The Language of Global Success: How a Common Tongue Transforms Multinational Organizations 9781400888641

Table of contents :
CONTENTS
Introduction
1. The Lingua Franca Mandate: “Englishnization”
2. Leading the Lingua Franca Mandate
3. Linguistic Expats and Bounded Fluency: “I am an expat in my own country”
4. Cultural Expats and the Trojan Horse of Language: “It’s their culture wrapped in our language”
5. Dual Expats’ Global Work Orientation: “Been there, done that, know that!”
6. Five Years Post- Mandate
7. Lessons for Top Leaders, Managers, and Employees
8. Conclusion
Acknowledgments
Appendix A. Research Design, Methodology Details, and Sample
Appendix B. Quantitative Analysis of CEO Leadership and Employee Confidence
Notes
Index

Citation preview

TH E L AN G UAG E O F G LO BAL S U CCE S S

The Language of Global Success How a Common Tongue Transforms Multinational Organizations Tsedal Neeley

PRINCETON U NIVE RSIT Y PRESS P R I N C E TO N A N D OX F O R D

Copyright © 2017 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TR press.princeton.edu All Rights Reserved ISBN 978-0-691-17537-9 Library of Congress Control Number 2017944328 British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available This book has been composed in Adobe Text and Gotham Printed on acid-free paper. ∞ Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To my parents, my first inspiring global teachers

CONTENTS

Introduction

1

1

The Lingua Franca Mandate: “Englishnization”

13

2

Leading the Lingua Franca Mandate

3

Linguistic Expats and Bounded Fluency: “I am an expat in my own country” 42

4

Cultural Expats and the Trojan Horse of Language: “It’s their culture wrapped in our language” 58

5

Dual Expats’ Global Work Orientation: “Been there, done that, know that!” 82

6

Five Years Post-Mandate

7

Lessons for Top Leaders, Managers, and Employees

8

Conclusion

27

110 129

138

Acknowledgments

143

Appendix A. Research Design, Methodology Details, and Sample 147 Appendix B. Quantitative Analysis of CEO Leadership and Employee Confidence 165 Notes

173

Index

185

vii

TH E L AN G UAG E O F G LO BAL S U CCE S S

Introduction “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.” So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. — TH E TOW E R O F BA B E L (G E N E S I S 1 1 :1 – 9)

They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. . . . A crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language?” — TH E H O LY S P I R IT CO M E S AT P E NTECOS T (AC T S 2 :1 – 1 1)

Two well-known stories from the ancients showcase the fundamental role that language plays in human interaction and demonstrate its power to be a prelude to chaos or a herald of new understanding. The story of the tower of Babel testifies to the inevitable scattering that follows linguistic confusion. When communication breaks down, no one can move forward; they are unable to understand or be understood. Big plans come to nothing. In contrast, the story of the 1

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Pentecost demonstrates how, despite differences in “native language,” it is possible for each person in the crowd to understand perfectly what is being said. Although they originate in different cultures and locations, the people are no longer separated from one another; they are joined in clarity. Today, language holds a similar weight in global organizations as it did for the confused people in the story of Babel and the amazed onlookers in the story of the Pentecost. There is urgency for global employees to communicate effectively so that all can engage and participate in the work required, and indeed, global organizations are at the frontier of changes in language use. For over three decades, American and British political, economic, and technological power on the world’s stage has propelled English as the lingua franca (common language) of international business. Approximately 52 percent of multinationals today use English for some capacity of cross-border work. Yet despite the clearly established link between language and societal macro-forces, there is a surprising absence of research into how shifts in language and culture play out longitudinally at the organizational level. Adopting a lingua franca, which by definition is foreign to a portion of the employees, is not only a matter of mastering vocabulary lists and grammatical tenses. Nor is it simply a matter of having to learn the particular culture that any given language is said to embody; learning French certainly doesn’t bestow knowledge of fine cheeses, nor does learning Farsi carry a proclivity for knotting intricate carpets. I have studied the lingua franca phenomenon in global organizations for nearly fifteen years. The seed of my interest was first planted when I was part of a study at Stanford University examining the cross-cultural experience of globally dispersed teams at a German high-tech company. As many as 70 percent of employees we interviewed in Germany, India, and the United States attributed collaboration hardships of one sort or another to language. One of my first interviewees teared up when describing an ongoing sense of ostracism as a result of other team members’ habitual switch to a foreign language. Others described difficulty speaking the dominant language as the source of isolation in their teams and their

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organizations. Many saw language differences as the most divisive aspect of their global teamwork. As soon as I left those interviews, I turned to the literature to make sense of what I had heard. I was surprised to find very little existing research that could explain the emotionally charged experiences that employees had recounted, and even more surprised that such a knowledge gap existed about one of the most fundamental means for global workers to communicate. Since that first study, I have been motivated to go as deep and wide as I could to systematically study and write about language and the role it plays in global work. The story of how language can affect employees and organizations in the course of a lingua franca adoption, and consequently, how our previously held notions of language and culture become upended, especially in one e-commerce high-tech giant—Rakuten—is the subject of this book. Rakuten is a leader in Japan’s e-commerce space, and its CEO is regarded as a maverick in business and cultural change, but its challenges with language and cultural diversity are germane to many global organizations. Founded in June 1997 in Japan as an e-mall service, Rakuten Ichiba was part of the mid-1990s Internet growth that ushered in an era in which the buying and selling of products and services moved online in what has become the e-commerce industry. Although in the past two decades traditional brick-and-mortar retail businesses have increasingly adopted online shopping capabilities or participated in third-party online marketplaces, Rakuten has been strictly an e-commerce business from its founding. Approximately 75 percent of growth in retail sales since 2000 can be attributed to e-commerce.1 In Japan and elsewhere, this surge was driven in large part by the growth in Internet accessibility, with 46 percent of global households having access to the Internet and 43 percent of people globally using the Internet in 2015.2 Consumers increasingly look globally for e-commerce purchases of products otherwise unobtainable in their domestic market and because they are motivated by lower prices, greater selection, higher quality of products, and assurance against product counterfeiting.3

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Rakuten’s platform allowed retailers, product manufacturers, and other service providers to build online storefronts, operating within a B2B2C (Business to Business to Consumer) model. Major consumer electronics retailers sold Sony, NEC, Nintendo, Panasonic, or Hitachi-branded items on Rakuten’s platform. In return, Rakuten generated revenues from its merchants (retailers) through fixed monthly fees, sales of advertising and other services, and a percentage of gross merchandise sales. As the intermediary between sellers and buyers, Rakuten did not handle inventory for the vast majority of its business (books and media were the only exceptions). Rakuten later expanded into other Internet services, including cashback sites, travel-booking sites, and digital content, such as e-books and video streaming, as well as financial services, including Internet banking, online securities trading, a Rakuten-issued credit card, and life insurance.4 Rakuten also pursued online mobile messaging and communication, management of its professional baseball team, the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles, and other niche businesses. Similar to Amazon.com, which also pioneered e-commerce before diversifying its businesses into online payments, e-readers, digital content, and cloud infrastructure services, Rakuten would eventually host business services in the global marketplace.5 In March 2010 the CEO of Rakuten, Hiroshi Mikitani, mandated a company-wide English language initiative, effective immediately. I learned about Englishnization at Rakuten several months later and began to interview employees and conduct what would become a five-year, in-depth, longitudinal study of Rakuten’s English language strategy. Throughout the study, Mikitani granted me total access to his company, inviting me to go anywhere in the world to talk to any of his employees and without imposing a single condition. I talked with people as many times as I deemed necessary to develop a rich understanding of lingua franca and cultural phenomena as they unfolded in real time. I employed a hybrid approach to collect qualitative, quantitative, and archival data. The qualitative data comprised 650 interviews across eight country sites—Brazil, France, Germany, Indonesia, Japan (headquarters), Taiwan, Thailand, and the United States—that were conducted in five languages. The quantitative

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data were collected at two points in time, totaling 3,056 surveys. I also collected over 20,000 pages of archival documents. The data I collected eventually informed the findings that I present as Phase One and Phase Two, capturing two key stages of the lingua franca adoption processes. Further details about my research methods can be found in appendices A and B, where I delineate how I analyzed the quantitative data. As I reviewed and analyzed the data, three distinct social groups emerged and led me to conceive of workers in the global organization as expatriates in their own countries. Expatriates (often shortened to “expats”) are people temporarily or permanently residing as immigrants in a country other than that of their citizenship. I have repurposed the word “expat” to mean people who are temporarily or permanently detached from their mother tongue or home culture while still operating in their own country. The change to a lingua franca is the catalyst for all employees to become an expat of one sort or another in their daily organizational work while still living in their native country. The expat perspective that I conceptualize rests on the assumption that everyone is at least slightly uncomfortable detaching from a native language or culture. This book lies at the intersection of language, national culture, and organizational culture, and before we go any further, let me say a little more about definitions. Here, “language” means the lingua franca. “Culture” refers to a national culture—for example, Japanese, American, German, Thai, or others. My definition of “organizational culture” is one articulated by O’Reilly and Chatman as “a system of shared values (that define what is important) and norms that define appropriate attitudes and behaviors for organizational members (how to feel and behave).”6 Theoretical and empirical focus on language and globalization continues to dramatically lag the realities that employees face on the ground, as will become apparent in this book. Understanding the evolution of a language mandate over time and across groups enables us to develop insights into how people who work in global organizations learn to communicate and negotiate linguistic and cultural differences. Language is everywhere. It flows across and

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touches the entire spectrum of global organizational processes: values, norms, attitudes, customer service work, product design, marketing, hiring, evaluating, and promoting employees, internal reporting, post-merger integration, innovation, process improvements, teaming, and much more. A language change affects these processes and practices simultaneously. In addition, my study of the lingua franca mandate and employees’ experience at Rakuten demonstrates that a foreign language can be appropriated and used as a conduit to spread a native culture. In looking closely at how English lingua franca is currently used in a global workplace, I discovered what can happen when a language and culture are productively decoupled. I unpack the ways in which the English language transported Japanese national cultural traditions and beliefs throughout the globalizing organization at Rakuten. I draw attention to the ramifications of the decoupling of language and culture throughout the book. As I studied these ramifications over a five-year period, I found that each of the three social groups that emerged at Rakuten grappled with and eventually found a way to integrate the changes—linguistic, cultural, or both—that were a consequence of the firm-wide lingua franca adoption. The first group comprised employees who lived in their home country, Japan, yet had to give up their mother tongue when they entered their place of employment or signed into a conference call. Their organization demanded that they shed the ease of their native language, making their daily work experience fraught with language challenges. Conceptually, one might think it is comparable to immigrants’ transformative experience of having to learn and adopt a foreign language when moving to a foreign country; however, the twist, one that fundamentally alters how we understand what it means to adopt a new language, is that they had to do so while remaining in their home country. I call this group linguistic expats precisely because they became language expatriates in their own country. The second group comprised native English-speaking employees who lived and worked in Rakuten’s U.S. subsidiaries. Initially, the native English-speaking employees were euphoric when the CEO stipulated the English lingua franca mandate. The vast majority of

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the native English-speaking employees initially felt privileged; they believed that they were the beneficiaries of the change, having increased capacity to contribute to the organization and anticipating myriad new opportunities for career advancement. This group did in fact become beneficiaries of improved communication, but what eventually happened, once the Japanese employees became more proficient in English, overturned their—and my—assumptions. Contrary to expectation, the company-wide mandate to adopt the English language became a gateway for the spread of Rakuten’s organizational culture—one built on the Japanese national identity— into the U.S. subsidiaries. The Americans’ sense of good fortune—that they happened to be native English speakers operating in their home country—fell away with the onslaught of foreign organizational and cultural values into their daily work practices and processes. As this group struggled to adjust to such new practices as being monitored by supervisors to ensure they were wearing the prescribed Rakuten badge, correctly pinned, at all times, they became cultural expats—forced to detach from their native cultural norms and adopt organizational cultural practices that rubbed against their American grain. The fundamental twist for this group was that the shift to their native language ironically opened the door to cultural changes in organizational practices more reflective of Japanese national culture than of their own native culture, within which they were working. The third group also surprised me. It was composed of employees who were neither native English speakers nor members of the Japanese-headquartered native group. Rather, they worked in Rakuten’s non-native English-speaking foreign offices: Brazil, France, Germany, Indonesia, Taiwan, and Thailand. One might expect that those who had to shed their foundational languages and cultures, who were linguistic-cultural (or dual ) expats in their home country, would have experienced a double jeopardy. This group had the easier linguistic adjustment to English and the easier cultural adjustment to the Japanese ways ushered in by the lingua franca mandate, although they too had to master steep learning curves to gain higher language proficiency and engage in new culturally unfamiliar work practices.

