“A Must for Every Global Company” : A Study of Experiences with English as a Corporate Language in Two Swedish Companies

Abstract: The present study explores the use of English in multinational corporations, with the aim of investigating employees’ attitudes and experiences of having English as their corporate language, as well as to see if the use of English has any effect on communication and work. It was carried out at two large Swedish multinational companies, with approximately 400 participants in total, and the data was collected with the use of a questionnaire and interviews. The results show that the majority of the participants did not find the use of English problematic, and that there was an overall positive attitude towards having English as a corporate language. The problems that could be identified were mostly related to efficiency and difficulties discussing details and were experienced by a sizeable minority of the respondents.