience of the SME as most investment in international skills analysis and development has continued to focus on the foreign language needs of the first-time exporter and largely ignores the intercultural dimension. Whilst interest in the intercultural strategies of large firms has blossomed our knowledge of SME behaviour and experience remains limited and is currently drawn from two separate schools: one focussing on foreign language acquisition (Hagen, 1999) and the other on international orientation (Manolova, T.S. and Manev, I.M (2004). This chapter will review the relevant literature and attempt to identify some key characteristics and determinates of intercultural competence in SMEs.
There has been much criticism of business education in the last decade, much of it focusing on th... more There has been much criticism of business education in the last decade, much of it focusing on the theory-practice divide. This article argues that this tension is particularly pronounced in the area of internationalization where practitioners are exposed to many operational challenges and cultural phenomena which were unheard of at the time the dominant theories were first formulated. It then discusses the impact classical economic thinking has had on business decision-making and international business education in particular. Relevant literature is reviewed before relating the findings to cognitive and intercultural aspects of international business. The case is made for an increased cognitive approach to international business education, including more innovative and integrated approaches to intercultural competences and languages contact. Recommendations are made as to how education may be improved, with key consideration of what type of knowledge and competences are most relevant to enable students to function effectively in complex scenarios where context-rooted problems require imaginative solutions. It is argued that this competence may be attained by means of curriculum reform based on increased collaboration between faculties, universities and businesses.
Research has linked cultural differences between a sojourner’s home and host country with their c... more Research has linked cultural differences between a sojourner’s home and host country with their cultural transformation. Nonetheless, the results of empirical studies are inconclusive due to different operationalizations of cultural differences and testing among different groups of sojourners. We extend previous investigations by examining the effects of cultural novelty (i.e., the subjective perception of cultural differences) on the experience of international students (N = 1114) in Denmark, Germany, Italy, Poland, and the USA. Drawing on acculturation and social learning theories, we conceptualized a model of students’ adjustment and satisfaction taking into account cultural novelty. We tested the model through multi-group structural equation modeling (SEM) and examined the various relationships across subsamples from all five countries. We determined the significant effects of cultural novelty and a range of factors impacting students’ intercultural experience, such as their cul...
Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference Proceedings, 2013
ABSTRACT This paper focuses on a study of Tesco Plc conducted in 2011, in which we trained a mult... more ABSTRACT This paper focuses on a study of Tesco Plc conducted in 2011, in which we trained a multicultural team of nine Asian managers to become in-house ethnographers of Tesco UK for a 3-month period studying 52 stores in the UK with dual objectives of helping Tesco (1) to understand and evaluate the core practices that comprised the essence of Tesco's home country advantage, and (2) to identify sources of learning from Tesco's foreign subsidiaries to aid in reinvigorating its core in light of increasing competition in its home market. We believe that the strategic and training dimensions of this project constitute a new contribution to the field of organisational ethnography, particularly with regard to the use of a multinational ethnographic team of non-native speakers of English.
This is a healthcare project in which I led the strategic evaluation role for the network of Euro... more This is a healthcare project in which I led the strategic evaluation role for the network of European partners. There were some ground-breaking insights into the respective national markets for healthcare and strategies for cross-national and cross-sectoral collaboration.
This paper focuses on a study of Tesco Plc conducted in 2011, in which we trained a multicultural... more This paper focuses on a study of Tesco Plc conducted in 2011, in which we trained a multicultural team of nine Asian managers to become in-house ethnographers of Tesco UK for a 3-month period studying 52 stores in the UK with dual objectives of helping Tesco (1) to understand and evaluate the core practices that comprised the essence of Tesco's home country advantage, and (2) to identify sources of learning from Tesco's foreign subsidiaries to aid in reinvigorating its core in light of increasing competition in its home market. We believe that the strategic and training dimensions of this project constitute a new contribution to the field of organisational ethnography, particularly with regard to the use of a multinational ethnographic team of non-native speakers of English.
This paper presents the results of an experiment in teaching IB students about language as a gene... more This paper presents the results of an experiment in teaching IB students about language as a general phenomenon in international companies. No specific foreign language learning is involved but students learn how to identify language obstacles in working life and how to deal with them.
Open innovation developed as a way of understanding new methods of sourcing innovation by large c... more Open innovation developed as a way of understanding new methods of sourcing innovation by large companies. Its relevance as a tool for informing small firm growth and regional economic development is not yet developed in the literature. This paper describes the background research to European Interreg project, CURA-B, which sought to link small firms with large companies and government purchasers in the assistive technologies sector.