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Once the dual expats overcame the frustrations of communicating and coordinating work across borders, they were surprisingly open and receptive to languages and cultural practices that were foreign to their locale, nationality, or identity. These attitudes are what will make dual expats, in my estimation, the employee group most likely to be effective for global organizations of the twenty-first century. There is a fourth category, bilingual employees, that deserves brief mention. Fluent in Japanese and English, they were playing a necessary intermediary role in the organization pre-mandate. This small group, who held positions in every division (e.g., engineering, human resources), also served as translators between colleagues. However, after the lingua franca mandate took hold and people’s language fluency evolved, the demand for these bilinguals lessened and then became nearly nonexistent because they were no longer unique. I do not focus on this group because they represent a very small subset of the employee population, and consequently I do not have sufficient data to capture as robust a story as I was able to develop for the other three groups, though I touch on them in chapter 6. Adopting an expat frame allows me to look closely at how a workforce meets the challenges of belonging to a global organization. My hope is that after reading this book, scholars and practitioners will be sensitive to the fact that each of the three social groups—linguistic expats, cultural expats, and dual expats—has new roles and responsibilities to themselves and to the organization. A lingua franca mandate leaves no organizational process or practice untouched. In ways tangible and intangible, superficial and profound, the organization itself is changed. While some aspects of my analysis are unique to Rakuten—its e-commerce industry, the Japanese corporate and national culture in which it is embedded, its charismatic CEO, and the comprehensive approach he took to rolling out the lingua franca mandate—there are lessons to be learned for many global companies as they will likely confront similar language and culture challenges. The reality is that both kinds of challenges are already occurring within firms that operate across national boundaries. The experiences of the three social groups I identify provide theoretical and empirical purchase in our

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understanding of workers in global organizations. Importantly, the expat perspective allows us to see the extent to which some people will feel linguistically estranged, others will feel culturally estranged, and some will experience distances on both ends depending on whether they are native or non-native members. There are two organizational scenarios that are likely to give rise to these three social groups. The first scenario is global organizations with an English lingua franca that are headquartered in an Englishspeaking country—for example, the United States, the United Kingdom, or Australia—and thus do not have linguistic expats but do have cultural expats and dual expats in their workforce. The second scenario consists of the reverse; in organizations that adopt an English lingua franca and are headquartered in a country where the native language is not English—for example, Brazil, Germany, or China— linguistic expats, cultural expats, and linguistic-cultural expats are likely to exist. In organizations where English is both the native language and the lingua franca, people may still categorize as cultural expats if there is a mismatch between the culture of the headquarters and that of the subsidiary. For example, an Australian employee who is part of a U.S.-based organization would be required to adhere to American values and cultural norms. Australians become cultural expats because they share a common native language with their U.S. employer (English), while still having to adapt to different cultural norms (American). On the other hand, Malaysian employees of that same company who work in Malaysia would hold the position of dual expats when they must adopt a non-native language (English) and operate within a non-native organization (U.S.) and national culture (American). If we look at the alternative scenario, an organization situated in a country where the native language is not English, then all three categories of employees (linguistic expats, cultural expats, and dual expats) would likely exist, similar to the situation at Rakuten. For example, if a company is headquartered in Germany and adopts the English lingua franca (e.g., SAP or Siemens), employees who work in Germany would fall into the linguistic expat category. Employees who are native English speakers would be cultural expats,

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while those who are non-native English speakers and non-Germans would fall into the linguistic expat categories. In the end, each social group has distinct challenges and rewards. Regardless of where each social group begins, the book takes the reader through the separate journey each group followed to become expats in their own countries. With the exception of the CEO and select executives who have spoken publicly about the language strategy, I refer to interviewees by pseudonyms to protect their identities. Chapter 1 sets the stage with the dramatic announcement by Hiroshi Mikitani, CEO of Rakuten, informing his 10,000 employees, of which over 7,100 are Japanese nationals, that from that day forward they must speak English in the workplace. In two years, they will be required to clear a proficiency test or risk demotion. In this first chapter we meet three employees who represent the categories that make up the core of the book: Kenji, a Japanese engineer gripped by shock and fear that his years of hard work with the company will count for naught, who then receives the technical and emotional support to practice new English language skills; Robert, a native Englishspeaking marketing manager from the United States, thrilled that the company is switching to his native language and who anticipates an easy career advance only to have his sense of privilege curtailed by new, daily work requirements, followed by a trip to Japan where his cultural blinders begin to loosen; and a German IT technician, Inga, pleased by the announcement, who hopes it will streamline her work process—and learns that it does once she climbs the steep and often frustrating learning curve. To contextualize this chapter, I weave in trends, theories, and empirical evidence that deepen our understanding of the development and effects of English as a lingua franca in global organizations more broadly. Chapter 2 follows Mikitani’s thinking and leadership development with regard to the Englishnization mandate. Initially, Mikitani believed the English language mandate would succeed if employees were independent and entrepreneurial, taking full responsibility— financially and otherwise—for learning English. However, after nearly a year and a half, upon discovering that progress was dismal, he led a major shift. I introduce and discuss Mikitani’s promotion of

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the mandate during the second phase of “English only”—learning English while retaining one’s native culture. I assess how Mikitani’s leadership influenced employee attitudes and English language proficiency scores. Chapters 3, 4, and 5 follow the three employees introduced in chapter 1 and draw from the experiences of others similarly positioned in the organization to trace, through an expat perspective, how each group develops and changes over time. Importantly, the expat perspective provides new insights about the interplay between language and culture. What does it mean for employees to detach from their original language or culture, and for some, both? Chapter 3 focuses on the Japanese linguistic expats and their linguistic shock, which initially presents a barrier to learning a foreign language. The results of the seemingly insurmountable challenge at the mandate’s announcement—base English language proficiency for the Japanese domestic workforce—are provided and discussed in chapter 3. Chapter 4, which focuses on the native English-speaking cultural expats, takes up the corresponding culture shock they undergo as a result of inundation from a foreign ( Japanese) culture, presenting a barrier to cross-cultural communication. Chapter 5, about the linguistic-cultural expats, describes how this group’s lack of either linguistic or cultural shock eventually presents the lowest barrier to living in and learning a foreign culture. This process, although challenging for many individuals in the first two groups, emerged as freeing for the dual expat employees and allowed them entry to more adaptive attitudes and behaviors. Chapter 6 documents the largely beneficial results of the lingua franca mandate on Rakuten over a period of five years, including the rise in international acquisitions, accelerated post-integration activities, centralized technical platforms, and knowledge sharing. An expanded and global talent pool changed hiring patterns within the Tokyo headquarters and worldwide, particularly in the engineering ranks. While many advances were made in the advent of the English language mandate, this chapter also highlights enduring challenges. In addition, chapter 6 shows examples of Rakuten’s influence beyond the confines of the organization. When I first met Hiroshi

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Mikitani, he told me that he was passionate about empowering and renewing Japanese society and that he viewed Rakuten as an important conduit for societal-level changes. The English language mandate was chief among the changes that his company could effect nationally, particularly because Mikitani’s globalization ambitions for his company were deeply intertwined with his ambitions for Japan. The prime minister of Japan tapped Mikitani to join a newly formed advisory body, the Industrial Competitiveness Council, to aid in developing a globalization agenda. A national language strategy was rooted in the actions that the council adopted. These activities demonstrate the role that companies can have in shaping societal growth and character. Chapter 7 considers how the insights from this research and other in-depth work that I have conducted can serve as a guide for practitioners at three levels in the organization—top leaders, managers, and employees—who are seeking to better navigate shifts as they adopt practices for their organizations’ lingua franca and cultural transitions. I detail the factors that top leaders need to consider when assessing the appropriateness of a lingua franca and corresponding implementation tactics. Without a broader understanding of how language changes affect their workforce, and what is needed for implementation, many organizations will falter in their lingua franca mandates. I also highlight how managers can practically support and accurately evaluate employees who are operating in a cross-lingua environment. Finally, the chapter provides communication strategies for employees in their everyday interactions globally. Language can affect every aspect of global organizational life. If leaders can integrate language changes effectively, they will open untold opportunities to unleash previously untapped talent in their workforce and increase their company’s ability to maximize what is too often an unfulfilled promise of globalization. A lingua franca is the closest we have to the “tongues of fire” that allow people to hear and comprehend any language as if it were their own. Only by learning to communicate—with words and culture—can we go forward, into the future world and work of global business.

1 The Lingua Franca Mandate “ENGLISHNIZATION ”

On Monday, March 1, 2010, Hiroshi Mikitani stepped to the podium at the Tokyo headquarters of his company, Rakuten. At forty-four, Mikitani was the billionaire celebrity CEO of Japan’s largest online retailer and was renowned for making daring business decisions, made all the more controversial in Japan, where conformity and tradition are esteemed. Fourteen years earlier, he had left an enviable career at the Industrial Bank of Japan to launch Rakuten with a small founding team. By 2010, his company was a household name and Internet destination of choice for the majority of Japanese online shoppers. Mikitani was often dubbed the Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos of Japan for his prescience in seeing the changes technology would bring to commerce and for the acumen he had demonstrated in Rakuten’s meteoric rise. Mikitani adjusted the microphone. These weekly company-wide meetings, called Asakai, were attended by over seven thousand Japanese employees—crowded into an enormous auditorium, often weaving around the corner and into an overflow room—and by a loyal contingent of Rakuten’s three thousand overseas employees who watched via video. Most of the managers watching remotely 13

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understood little Japanese, but they liked watching their charismatic CEO in action. Later, they would receive translated summaries of his speech. On this particular day, Mikitani had an announcement that departed from the usual format. He spoke from the podium in English. “For the first time in the entire history of Rakuten,” he said, “we held today’s executive meeting in English. Many executives struggled quite a bit, but we managed to get through the entire agenda.” As the audience strained to listen he announced that “our goal is to catch up with the global market. To step up to this challenge we must try to change our language gradually from Japanese to English. This is going to be a long-term effort for us. Starting this month, my own speech will simply be in English.” Mikitani went on to explain why he believed it was critical for Rakuten in particular and the country of Japan in general to acquire proficiency in English. Language, he insisted, was the bottleneck that precluded the organization from leveraging valuable business knowledge that had accrued within the Japanese headquarters and existing subsidiaries. A common language was the only way to extend knowledge sharing across the organization’s existing global operations, as well as those that would be newly and rapidly established in order to efficiently achieve business results. He reminded his employees that Rakuten aspired to deploy operations in twenty-seven countries and raise the overseas portion of their revenue to 70 percent within ten years. An important market for the e-commerce global growth strategy was the U.S. market, in line with companies like Amazon and eBay, where English proficiency would clearly be necessary. The Tokyo office was then steadily hiring engineers from India and China who spoke English, but not Japanese. Mikitani said what was perhaps most difficult for his workforce to hear: he wanted to continue expanding his talent pool and sought to hire non-Japanese workers for the Tokyo office as well as elsewhere in the company. Finally, there was the shrinking Japanese GDP. Mikitani told his audience: “By 2050, Japanese GDP as a portion of global GDP will shrink from 12 percent in 2006 to 3 percent.” Fast and direct

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communication—without the cumbersome time delays that translation incurred—was the only way to integrate his business across multiple nations and insert his company effectively in non-Japanese markets. He reminded his workforce that “our goal is not becoming number one in Japan but becoming the number one Internet services company in the world. As we consider the future potential growth of the Japanese market and our company, global implementation is not a nice-to-have but a must-do.” And he promised that changing the language employees spoke would affect more than just communication. It would revolutionize how Rakuten workers saw themselves and interacted with the rest of the world. Mikitani saved the bombshell of his speech for last. By April 1, 2012, two years from the first all-English meeting, Rakuten employees would be required to score above 650 on the 990-point Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC)1 or face the consequences. If his audience did not understand the precise wording they would soon feel its impact. Mikitani promised: “We will demote people who really do not try hard. We will monitor their progress and their test scores, and I will get reports from all the managers about employee progress.” Soon after, he instructed division heads to provide monthly reports on the average TOEIC scores of their employees relative to the desired target. By the next morning, Japanese language cafeteria menus were replaced with their English equivalents. English replaced Japanese floor directories in Rakuten elevators. Even the corporate executives were stunned. Mikitani had not consulted with them before announcing his decision because he had assumed they would resist the idea of a full-on English conversion. Instead, by announcing the mandate directly to the entire company, he made the policy immediate and irreversible. In Mikitani’s mind, the future of Rakuten and Japan depended on what he called “Englishnization” and was too crucial to postpone. He had invented the term to embody what he called an unprecedented, radical idea for a Japanese company.2 One of Rakuten’s most critical principles, “Speed!! Speed!! Speed!!” was in action. Englishnization had begun full force.

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Global Organizations and Language

The style in which Rakuten mandated a common language may have been unusual, but the adoption of English was in step with the practice of global organizations. Multinationals adopt a lingua franca3 for at least four reasons. First, the pressure to grow globally, as well as the mergers and acquisitions that often cross national and linguistic boundaries, drive organizations to find a common way to communicate.4 Second, translators and interpreters for everyday work relationships tend to be inadequate.5 Meetings between individuals who speak different languages that rely on translators can become cumbersome and unnecessarily lengthy; likewise, translated documents often lose nuance and slow down transactions. Third, the absence of a lingua franca makes it challenging for linguistically diverse, and usually geographically dispersed, employees to share knowledge and collaborate. It has been long established that global team members who do not share the same language struggle to convey tacit knowledge that will advance their organization’s goals.6 Finally, when subsidiaries are unable to communicate with their headquarters in the same language, the organization can find it difficult and inefficient to communicate a shared mission and values.7 On the other hand, research demonstrates that a lingua franca not only enables a company to have better external and internal communication but also can promote a sense of belonging for employees located worldwide8 and serve as a reminder of the organization’s global vision.9 Over the last three decades, English has overwhelmingly become the most commonly adopted lingua franca. According to linguist David Crystal, one in four people in the world now speak a useful level of English and there are over one billion fluent speakers. English’s flexible grammar and lack of masculine and feminine forms make it relatively easy to learn. Its centuries-long habit of integrating vocabulary from other countries—“bonsai,” “kamikaze,” “tycoon,” and “sushi,” to cite a few Japanese contributions—lends it a familiarity to learners.10 However, history has also shown that a language becomes global not because of intrinsic properties but because of the military,

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economic, and political dominance of its native speakers.11 Just as Greek, Latin, and Arabic were once the common languages of international communication at the height of their respective empires, English as a lingua franca is due in large part to the long history of colonial Britain and the superpower position of the United States.12 The consensus is clear: not only has English become the common language spoken around the globe, but it is the fastest-spreading lingua franca in human history.13 Linguist John McWhorter points out, “English is dominant in a way that no language has ever been before.”14 As will be further detailed in chapter 5, scholars at MIT have found English to be the number one written language worldwide, signaling its overriding influence in communication.15 Global companies from nearly all the major industries—Audi, Atos, Deutsche Bank, IBM, Lufthansa, Microsoft, Nokia, Nestlé, Samsung, SAP, Uber, and the list goes on—are already requiring employees to use English. By mandating English, Rakuten was prepared to join the approximately 52 percent of multinational companies that had adopted a language different from that of their originating country in order to better meet global expansion and business needs.16 Initial Employee Responses

Rakuten employees were astonished by Hiroshi Mikitani’s radical announcement of the Englishnization mandate. This abrupt change that would soon affect all aspects of their work life also provoked a bevy of emotions. Kenji (36), an engineer, could not believe what he had just heard. Kenji had seen Rakuten grow by leaps and bounds in the previous eight years. He had always admired Hiroshi Mikitani, and it was in these company-wide Asakai meetings that he grew accustomed to hearing the CEO’s ambitious goals for the company and its workforce. Today’s announcement was different and seemed nearly impossible to believe. Did he just hear Mikitani say that the official language of Rakuten was going to be English? Would his salary really be linked to his English ability? Kenji had never traveled outside his island nation of Japan. Like

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nearly everyone in Japan, he had studied English for six years during middle and high school, but he had graduated with a minimal ability to understand English—and even this smattering of comprehension had long been forgotten. Suddenly thrust into a situation where he would be forced to learn a new language later in life or face demotion, Kenji felt like he was at a colossal disadvantage. He felt that his eight years of diligent, hard work in service to Rakuten should speak for itself, yet now—no matter how hard he worked—it wouldn’t amount to anything without English. As a “salaryman” who expected job security in exchange for diligence and loyalty, Kenji was gripped by total shock and fear. Robert (29), a marketing manager, was viewing the meeting remotely from New York. Watching the meeting live was highly unusual for him because of the significant time difference and language barrier. In the past, he had made it a priority to start his week by reading the translated transcripts of the meeting, which disseminated throughout the company. Robert grew excited as he heard Mikitani speaking in English. Even more surprising was Mikitani’s declaration that Rakuten’s Japanese workforce would shift to English for all internal communication. He was thrilled at the announcement, and also relieved that Mikitani had picked his native language. Having worked for the company for only two years, he instantly imagined the many ways the decision could positively impact his daily work and potentially even his career trajectory. When Robert started working for Rakuten, his interactions with his Japanese counterparts were few and far between. Translators were necessary in nearly every exchange with Japan, whether it was an e-mail, phone call, videoconference, or in-person visit from headquarters staff. Even these limited interactions bred frustrations because a brief meeting could easily run twice as long as a typical U.S. meeting. Translators were also not immune from misunderstandings. Robert imagined how these issues would change for the better if lines of communication were direct. Gone would be the struggle to discern information from e-mails, PowerPoint slides, or other documents written in Japanese to even determine if they were relevant to his job. As a native English speaker, he anticipated that there would be

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great things around the corner for him. Experiences he previously could only dream of could now become a reality. Inga (30) worked in the information technology department in Germany. The scope of her daily work included development of the e-commerce platform and other software for internal use. As someone who was moderately fluent in English, Inga was pleased with the English language announcement. Communicating in a mix of English and her native German would be a natural extension of what was already commonplace at work. She hoped that day-to-day communication in English would help the German office gain more insights from Japan that would assist in further developing the local market. Historically, most of the IT documentation received from headquarters had been in Japanese. A recent example was fresh in Inga’s mind. Several days into developing a prototype for a technology platform, Inga hit a roadblock and could not move forward without vital information from her Japanese colleagues. It took her several days to get what she needed. She hoped that a standard language would make information readily accessible. What now took several days might someday soon take several minutes. Inga had worked in Germany for a company with an English lingua franca before joining Rakuten and believed that the shift to English was normal for a global company where people needed to communicate across countries. She hoped that English would allow her to overcome not only language barriers but also the cross-cultural differences inherent in cross-border communication. Over the next eighteen months, as Englishnization became central to daily life at Rakuten, I found that Kenji, Robert, and Inga came to embody the three central types of experiences that employees underwent as the company’s culture and business practices transformed. In chapters 3, 4, and 5, I will elaborate on these crucial categories of experiences and responses and on how employees adapted (positively and negatively) to the global, English-only work shift in the organization. Public Responses

Employees were not the only ones who had responses to Mikitani’s announcement. News organizations around the globe picked up the

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Englishnization story instantly—over a hundred articles appeared in leading sources like CNN, the Financial Times, the Japan Times, and the Wall Street Journal. Corporate Japan reacted with both fascination and disdain. In a culture where deference takes precedence over public criticism, the magnitude of Mikitani’s mandate was evidenced by Honda Motors CEO Takanobu Ito’s public assertion: “It’s stupid for a Japanese company to only use English in Japan when the workforce is mainly Japanese.”17 Mikitani was unshaken. His response to criticism was consistent: “I don’t react. I just ignore it. I am trying to make Rakuten a globally successful company. It’s a good thing for employees—in both their professional and personal lives—because English will open up their vision to what’s happening all over the world. I would like to open our eyes.” Quite correctly, he surmised, “I’m sure that other companies will regret it [not switching to English]. They will follow us if we become successful.” Three years later, Honda made English the official business language for global meetings,18 and in 2015 they committed to making English their official language within the company.19 Mikitani pointed to the decision already made by another globalizing Japanese firm, clothes retailer Uniqlo, to require English in internal meetings by 2012. He underscored his prediction for the future by adding, “I have noticed that English language schools are full these days, and not just with Rakuten employees.” Behind the Mandate: CEO Hiroshi Mikitani

Mikitani’s exposure to the English language and the world beyond Japan began when he was a child. Between the ages of seven and nine, while his father was a visiting scholar at Yale University, Mikitani lived in Connecticut, garnering English language fluency and exposure to American culture. His father, an economics scholar, was among the first Japanese academics to study as a visiting professor at three major U.S. universities (Stanford, Harvard, and Yale) following World War II. His mother had spent several years in New York as a child. Back in Japan, the Mikitani family regularly hosted foreign