The place of culture in language learning is current-ly a subject of interest to foreign language... more The place of culture in language learning is current-ly a subject of interest to foreign language teachers, materials authors and linguisticians. Many are looking for means of systematically incorporating information about the foreign culture into syllabus and materials design. This interest is ...
United States Association For Small Business and Entrepreneurship Conference Proceedings, 2008
This paper is based on a 45 country survey undertaken by the OECD/APEC economies titled 'Rem... more This paper is based on a 45 country survey undertaken by the OECD/APEC economies titled 'Removing barriers to SME Access to International Markets'. The project aimed to gain a better understanding of the barriers to internationalising (defined as all those constraints that ...
This paper draws on the key findings and issues to emerge from an 18-month research project funde... more This paper draws on the key findings and issues to emerge from an 18-month research project funded by the East of England Development Agency and carried out by Anglia Polytechnic University1. It involved a study of need and support for small and medium sized enterprises in the Eastern region in the internationalisation of their business operations. The aim of the project was to identify successful aspects of international business planning, resource management, international networking, market intelligence gathering and global skills and knowledge development that can be made transferable across business sectors via training, educational, development and recruitment programmes. A number of studies into related areas have recently been completed both within the region and nationally, and we have drawn upon these reports to help inform our findings. These studies have either been quantitative or qualitative whereas this study is rather rare in that it is both quantitative and qualitat...
In 2018 the presenters conducted extensive mixed method inquiry into the integration of internati... more In 2018 the presenters conducted extensive mixed method inquiry into the integration of international students at Royal Roads University, Canada. This video presentation describes the objectives, methods and findings. This project formed the basis of the ISE project.
This is a 20 minutes talk about boundary spanning, language skills and global human resource mana... more This is a 20 minutes talk about boundary spanning, language skills and global human resource management.
This presentation outlines changes in the domain of international business ranging from the impac... more This presentation outlines changes in the domain of international business ranging from the impact of migrant and student groups to the emergence of new kinds of companies, transactions and relationships. The concept of open innovation, which crystalizes these shifts, is described.
This consultative talk, summarised here in the Conference report, outlines the research design a... more This consultative talk, summarised here in the Conference report, outlines the research design and initial literature survey for the OECD study, 'Removing Obstaces to SME Access to International Markets', conducted between 2004-6. It discusses definitions of the SME across national settings and the nature of its internationalisation process. These deliberations would eventually be complemented by an empirical study of SMEs and governments across 44 national settings. Initial observations at this stage include the range of strategies employed by SMEs to internationalise (over and above exporting) and the role of large companies in pushing SMEs into global value chains.
This paper is based on the premise that we are moving from a (short-lived) lingua franca world wh... more This paper is based on the premise that we are moving from a (short-lived) lingua franca world where English is seen as the solution to all communication problems, to one where we are accepting that multilinguality is both real and empowering. Organisations and classrooms that acknowledge this will be more fair, efficient and authentic.
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Small and medium-sized enterprises are the object of considerable investment in skills and knowledge development for exporting in the UK and elsewhere (OECD, 2006). It might be expected, in the global era, that increased and more diverse patterns of trading would lead to significant interest in the ability of SMEs to communicate effectively with an increasingly large range of international clients and partners simultaneously. There has however been little progress in modelling the intercultural experience of the SME as most investment in international skills analysis and development has continued to focus on the foreign language needs of the first-time exporter and largely ignores the intercultural dimension. Whilst interest in the intercultural strategies of large firms has blossomed our knowledge of SME behaviour and experience remains limited and is currently drawn from two separate schools: one focussing on foreign language acquisition (Hagen, 1999) and the other on international orientation (Manolova, T.S. and Manev, I.M (2004). This chapter will review the relevant literature and attempt to identify some key characteristics and determinates of intercultural competence in SMEs.
Small and medium-sized enterprises are the object of considerable investment in skills and knowledge development for exporting in the UK and elsewhere (OECD, 2006). It might be expected, in the global era, that increased and more diverse patterns of trading would lead to significant interest in the ability of SMEs to communicate effectively with an increasingly large range of international clients and partners simultaneously. There has however been little progress in modelling the intercultural experience of the SME as most investment in international skills analysis and development has continued to focus on the foreign language needs of the first-time exporter and largely ignores the intercultural dimension. Whilst interest in the intercultural strategies of large firms has blossomed our knowledge of SME behaviour and experience remains limited and is currently drawn from two separate schools: one focussing on foreign language acquisition (Hagen, 1999) and the other on international orientation (Manolova, T.S. and Manev, I.M (2004). This chapter will review the relevant literature and attempt to identify some key characteristics and determinates of intercultural competence in SMEs.