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luminaries from the world of economics; it was not uncommon to hear English spoken at the dinner table. After completing college in Japan, Mikitani joined the Industrial Bank of Japan in 1988, attracted to its traditional mission of helping build Japan’s heavy industries. While there, Mikitani worked aggressively on his English to prepare for his studies at Harvard Business School. His two-year MBA experience was transformative. For the first time in his adult life he was exposed to the idea of entrepreneurship and was intrigued by the concept that one could found a company to create value. In an environment where leadership, opportunity, and “thinking big” are emphasized, Mikitani pondered whether he could possibly start a company. A small seed had been planted. Upon graduation he returned to the Industrial Bank of Japan where he steadily moved up the corporate ladder. Two and a half years after Mikitani returned from the United States, on a seemingly ordinary day in 1995, a devastating earthquake struck in Hanshin, Japan. This was where Mikitani had grown up and where his family still lived. He scrambled to check on the safety of his family. He was relieved to find his parents safe. However, after a desperate search, Mikitani identified the lifeless bodies of his aunt and uncle in a makeshift morgue at a local school. In deep grief, Mikitani saw that life was short. Life was fragile. Life was unpredictable. Was he really making the best of his one life? He thought of nothing else. Finally, he made the decision to resign from the Industrial Bank of Japan. He wanted to strike out on his own and act on his growing attraction toward entrepreneurship. It was now or never. Mikitani launched Rakuten’s e-mall service in June 1997. By 2010, when Mikitani introduced Englishnization, Rakuten had become the dominant player in the Japanese e-commerce domain with over ninety million customers, accounting for nearly 85 percent of the market share. Mikitani was proud to say that in Japan Rakuten was “number one in e-commerce, number one in travel, number one in banking, and number one in brokerage.” He described the company as “the aggregation of all sorts of Internet services with the same brand name, the same points program . . . a unique, very

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dependable, and competitive business model as a group in Japan.” With little room to grow in Japan, Mikitani had his sights on new international markets. Expanding globally was the only way to sustain growth. But to shift from a Japanese company to a global one required a profound change in perspective. He believed that Englishnization was key. Japan and the Lingua Franca

Mikitani’s vision for how to become a global company made him a pioneer among his Japanese cohort of business CEOs. Unlike the economies of many other industrialized countries, Japan’s remained largely insular until the early 1990s. Although sluggish, its economy remained strong and the domestic market was large enough to sustain Japanese industry. However, by the early 2000s, all this was changing. Japan’s economy was shrinking. Many Japanese businesses faced the reality that global expansion was necessary to remain competitive in the face of increasing corporate debt, foreign competition, and pressure on the social security system from an aging population.20 However, conservative political leadership, workplace culture, and an educational system that supported a very nationalist view of the world colluded to make Japanese companies see global expansion as a particularly difficult task.21 Language presented a particular challenge for the Japanese workforce. Because of the heavy reliance on local sources of revenue, many Japanese workers never needed to communicate in a language other than Japanese. Compared to their counterparts in other countries, Japanese employees were significantly behind on foreign language adoption. In fact, in a 2008 global survey on national competitiveness, Japanese respondents were the least likely to indicate that “English education is useful and practical.”22 Similarly, a 2010 study comparing English proficiency scores across fifty-eight countries found Japan to be at the very bottom of the list.23 Mikitani found himself on the cutting edge of the new Japanese economy, and his strategies were very much in line with analysts’ predictions for what was needed to increase the competitiveness of Japanese companies.

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Influence of National Culture

Prior to the mandate, differences in experiences across Rakuten’s various international offices were imbued with characteristics of their respective national cultures. Chief among the analytical dimensions that help interpret experiences and responses among employees is the dichotomy between individualistic and collectivistic cultures. Harry Triandis, a pioneering scholar in the field of crosscultural psychology, has defined a collectivistic culture as “consisting of closely linked individuals who see themselves as parts of one or more collectives (family, co-workers, tribe, nation)” and who are motivated by the inherent norms, responsibilities, and objectives associated with their collectives. In contrast, Triandis defined an individualistic culture as consisting “of loosely linked individuals who view themselves as independent of collectives” and who are motivated primarily by their own desires and objectives.24 Japan, for example, represented a collectivistic culture, in which people were bound by strong ties and shared values, while the United States represented an individualistic culture, in which people held loose ties and were concerned for their own needs. Gerard Hendrik Hofstede, a Dutch social psychologist, has explored individualism versus collectivism across societies in his development of cultural dimensions theory. Hofstede created an index that compares cultures in terms of their relative individualism versus collectivism, which I utilize to characterize the Rakuten countries in Table 1.1.25 The Asian and Southeast Asian countries in this study, including Indonesia, Japan, Taiwan, and Thailand, were emblematic of collectivistic cultures. Brazil, unique as Rakuten’s initial foray into South America, also embodied a collectivistic culture. Meanwhile, the Western countries, including the United States, France, and Germany, all hailed from cultures that were more individualistic in nature. These cultural differences would presumably have profound, and perhaps unforeseen, implications for the response to Mikitani’s drive to implement a lingua franca at Rakuten. I found that these distinctions became pivotal to help explain the difference between subsidiary members who were quickest or slowest to comply and commit to

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TABLE 1.1.

Analysis of Cultural Dimensions by Country

Country Location Brazil France Germany Indonesia Japan Taiwan Thailand United States

Individualistic Culture

Collectivistic Culture X

X X X X X X X

the radical change that they faced. I will elaborate on these distinctions in our discussion of linguistic, cultural, and linguistic-cultural expats, respectively, in chapters 3, 4, and 5. Changing Language, Changing Perspectives

Mikitani’s vision of Englishnization included a desire to transition the organization away from its traditional Japanese hierarchical system, one characterized by rules, deference to authority, and perceptions of status, toward a perspective that would enable openness and assertion.26 When first mandating Englishnization, Mikitani hoped that by learning and speaking English, Japanese workers would feel freer to communicate more directly, in line with characteristic Western attitudes and behaviors. Jonathan Levine, who shared responsibility for Rakuten’s global information systems, gave an example of the differences between Japanese and American communication styles: “In Japan if you want someone to do something, you say, ‘It would be good if X happened.’ What they hear is, ‘Go do X.’ In New York, someone who heard the same thing would likely just agree that ‘Yeah, that would be really nice,’ and that would be the end of it.” Were English-speaking Japanese to adopt more direct speech patterns, they would presumably learn to say something like, “I need you to do X.” Another Japanese perspective that Mikitani hoped to change with Englishnization had to do with status and power. Kyle Yee, who headed the initiative’s implementation, pointed out that “there is

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a power dynamic in the Japanese language that is immediately apparent. One of the first gambits in a conversation,” Yee said, “is to ascertain the power relationship. First you have to clearly imply your age in a conversation; second, you voice your academic background or your bloodline, and because of that, the language in Japanese then shifts toward that relationship. This is very apparent to Japanese people; they are very conscious of it at all times. Moreover, Japanese business is characterized by a very, very strong hierarchical structure that is obvious in the language that is used.” As a result of these relationship-dependent power dynamics, a statement made in Japanese could be interpreted differently from the English equivalent. Mikitani was also clear that his vision extended farther than his role as a corporate CEO. “Rakuten’s mission,” he said, “has always been to be the role model for a new Japan, and every employee who joins Rakuten knows this because we make it explicit.” His deeper message was that learning English offers the means to dismantle cultural and linguistic barriers nationwide. What I dislike about Japan is the mentality that, as an “island country,” information is protected and the media try to control everything. We need to make sure that all Japanese people are able to understand what’s happening outside of Japan. Of course business is very important, but I am not running the company for money. I want to change Japan; I want to change society. I just feel that this is my responsibility. I have a very strong global aspiration. I am really uncomfortable looking at the conservative customs and system of Japan, so I want to change it. I’m a businessman, so I can only change this through business. Understanding Mikitani’s passion and serious commitment to changing perspectives by changing language helps explain the severity of his overnight Englishnization mandate. As he said, “Changing Rakuten’s language from Japanese to English is the only way we can force our employees to be exposed to English while they remain in Japan. I may be crazy, but I truly believe this.” Filled with conviction, Mikitani was eager to see how his company would respond. Englishnization was the biggest initiative

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in the history of Rakuten and a major development for corporate Japan. Whatever happened next in his company would be in the public eye. He braced himself for the work ahead. Failure was not an option. The actions that he would take in the coming years would determine the future of Englishnization and Rakuten, and would influence Japanese society as a whole.

2 Leading the Lingua Franca Mandate Englishnization was required for every employee irrespective of rank, job role, or tenure at the company. Mikitani intended his “full-in” approach to be effective for learning English language skills. He also considered it to be a vehicle to change the company’s organizational culture from one where traditional, hierarchy-laden Japanese interactions took precedence to one where employees could interact with one another more directly, from a sense of equality, as they shed the insular “island-nation” mentality. This full- on, full-in approach to Englishnization resembles a pedagogy U.S. educators have used for new immigrant children in school classrooms with considerable success. According to the literature on learning English as second language, rather than corralling language learners into an hour or two of classwork, students are most successful when they are fully exposed to an English-speaking environment for as much of the day as possible.1 At Rakuten, the immersion was deliberate because the environment did not naturally offer a plethora of fluent English speakers. Mikitani drew on his lived experience of language immersion as a child in Connecticut and as an adult at Harvard Business School. 27

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He liked to joke about the three words he knew when he first moved to Connecticut: “Yes, no, and bathroom.” Complete immersion in the language with other children and in school, under the nurturing care of teachers, enabled him to quickly and easily pick up English.2 Unlike the vast majority of the Rakuten employees, he was fortunate to learn English during his early years, the period during which the brain’s plasticity makes language acquisition most facile for learners.3 However, after he returned to Japan and reintegrated in his home community, his English-speaking days came to a halt. In his book, he wrote about his changing relationship to the English language: When I returned to Japan with my family, my conversation skills faded and I became like most Japanese students: Proficient in technical written English—in grammar and spelling and written conventions. But speaking skills, not especially valued in my surroundings, I lost.4 Three rationales drove Mikitani’s Englishnization approach. First, he argued that migrating to English wholly would make English ubiquitous and provide people the opportunity to practice English for the duration of the workday, which often surpassed eight hours. He hoped this extended time period would help people learn English faster and eventually develop the vocabulary to express as sophisticated and nuanced arguments as possible. He feared that people would otherwise be relegated to simple and concise communication that would be insufficient for complex work. He was optimistic about Englishnization and, especially at the outset of the mandate, often made this point: I have seen many Chinese and Indian workers who become fluent in Japanese within three to six months of their move to Japan. When I saw that type of fast learning, I thought we could do it too. Mikitani believed that given the right conditions, such as the deliberate immersion that he was cultivating, the Japanese employees could acquire English as well. Thus, only a policy that would cascade down to every employee in every communication, written or oral, could hope to approximate immersion and overcome employees’ rudimentary school-taught

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English. In making a considerable and sustained effort to re-create English language immersion within Rakuten, Mikitani also espoused a method that was consistent with research about learning and the role played by deliberate practice. Defined as “a highly structured activity, the explicit goal of which is to improve performance,”5 that often “entails considerable, specific, and sustained efforts to do something you can’t do well—or even at all,”6 deliberate practice is not inherently enjoyable, is done without immediate monetary rewards, and in fact may generate training costs. The Englishnization project satisfied all these definitions. Although language acquisition theories and teaching methods vary, all require degrees of immersion and deliberate practice. The second rationale that drove his approach was the concern that an Englishnization strategy that was not deployed company wide and simultaneously would exclude a class of employees from future global work interactions. And in Japan, a limited Englishnization initiative might curb participation in the company-wide cultural change away from Japanese, tradition-bound hierarchies and toward greater openness. Even if present-day circumstances did not require the vast majority of domestically focused staff to communicate across borders, he had his sights on future opportunities that might require them to do so. He was adamant about equal-opportunity Englishnization, saying, “I cannot carve out certain people [for the initiative].” Everyone needed to be equipped with the right language skills and mindset regarding the importance of English, to be aware of the globalization imperative of the company, and, relatedly, to understand the world that existed outside their isolated island. Third, Mikitani rightly reasoned that if he did not ask his Japanese employees to speak English exclusively they might try to avoid situations in which they had to speak English; for example, they might arrange meetings that did not involve employees from other countries, even if the latter needed to be part of the conversation. According to Mikitani, It is human nature to select the easiest context for communication. Only if I pushed for English only as the norm would people

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be more inclusive in their decisions about which language to speak. Whether non-Japanese colleagues were present or not, I still expect everyone to communicate in English. Mikitani’s instincts were on par with evidence demonstrating that new language learners, especially those who feel diminished in status or whose self-perceived fluency is low, will routinely avoid challenging scenarios where they might be called upon to interact with native speakers.7 In addition to these reasoned assumptions, there was one more. Mikitani believed the project would be most successful if employees took full responsibility—financially and otherwise—for their own success in learning English. The assumption that employees would and could adjust on their own once policy was set and that business could proceed without interruption or change was not unusual; many of the company leaders I have studied held similar assumptions.8 However, this has not proven to be an effective approach at other companies; as we shall see, the assumption was not wellfounded at Rakuten either. Tripartite Messaging: Globalization, Englishnization, and Omotenashi

An enduring tradition from the early days of Rakuten is the weekly company-wide meeting Asakai, which had been held first thing Monday morning when the company was largely domestic. Mikitani religiously prepared short, pointed speeches, which he delivered week after week. When the number of global employees increased, the weekly meeting moved to Tuesday morning Tokyo time to accommodate time zone differences. Before the meeting time changed, many overseas employees had to dial in on Sunday in order to join the live session. Otherwise, they had the option of viewing the recorded version. My research team and I attended a number of these meetings live in various countries. My in-depth analysis of Mikitani’s weekly messaging during the

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three years of Rakuten’s Englishnization movement revealed a strategy of tripartite messaging: (1) prepare the organization to adopt a global context in thought and action, (2) promote English as the conduit to actualize the global agenda, and (3) present Japanese omotenashi (hospitality) to the global marketplace. Mikitani drew on his considerable talents to faithfully and relentlessly promote his messaging. He understood the long-term process and challenge that are inherent in inspiring a workforce. Like the three legs of a stool, each part of the message worked together to hold up Englishnization. To prepare his organization to adopt a global context conceptually and practically, he regularly discussed trends and patterns occurring in world economics and business. He could easily be mistaken for a professor lecturing on these topics; he took seriously his role as an educator who could expose the organization to important macrotrends. He meticulously defined terms, suggested readings for those who sought additional information, and provided full explanations. The themes he covered included the effects of the global financial crisis, the European crisis, trends regarding currency, macrolevel shifts in the United States, Europe, and Asia, and various innovation activities in the technology sector, spanning Africa to the United States. In addition to macro-subjects, Mikitani discussed the various global activities in which the organization was engaged or to which it aspired. He repeatedly asserted, “Englishnization will enable Rakuten to successfully enter or operate in many global markets.” For example, he discussed Rakuten’s investment in the social media site Pinterest, as well as its latest acquisitions in Canada and Germany. He also talked about his vision for newly established Rakuten sites— for example, a Brazilian online site. He analyzed the challenges and opportunities that Rakuten faced in the various markets and continuously held up the global agenda to the entire company. Interestingly, if he happened to be traveling internationally at the time of an Asakai presentation (a common occurrence), he often shared his observations about a given locale in which he found himself, forever conveying the presence of a global and diverse landscape.

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His messaging on the importance of Englishnization was continuous and incessant. He discussed Englishnization in tandem with global trends and pressed for employees to embrace Englishnization so that they could absorb what was new at global macroeconomic and company levels, seek more opportunities outside of the Japanese markets, and benchmark against global competitors. Englishnization was a gateway to “fundamentally change our mind-set.” Finally, he reminded employees of the deadlines for reaching their respective TOEIC thresholds and offered encouragement: “I am proud of you”; “We will continue to help people who are struggling to meet their targets as much as possible”; or simply, “Please never give up!” As I write this book, more than five years following his Englishnization announcement, Mikitani is still routinely encouraging employees in his organization to develop and use their English skills and embrace diversity. The third part of Mikitani’s messaging, introduced a year postmandate, complicated his earlier wish for English to evoke in his Japanese employees Western cultural attitudes, such as a deemphasized regard for status and formality. Instead, he began to emphasize Japanese cultural concepts—for example, saying that “omotenashi is a way to preserve and export our Japanese cultural values.” Omotenashi originates in the traditional Japanese tea ceremony, in which the host’s meticulous preparation and attention to every detail is meant to create a pure and meaningful experience with the recipient.9 In terms of customer value creation, management scholars explain omotenashi as a means to “fulfill the guest’s requirements by presenting super services from the core of the heart without expectation of any return, and the ability to actualize that idea into action.”10 More generally, as a standard for treating guests or customers, a business columnist and marketing expert for Japanese industries describes it as “the subjugation of self in service to a guest, without being ‘servile.’ ”11 The concept of omotenashi is often compared to the Western idea of “hospitality”; however, rather than a prescribed set of hospitality activities, the Japanese practice draws on a holistic, emotional commitment from the host that is unlimited in meeting the recipient’s needs.12

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Thus, when Mikitani envisioned omotenashi, he wanted to provide a level of service that anticipated customers’ requests before they were made, offering a “personal touch” to service.13 Omotenashi, the third leg of his tripartite message, marked the Japanese mind-set that Rakuten would proudly deliver to the rest of the world and enabled him to assert that the steps to globalize the company would not undermine its cultural origins or omotenashi values. A Rakuten annual report, released in 2012, linked the benefits of Englishnization to “the fusion of Japan’s unique culture of omotenashi (hospitality) with advanced technologies and development methods from Western countries” and claimed that the “process is starting to generate new, unique values.”14 As Mikitani promised his employees: “Although we undertake these steps to globalize, we will never forget our origins and our Japanese-service mind.” Also in this later phase of the mandate, and in keeping with the title of one of his books, Only English (available, ironically, only in Japanese), Mikitani promoted the English language to his staff as simply a tool to participate in global work. At the beginning of Englishnization, Mikitani had envisioned that the traditional, hierarchically bound mind-set inherent in Japanese linguistic structures would be replaced with a more outspoken, egalitarian mind-set that the English language can enable. However, as time passed, he realized that his original message at the mandate’s launch—promising a new way of thinking—was by itself insufficient to motivate Japanese employees to shift to Englishnization. More effective, he found, was to place another message alongside the first one, namely, to emphasize retaining Japanese values. Mikitani’s notion of separating the morphology of language from its culture is not without controversy. Some scholars argue that approaching English language learning as a non-threatening pragmatic tool, without assuming its underlying cultural values, “boils down to a Japanese who speaks English in a limited way, without ever embracing the different world views which can be opened up by the study of other languages” and reinforces Japan’s longstanding principles of one nation, one language.15

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Linguistic anthropologists who have written about the relationship between language and culture agree that the two are inextricably linked at the national level. Wilhelm von Humboldt, one of the earliest scholars in this area, was “concerned with the question whether people from different language communities using divergent linguistic structures perceive the objective world in the same way.” According to Humboldt, each language embodies a unique worldview and human beings are living under the guidance of language.16 Further building on these ideas, in the 1950s, the SapirWhorf hypothesis, also called linguistic relativity theory, suggested that individuals who are using different language structures will differ in their views and understanding of the world they encounter.17 This anthropologic perspective assumes that language is at the root of cultural perspectives. Although linguists and cognitive scientists have challenged and deemphasized the cultural components inherent in the idea of linguistic relativity in favor of linguistic universalism, it continues to be a viable and rich line of research for linguistic anthropologists. Several studies have tested the impact of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis on individuals’ understanding of a range of topics. For example, one study found support for the idea that the language of origin and the number and structure of color descriptions influence how an individual perceives color.18 Similarly, other research on Chinese versus North American speakers found that Chinese facility with performing faster numeric calculations and the ability to organize and create patterns from random letters stems from the structure of Chinese language; the relatively short length of time it takes to speak a number in Chinese helps speed recognition and number processing, and the strong emphasis on visual characters in written Chinese language enables faster recognition in alphabetical letters. Given this impact of language on core cognitive perceptions, it can be extrapolated that language may also have a significant impact on individuals’ broader views of the world.19 These views regarding the relationship between language and culture help contextualize the stance that Mikitani chose. The expat perspective is informed by the linguistic anthropologists’ approach,

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opening up a new line of inquiry that highlights how the relationship between language and culture in cross-border work does not always match up in the ways we expect. Japanese natives can learn to speak English but hold fast to Japanese cultural values, which they then diffuse to an English-speaking Western organization. Furthermore, an American-born, English-speaking native can find that his language takes him only so far when having to communicate and collaborate with a Japanese cultural native. And a German-born, German-speaking native can work in an organization where she is expected to develop proficiency with the English language and an ease with Japanese cultural values. Motivating the Organization

Despite Mikitani’s deliberate immersion efforts, reasoning, and persistent messaging, after nearly a year and a half, employees’ TOEIC progress was dismal. The majority of Japanese employees had not yet demonstrated the required aptitude and they were at risk of being demoted. Survey results had revealed that Englishnization had placed employees under greater stress than anticipated. Relying on employees for 100 percent self-motivation and independent learning was too tall an order. They needed guidance and support. Upon reviewing the survey results, Mikitani lost no time announcing to his executive team a major shift in implementation. The second phase of Englishnization began in July 2011. Whether or not this was his intention, the new initiatives for language instruction began to change Mikitani’s leadership approach; it began to reflect the organizational culture he had first espoused, one that assumed some of the casualness and directness associated with the English language and Western culture. Mikitani no longer spoke only from the elevated, distant location of the podium when he addressed thousands of employees simultaneously. Now he began to break down the hierarchal structures that existed between himself and his employees by e-mailing individuals, meeting with small groups, and in general adopting a more personal style. In the second phase, Mikitani sponsored at-work language classes,

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inspired managers to get involved, and supported all efforts to improve employee morale and English skills. Kyle Yee, who led the companywide Englishnization team, said that once Mikitani decided that Rakuten was going to support employees in their language learning efforts more directly, “the team’s focus had to change dramatically.” Yee engaged various language vendors to support the learning needs of employees (in-class and online). Once classes were up and running, the team highlighted Englishnization success stories on an internal website. Yee’s team regularly reported TOEIC results to senior-level executives. In order to support and sustain employees’ commitment to Englishnization, Mikitani appointed one employee from every department to a company-wide project team. Each appointee became a project manager, responsible for his or her department’s Englishnization movement ( yokoten). Business Units Lead the Lingua Franca Mandate

Another strategy Mikitani pursued was getting the twenty-nine business unit leaders across Rakuten invested in Englishnization. He held a private meeting with these leaders to explicitly ask for their help and to emphasize the historic significance of Englishnization. He reminded: This is the boldest move that Rakuten has undertaken and that it is the only path for the success of the company. While the domestic market is booming for Rakuten, the international market is the only opportunity for growth and expansion. Although business unit leaders were under pressure to clear their own TOEIC scores, Mikitani urged them to motivate employees by emphasizing that as a group, they could “make it together” to achieve the intended outcomes. This belief is what scholars label a sense of collective efficacy, “a shared belief in a collective’s capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action.”20 Collective efficacy aligned with the Rakuten norms, which aligned with the Japanese collectivistic culture more broadly.

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Integral to the new support strategy, business unit leaders regularly monitored and reported the average TOEIC scores in their units. In an effort to boost scores, some units held impromptu English classes, and some native English speakers located in Tokyo organized conversational language exchange sessions with nonnative-speaking colleagues. Despite these efforts, some employees continued to struggle with attaining the required TOEIC scores. In these cases, liaisons and Englishnization team members also provided one-on-one tutoring. In another example, 20 business unit leaders who had been assigned accountability for the progress of a department with 1,200 engineers gathered every other month to exchange notes and provide updates about the collective efforts of their groups. Additionally, they submitted their weekly reports with the average TOEIC score their groups achieved for that week. The initiative seemed to have positive effects. As one Englishnization project manager liaison observed: “Many employees who were not eager to make time to study started studying because the message was very clear that the project was important; it was important enough for the extremely busy executives to take time to directly speak with them!” By 2012, Mikitani committed to sending this 1,200-person engineering group, located in the development unit, to external conferences outside of Japan. According to Mikitani: I want all engineers to go overseas and attend global technology conferences. They will go and participate in these global events and bring back new knowledge and information about emerging trends. In addition, as he explained to me, the overseas trips promised to expose the engineers to a broader global landscape, one that he hoped would enlarge and inform their perspectives. Above all, it would continue to provide encouragement for Englishnization because the engineers, whose technical skills were relatively easy to transfer to other companies, had been among the prime candidates threatening to leave Rakuten.

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Taken together, these initiatives brought sharp focus, commitment, and investment to the Englishnization movement. Combined with tireless cheerleading from Mikitani, they helped business unit leaders drive the English language mandate down to every individual in the company. Managers: Personal Plea

Mikitani was also concerned about middle managers’ engagement with Englishnization. He called a meeting and requested that every manager attend. There, he pleaded passionately: I need you to actively learn English and support the learning of your staff. I am prepared to do whatever it takes to help you and them. I am even willing to teach anyone English personally. Although no one took him up on his offer, the message was clear: he needed full investment from them and from each of their subordinates. Mikitani’s support work did not stop with a single meeting. Thereafter, he used the longstanding weekly progress reports from the middle management group as an occasion to continue the dialogue about Englishnization. He was relentless: I returned 120 e-mails per week for the mid-management [report] and I told them, “You need to improve English. I want to promote you, but you need to improve your English.” For some I told them, “You are in good shape. The only thing you need is to improve English.” I repeatedly asked them to improve their English or asked them how their English was going. The first time the managers received Mikitani’s inquiry about Englishnization they were stunned; seldom did their CEO directly reply to routine reports. On subsequent weekly reports, the managers were acutely aware of his audience and shared their most recent Englishnization efforts. Mikitani continued this weekly practice for a year and by 2012 felt that enough progress had been made—both

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in the employees’ TOEIC scores and in an organizational culture that supported English language learning—such that he could taper off his e-mails to every other week. Assessing Mikitani’s Influence on Employee Job Attitudes

Despite these encouragements from Mikitani and improved attitudes toward learning English, a change as radical as Englishnization can prompt employees to leave an organization in search of more predictable and secure jobs.21 Qualitative data I collected from Rakuten showed patterns of job insecurity from the start of the mandate. Many employees said that they were thinking about leaving the company well before the deadline to demonstrate English proficiency was imposed. A staggering 36 percent of engineers rated high on intentions to leave. To put that figure in context, the attrition rate in the company at the time of the mandate hovered at about 10 percent. Productivity had, in fact, plummeted as linguistic expats first struggled to generate work in English. Productivity loss, job insecurity, and employees’ intentions to leave the company became important factors to examine. These were all potential threats to the stability of the organization. I wanted to determine whether Mikitani’s leadership and that of his business unit heads were influencing employee confidence and job attitudes (job insecurity and turnover intentions). I also wanted to determine whether and how much leadership influenced employee perceptions of how Englishnization had impacted employee productivity. To answer these questions, I needed a quantitative field survey approach that could show the relationship between Mikitani’s actions and employee responses over time. (See appendix B for analysis of these data.) What I found was that following Mikitani’s strong push to develop positive messaging relating to Englishnization, employee respondents were more likely to believe that their group or department would be able to achieve the intended outcomes associated with Englishnization. As a result of Mikitani’s urging, the business units also began to mobilize positive leadership

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behaviors. Employees were more confident about their ability to learn and use English. Together, increased group and individual confidence and stronger leadership reduced employees’ felt intentions to leave the company.22 Leading as a Chief Linguistic Expat

To what kind of leadership does an organization-wide lingua franca mandate respond? What can we learn about effective leadership by closely examining the change process Rakuten employees experienced through Englishnization? The two central leadership challenges for Mikitani were first, to create a shared vision of the necessity and urgency of the Englishnization mandate and, second, to ensure that Rakuten employees had a “can do” mind-set to enable them to be successful in this new challenge. Mikitani met the challenges in part by modeling an exquisite sense of “can do.” He explained: I spoke strictly in English for all internal communication, even one-on-one performance review meetings with my longtime Japanese executives, small-group discussions, and presentations to the entire company. I have even addressed the Japanese press in English when discussing earnings. As linguistic expat-in-chief, Mikitani seemed immune to the worries, setbacks, and concerns that would be expressed by many at Rakuten. Since he first spoke English from the podium on the fateful day in 2010 that birthed Englishnization, he never looked back. He granted few exceptions from English because he was convinced that doing so would give people permission to slip back into their native Japanese: “If you forgive a little, you give up everything,” he said. He was emphatic about leading his company by example:23 “If [I] don’t stick to the program, no one else [will].” Few realized that Mikitani exercised maximal self-discipline to pull this off. By the time of the Englishnization mandate, more than eighteen years had elapsed since he had spoken English on a daily and continuous basis. Mikitani’s English immersion experience had

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taken place during the two years in the early 1990s when he lived in the Boston area and attended Harvard Business School, a program where 50 percent of students’ grades in the first year is based on participation in class discussions, where they must be articulate and self-assured enough to present and defend their case arguments. Mikitani was an ideal role model for his employees. In the next chapter, I chronicle the challenges and rewards of Englishnization from the Japanese employees’ points of view.

3 Linguistic Expats and Bounded Fluency “I AM AN EXPAT IN MY OWN COUNTRY”

Many Rakuten employees are allergic to English and worry what they are to do. — JA PA N E S E E N G I N E E R

Being competent at work is different from speaking English well. Here, unless you speak English, you cannot be promoted. — JA PA N E S E ACCO U NTA NT

Kenji had worked as an engineer in the Tokyo headquarters of Rakuten for the previous seven years. He was thriving in his job and felt sure that his next performance review would be positive. However, when he left the meeting where Mikitani had just announced the Englishnization mandate, he was utterly stunned. He returned to his desk and looked at the colleague to his right, another engineer, and said, “What are we going to do?” The words came out before he realized he’d already violated the mandate by speaking Japanese. But how could he say what he meant in English? 42

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“I don’t know,” said his colleague, who looked like he was about to cry. Kenji’s officemate to the left was also shocked. Quietly, the three of them struggled to make sense of the mandate. They couldn’t even begin to think about what it would mean for the next day, the next month, or the next year. In the weeks to come Kenji, who had just become a linguistic expat, would feel paralyzed by the news. I conceptualized the term “linguistic expat” to describe employees like Kenji who live in their home country yet must give up their mother tongue when they enter their place of employment or sign into a conference call from a remote location; in the case of Rakuten, this meant the Japanese employees in the company’s home country, Japan. Their organization demanded that they shed the ease of their native language, making their daily work experience, especially at first, fraught with language challenges. Conceptually, it’s comparable to immigrants’ transformative experience of having to learn and adopt a foreign language when moving to a foreign country; however, the twist for linguistic expats is that they must do so while remaining in their home country and without having to entirely adopt a new culture. In this chapter, we will see how this twist, a mismatch between language, nationality, and organizational culture made the Japanese employees uncomfortable. Learning English, at least in the first phase, required that they form new perceptions of themselves, their company, and their jobs. The demands of the mandate made them feel anxious about their productivity and insecure about their future at Rakuten. Although the majority of the linguistic expats progressed in their acquisition of English, few were able to reach a level where fluency was automatic, I conceptualize the challenges and limitations of lingua franca communications as bounded fluency, a concept to be discussed later in this chapter. All told, the difficulties linguistic expats at Rakuten faced were identity based as well as knowledge based; they combined to make Englishnization a work in progress, one with hard-earned gains and multifaceted challenges.

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First Phase LANGUAGE SHOCK

The Englishnization announcement left the vast majority of linguistic expats in language shock, an experience that I define as an intense and sudden emotional disturbance provoked by the prospect of having to learn and operate in a foreign language. At Rakuten, two patterns characterized language shock: (1) feeling overwhelmed by the linguistic change that supplants a native language at work, and (2) the search for comparable and familiar situations, which I call context-seeking, to help make sense of the radical language change. Cofounders, top executives, business unit leaders, managers, and staff of all ranks in the Japanese offices of Rakuten were subject to the English language demands, and they were all overwhelmed by the idea that they had to adopt a new language at work and, what’s more, were expected to begin speaking their shaky English beginning that very day. As one employee said, “I am completely overwhelmed with stress. I don’t know how I am going to do this.” Another linguistic expat expressed his fear similarly: “I am totally anxious about whether I will learn enough to really use English for work.” Another interviewee, in terms that were less fearful but equally profound, recalled the moment he had realized that Mikitani’s aspiration for Rakuten to become more global had ushered in a new era: “It was actually a great surprise to me and a moment when I understood the reality of the world.” A manager described the response that rippled through his organization as follows: I think everybody was basically blown away. Nobody expected it. The vast majority were just completely blown away by the message. Migrating to English was a shocking development even for those who had seen the virtues of the lingua franca for their global tasks. Kei, who was tasked to produce benchmark data on IT strategies in non-Japanese markets, had seen firsthand the importance of speaking with others in a language accessible to everyone yet found the all-in language stipulation at Rakuten shocking:

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When I heard it for the first time, I was very shocked. I was working in a different department at that time and doing research of IT strategies of various countries and was feeling the need for English fluency, but it was still a big surprise to me. The idea of being told to learn and use a new, foreign language day in and day out is almost incomprehensible for most people. Language scholar Si Fan calls this experience “language shock,” as it resembles “culture shock,” a concept coined by researchers in the 1960s to describe the disorienting emotional experience of people who must suddenly make their way in an entirely unfamiliar culture.1 At Rakuten, the comparison to culture shock helps illuminate the profundity of linguistic expats’ response to Englishnization. Scholars such as Si Fan have portrayed language shock primarily from a linguistic perspective such that people feel overwhelmed by learning the grammar and structure of a new language. However, the expat perspective focuses on the psychological repercussions of language shock. In other words, by turning the dial on the expat lens, I adapt and develop Si Fan’s concept to recognize the intense surprise and psychological disturbance that employees (such as Kenji) feel in response to having to learn a new language to perform their daily work. Language shock was closely tied to the fact that Japanese employees had been given a two-year deadline to achieve adequate TOEIC scores. Assessing the plausibility of what he sees as the monumental task of achieving adequate fluency within two years, Hiro describes his disbelief and attempts to work through the logic in his mind: Does he [Mikitani] really mean it? Are two years enough? I was thinking whether I would be able to do my work in English and my conclusion was no, as I was not good at speaking and listening. My work, internal audit, includes interviews with people in departments. Some of my staff do not have long experience in internal audit and they have difficulties in doing audit work even in Japanese. What would happen if they have to work in English? It would not be OK.

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Hiro was not alone. Koichi Noda, who led Rakuten’s corporate planning, commented: “Speaking English is very difficult for Japanese people. We cannot suddenly be asked to speak English in just a year and a half. We need more time. While Mikitani-san speaks only English in front of employees, not many employees behave like him.” Noda’s protest at being asked to “suddenly” speak English underscores the fact that at the time of the mandate, approximately 90 percent of the Japanese workforce spoke little to no English. If English was needed, they relied upon translators or a colleague who belonged to the 5 percent of the workforce that was bilingual. The data show a second pattern, context-seeking (a search to frame the event within a broader and familiar environment), which employees engaged in to make sense of the language change relative to other situations that they identified as being within the circle of plausibility. Narratives were replete with search statements like, “Are other companies doing this?” Others sought to understand the landscape comparatively. For example, a Japanese employee wanted to make sense of the language mandate in the context of companies that had chosen not to advance similar strategies, as well as in comparison to other Asian companies. He summed up his inquiry as follows: I would like to know about examples of this at other companies. That is, how many have and have not implemented Englishnization for the entire company. . . . Even if they are not Japanese corporations, at Asian corporations. Another interviewee searched for similar insights to contextualize the value of Englishnization within the broader Asian milieu: How’s English going to help you if you’re only working with people that only speak Japanese? And it certainly isn’t useful in some Asian countries, like Japan and China. Japanese is probably a more commonly used language between these two countries than English, from what I hear and see. As evidenced by these quotations, context-seeking was a way for shocked employees to characterize a major language event relative to other environments that most closely resembled theirs. Social

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psychologist Leon Festinger first coined the notion of social comparison theory as a need for people to seek similar situations to gain accurate self-appraisal. According to social comparison theory, the Rakuten employees who invoked other Asian contexts demonstrated the need to find solace in the possibility that this change initiative was within the realm of normalcy. The search for comparable scenarios was, in part, a way for the linguistic expats to cope with the psychological disturbance that the language mandate introduced in the workplace. Language shock is not uncommon in the face of a lingua franca change. For well over a decade, in headquarter locations such as France, Germany, and the United States, I conducted a series of indepth field studies in which I examined the experience and responses of individuals and teams working in companies in which an English lingua franca was introduced. I also had advisory interactions with companies stationed in many more countries including Brazil, China, and South Korea. Through these studies and interactions, I learned that a wholesale language change of the kind introduced at Rakuten is most shocking for the dominant group, usually members of the head office. I saw the same level of shock and despair present no matter who the people were and where they lived. Some like to attribute difficulty in accepting the news to the supposed attachment that people have to their particular language—for example, “Oh, the Brazilians/French/ Germans/Koreans will really hate this because they are especially attached to their language.” Or, “Oh, this will be horrible for the Japanese because they love their language.” While it might be tempting to interpret a group’s difficulty in giving up their language to a particular group’s feelings about their language, I have found that shock is nearly universal as a response to the sheer magnitude of having to shift from a native language, in which people had been formally trained and with which they had embarked on their professional path, to the terra incognita of a foreign language. Even if people are given a start date that is some time in the future, the moment that day arrives, shock seems to follow. The Rakuten employees in Japan were the latest of my study subjects to experience language shock as a result of the Englishnization mandate. Because I had planned my study of the company to

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be longitudinal, for the first time in my career I had the opportunity to see what followed the initial shock over a period of years. CULTURE AS A LANGUAGE BARRIER

For the linguistic expats, another challenge was learning how to remain Japanese while communicating in English. Analyzing their narratives revealed that linguistic expats experienced not only the practical challenges of learning English but also sudden challenges to their identity or identity threats when they were required to communicate in English. I adopt Jennifer Petriglieri’s definition of “identity threats” as events that individuals perceive to present potential harm to the value, meanings, or enactment of (their) identity.2 Because they were now required to speak in English, the Tokyo employees’ enactment of who they were was suddenly in conflict with their perception of who they were asked to become. The value of their identity as Japanese people was threatened; the fact that the new language was foreign meant they feared losing their cultural values in addition to their competence and ability to express them easily and fully. Speaking English threatened linguistic expats’ perceptions of the company and themselves. As then CFO Ken Takayama recalled: “We are a Japanese company. We follow Japanese commercial code and Japanese accounting standards. Everything is written in Japanese. I felt like asking [Mikitani], ‘What is going on? What’s going through your mind?’ ” In other words, it was difficult, if not impossible, to comprehend that a company could be steeped in Japanese standards if its employees communicated in English. In Takayama’s mind, language and culture were supposed to match up. While Takayama conveyed his skepticism about an English language that could preserve the Japanese “codes,” a colleague articulated his fears of losing uniquely Japanese offerings in a fast-growing global landscape: I worry that the Japanese power of ideas and development capability will not be protected as valuable if we move to English even if the company grows into a global corporation.

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Precluding non-Japanese coworkers from consuming elaborate Japanese documentation at Rakuten posed an additional threat if such detailed information developed by Japanese engineers were lost in translation. A manager described this fear: New personnel hired overseas will not be able to understand Japanese assets, a detailed grasp of surveys and specifications and such will be difficult, and I think problems will arise in future assignments. Yui, who worked in human resources, hoped that the English mandate, seen as a handicap, would at least coexist with what she called “Japanese spirits,” her phrase for the essential, intangible values inherent in her Japanese culture. In fact, she argued that the coupling of the English language and Japanese spirits would encourage employees to take up the linguistic challenge: With Englishnization Japanese employees have been put in disadvantaged positions. Englishnization should come along with Japanese spirits. . . . If Englishnization at Rakuten is not to promote Japanese to become like foreigners but to Englishnize Japanese, I think employees will be more encouraged. Others displayed less faith in the possibility that English could exist alongside Japanese benignly. A longtime Rakuten employee bluntly explained: I have absolutely no interest in discarding Japanese. I do not believe in the mirage of a “global standard.” Englishnization will destroy Japanese culture. It is sacrilege. Rather than seeing Englishnization as destroying Japanese culture or supplanting it with some unnamed “foreign” element, others viewed Englishnization as a way to substitute American culture for Japanese. “I feel that it is America-nization [stereotypical] not English-nization.” For others, even if they approved of the notion of adopting a lingua franca to promote global expansion, the threat that a full-on English adoption might undermine their Japanese culture persisted: “I approve of introducing English, but highly oppose

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eliminating Japanese.” This statement typifies the stance that accepts English practically but decries its risk to the Japanese identity, one that Mikitani eventually adopted for his company. Despite their initial language shock and cultural misgivings, most of Rakuten’s Japanese employees made a shift within four to six months and engaged TOEIC study in earnest, which is in keeping with research on the stages of culture shock.3 Japan’s collectivistic culture (as discussed in chapter 2) likely played an important role in Rakuten’s Japanese employees’ receptivity to the lingua franca mandate. Unlike in countries such as the United States, where individuals saw their careers as mostly independent from the collective of the organization, Japanese employees like Kenji conformed to the cultural norm of a “salaryman”—expecting long-term job security in return for diligence and loyalty to Rakuten. This perspective allowed Kenji to see his career and his company as one and the same. As a result, when Rakuten’s strategic objectives shifted, raising English as an organizationally valued skill, Kenji’s motivations, and those of a majority of his Japanese colleagues, shifted to align with the perspective of their collective, Rakuten. SELF- PERCEIVEd STATUS LOSS

As Japanese natives, the linguistic expats felt relatively secure within the company’s culture, but their new linguistic challenges lowered their status; they found themselves at a disadvantage in comparison to European and American coworkers who were skilled in English. To their consternation, other Asian colleagues, in Thailand, Taiwan, and Indonesia—who were more familiar with and fluent in English— held a higher status when it came to language. Even non-native speakers who previously had held a high self-perceived English fluency experienced a status hit after the mandate because they were unable to express nuances and clarify their ideas in their native language.4 This sense of lowered status made employees feel disgruntled, confused, and unmotivated. As one employee offered about his peers, they felt that “no matter how hard they worked they wouldn’t have a chance unless they spoke English.” A Tokyo developer commented:

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Employees who cannot speak English are feeling inferior. At meetings, they cannot articulate their opinions. I have seen opinions accepted just because they were couched in good English, not because the content of the opinion was great. Rakuten employees’ initial feelings of lowered status in the face of Englishnization echo people’s experiences in other companies undergoing similar mandates. For example, in a French tech company, native French-speaking employees who had previously viewed themselves as adequate English speakers reported feeling “stupid,” “diminished,” “reduced,” or “devalued” after a mandate for English lingua franca went into effect. As at Rakuten, these employees felt the mandate signaled a shift in characteristics the company valued and suddenly spotlighted their inadequacies in fluency.5

PROdUCTIVITY, ANXIETY, ANd JOB INSECURITY

The earliest attempts at Rakuten to use English provoked anxiety in employees about their ability to remain productive, which led to feelings of insecurity about holding their job. A drop in productivity was immediate at all levels and across the company. Employee statements describing productivity decrements ranged from “my productivity has greatly declined” to descriptions of newly laborious work realities.6 For example, a team leader described a dramatic upward spike in the time it took to generate documents; a task that had taken him thirty minutes to complete in Japanese was taking him up to four hours to complete in English, in part because he had to undergo more steps to verify that the document was ready for sharing: We create the materials in Japanese first and then translate them into English. If some of these materials are important, we have to ask someone in our team who can speak English or native speakers to check them. It just takes much longer to prepare materials. Another manager railed against the spike in workload for people at all ranks to adhere to the English standard:

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It now takes more time to prepare for meetings (translating meeting materials, preparing a script for announcements, practicing the announcements), and handing all this over to the subordinates in the department that can do so in English is using inordinate amounts of time on the part of superiors and subordinates. Both of these managers spoke to a difficult reality: people’s responsibilities and goals remained the same, but they were required to achieve them in a language they barely knew. During the first survey, administered a little over a year after the mandate was announced, employees rated their productivity before the mandate as significantly higher than after the mandate. That sentiment was still evident six months later; Japanese respondents again rated their perceived productivity after Englishnization as lower than their productivity before the mandate.7 Understandably, the lowered productivity became a source of job insecurity. The drop in productivity did not affect the company’s revenue performance, but linguistic expats’ concerns about the potential adverse effects to their careers were rampant. They worried that they would be appraised for their verbal and written agility rather than their job performance. A commonly heard refrain was: “I am worried that English skill is going to be the main factor to measure my ability.” A seasoned employee who had been with the organization for seven years before the lingua franca mandate explained, “I may be really good in my job, but my poor English skills may affect me.” Such fears were not unfounded; Japanese employees were subject to demotions if they did not meet the English language proficiency assessment (TOEIC) threshold as stipulated. An informant explained: “Even though work performance may be good, if my TOEIC score does not reach the target, promotions will be difficult and my salary may not rise.” Employees expressed resentment toward the mandate’s demands with statements such as: “I don’t agree with this. It will be hard for me to stay motivated” and “It is harsh to evaluate and appraise people on their English ability as a measuring stick.” In sum, Rakuten’s linguistic expats worried about being misjudged professionally because of their decreased productivity and limited

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English facility. Further, they feared the possible consequence of demotion (or lack of promotion) that loomed large should they fail to meet the language demands.8 These worries and insecurities, as much as their objective proficiency (or lack thereof ) in English, combined with the threat to their identities, contributed greatly to the linguistic expats’ perspective—unsettled while at home. Second Phase ENGLISH LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY RESULTS

When the proficiency test results were finally in a little over two years post-mandate, 87 percent of employees met or exceeded the proficiency expectations.9 The rest of the employees were granted a six-month grace period to meet their scores, resulting in an additional 3 percent of employees passing the bar. Overall, a staggering 90 percent of Japanese employees met or exceeded their required language proficiency threshold. Thereafter, those who failed to meet the requirement were subject to demotion, which translated into a downgrade in their rank and corresponding salary. If demoted, employees were given the opportunity to return to their original ranking and salary once they cleared the required proficiency threshold. However, the language development process did not end there. Once the climate relaxed on the subject of demotions, and people were relieved of their initial intense language learning and testprepping experiences, Mikitani raised the proficiency bar by giving everyone four years to reach a score of 800, which is the top TOEIC level. He wanted to keep the organization focused on continuous language learning and increasing proficiency. An 800 also became the mandatory requirement for all new hires; this played a role in the changing face of the company’s talent, as will be discussed in chapter 6. Five years into Rakuten’s Englishnization, I was able to review the years of survey data that I had collected from the native Japanese employees. I had sets of open-ended survey questions asking employees to reflect on their experiences with the language mandate from 2011 to 2013 and then again from 2013 to 2015. After

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so much time had passed, I was eager to account for what the linguistic expats had learned, whether they had recovered from the language shock they’d experienced upon learning of the mandate, and if they felt more positive toward learning English than they had previously. I wanted to measure the present practice of English at Rakuten against Mikitani’s 2010 visionary hopes for his workforce. What I found was in some ways encouraging regarding the feasibility of implementing a company-wide lingua franca, and in other ways, the data I collected made me realize the limitations of a single language strategy and the concomitant challenges of the whole enterprise. The encouraging news was that by 2015, 80 percent of 183 Japanese Rakuten survey respondents asserted the importance of English. I found the same percentage to be true in the conversations I held with 50 Japanese employees during this time period. What’s more, analysis of the Englishnization experience reported by linguistic expats between both the first phase and second phase evinced a striking pattern of improvements. Most of the respondents reported having achieved bounded English competencies: the ability to formally memorize reading, speaking, pronunciation, or grammar skills and to informally read or watch English language based media (for example, TED talks), to strengthen language skills. Additional improvements included understanding the majority of exchanges during meetings and increased confidence in their abilities. As one linguistic expat put it: “I am not afraid to speak English to my coworkers, because everyone can understand English.” Another reported, “Now I teach [in English] non-Japanese colleagues about IT technologies weekly.” Others had progressed from an initial avoidance behavior to having a basic capacity for reading technical documentation written in English. The most advanced respondents progressed from an initial period that consisted of studying for the TOEIC test and translating Japanese materials into English to a second period of creating lengthy presentations and documents, recruiting foreign candidates, and even holding job interviews in English.

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INTERMINABLE LINGUA FRANCA BOUNdEd FLUENCY

The improvements, proficiency scores, and increased capacity to comprehend and communicate in the lingua franca came with much difficulty and limitations. A respondent portrayed the first phase as a struggle through pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar books and the second phase as learning basic English and more advanced pronunciation. Another respondent shared that communicating with non-Japanese colleagues remained difficult for both phases. Yet another noted that his written English had not changed that much, but his speaking and listening abilities had improved. Looking deeper into the data revealed limitations to the linguistic expats’ breadth of English competency. I found that linguistic expats selected areas of study based on their job roles and ignored areas of study that did not seem relevant. If their work required generating reports, they spent the majority of their study on writing skills while neglecting speaking skills. If their work called for absorbing written material, they spent the majority of their time developing vocabulary and reading abilities. If they were often called to interact with foreign coworkers, they invested in speaking skills. Ultimately, the linguistic expats’ efforts yielded partial language skills but were too narrow to produce advanced skills. Like a swimmer who has mastered only one stroke and therefore tires easily or a martial arts student who learns only two moves and is therefore easily overtaken by his opponent, linguistic expats remained stuck in what I call an interminable state of lingua franca bounded fluency. They acquired some degree of fluency, but it was insufficient to enable automaticity of the kind that native speakers develop. No matter how much they improved, they never achieved the natural ease of their fluent native language. Thus, whereas the vast majority of linguistic expats improved their grasp of English, they did not develop sufficient fluency to be able to relegate their lingua franca learning into the background. It remained an effortful foreground struggle. Where lingua franca was concerned, they were not “babbling” as the residents of the biblical city of Babel were said to do; nor were

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they able to hear and speak English with the miraculous clarity of those in the story who experienced the Pentecost. BOUNdEd FLUENCY AS A GLOBAL PHENOMENON

The fact that lingua franca bounded fluency is not unique to Rakuten, and is in fact widespread, makes it a phenomenon, one that poses a challenge for global collaboration and communication. Because English is the current lingua franca of global business, we would like to think that people will speak English with mastery and aplomb. Yet although employees advance in learning the lingua franca, and in their careers, they are likely to be limited by an environment that is unsuitable to mastering a foreign language. They do not necessarily have expert, native speakers to follow. I have found this to be true for linguistic expats whose native language is other than Japanese and in global companies where English as lingua franca has been in long-term use. Another way to understand bounded fluency comes from the literature that has studied the discernable differences between being technically proficient in a language and being able to communicate in a way that truly fosters common understanding.10 These studies hold that three types of language use exist in organizations: everyday language, company speak, and technical/industry language. Each of these language types involves a different set of linguistic and communications competencies—to achieve fluency in English would conceivably require the Rakuten employees to master all three competencies and be able to move easily back and forth between each one many times per day, sometimes even in the same sentence.11 One might think that achieving linguistic fluency in a foreign language is only a matter of practice and time, both of which were in relatively short supply for the Rakuten employees. Yet my findings from another in-depth lingua franca and globalization study suggest that bounded fluency is difficult to overcome and part of the expat perspective. I studied 115 linguistic expats who worked for WorldTech (pseudonym), a U.S.-based multinational technology company that had over 350,000 employees in 160 countries and

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had established English as its default lingua franca for global work for three decades. In this study, participants who worked in their home countries such as Brazil, China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Russia, Singapore, and Spain were asked to reflect on their experiences with language and cross-border leadership over time. The interviewees were senior managers in country, product, and service lines; vice presidents; managing directors; and chief operating officers. Their average tenure at WorldTech was twenty-two years and more than half of the interviewees (54 percent) had been on at least one international assignment. The average age of respondents was forty-nine; and 23 percent of the sample was female. Forty-six percent of the interviewees had participated in English language coaching at the request of WorldTech leadership. Despite their extensive career progressions and tenure at WorldTech, I was struck to find that the vast majority of these leaders reported a continued struggle with their language capabilities similar to that of employees at Rakuten who were just beginning their migration to English as the lingua franca. Despite their struggles, these particular linguistic expats held positions where they managed other non-native speakers. Most had to make decisions and design strategies that enabled subordinates to improve their language capacity as well as prevent language issues from harming the bottom line of the business. Moreover, their roles required daily use of English to hold meetings where they were called upon to provide feedback, persuade, and negotiate. In the next chapter we will take up the response to Englishnization by the second of the three groups at Rakuten I identified —U.S. employees—and named the cultural expats.

4 Cultural Expats and the Trojan Horse of Language “IT’S THEIR CULTURE WR APPED IN OUR L ANGUAGE”

Thank God he picked my language! — U . S . E X EC U TIV E

When a football game is about to start and you see a team about to run out to the field and they break through the banner and you see these guys running, that’s the vision that you have when you think about Rakuten [HQ ]. You think of these people coming, they’re coming. — U . S . M A N AG E R

While the Tokyo employees were responding with fear, worry, and anxiety to Mikitani’s 2010 Englishnization announcement, those in Boston, New York, and San Francisco were cheering with excitement and joyful anticipation. Robert was thrilled. “Being in the United States and having English as my first language puts me in an incredibly lucky position,” he said, echoing the feeling of many 58

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native English-speaking subsidiary employees. Initially, the response to Englishnization was: “It’s great for us here. We don’t have to put in any work and we get all the benefits.” As more than one self-congratulatory informant bluntly put it: “We’ve got that box checked.” Robert explained that unlike their Japanese counterparts, who had to undertake a much more arduous path, for the native English speakers, the language mandate promised to bring positive changes without any cost. Little did he know that was only part of the story. This chapter will follow the native English speakers through their first phase, when euphoria reigned because they (incorrectly, as it turned out) assumed that Englishnization was solely about language, and through the second phase, about two years into Englishnization, when they found it nearly as difficult to accept the changes wrought in their day-to-day workplace as did the native Japanese speakers. While the Japanese employees had to change to adopt a foreign language, the American employees had to change to adopt the Rakuten organizational culture that had been mostly suppressed by the language barrier. Employees in both groups had to adjust their perception of themselves and their place in the company—in this respect, the groups were mirror images of one another. In their self-assurance during the first phase, some native Englishspeaking informants exhibited linguistic ethnocentricity, the idea that one party’s way of using language or communicating takes precedence over another, often privileging the perspective of a native speaker.1 Rather than understanding that English had become the lingua franca of choice for global work, some American native speakers assumed that it was their country, their culture, and their market that were of interest. As one forty-five-year-old executive in charge of operations reasoned: I think that everyone in the American [subsidiaries] recognizes that they picked our language. Everyone recognizes that there’s a reason behind that and I feel that a message has resonated, whether spoken or not, that indicates that decision was made because this market is of tremendous importance; and I think that

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I confidently know that if you talk to a lot of people and probe them on that front, they would come to the same conclusion. Another native speaker, enabled by the lingua franca mandate to present directly to the CEO for the first time, echoed this sentiment, saying, “Rakuten, they need us. . . . And that’s the presentation that I gave to [leaders in Japan]. I told them, ‘If we execute here [in the United States], we can become bigger here.” This confidence abounded in the U.S. offices, as further illustrated by this comment by technology specialist who had been with the company just a year: Just the fact that Rakuten is a Japanese company and we’re a U.S. company is huge. I think it’s funny how we in the United States typically look to foreign countries for help. Here, it’s a parallel universe. Cultural expats were prideful about their relative position in the company. As Alice (34), an engineer, attested, “We do have technology that everyone wants. And we pride ourselves on that. And everyone knows it.” True, the U.S. market, its subsidiaries, and their technologies were important for Rakuten’s global growth strategy. Leading e-commerce competitors, such as Amazon, eBay, and Yahoo, were based in the United States and Rakuten had formed a disproportionately high number of acquisitions there compared to other global markets in which they were engaged. However, their ethnocentric attitudes and failure to understand either the proper role for English as the lingua franca or the relativity of American cultural norms were all antithetical to the expat perspective. In addition to the false sense of confidence and erroneous perspective that comes with ethnocentricity, in their naiveté, the cultural expats falsely assumed that culture must match up with language. Adopting the English language, they believed, also meant adopting the Westernized culture of native English speakers. For example, Dan, a U.S. salesperson, evidenced this sentiment when he said, “I mean these guys are learning English, and the American way.” In other words, the American employees could not at first

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accommodate the idea that the English language could be a conduit of a foreign culture, or that omotenashi, described in chapter 2, could be a source of differentiation, one that Mikitani had emphasized constantly. These sentiments would change as the Japanese corporate culture, powered by English, was streamed into the U.S. subsidiaries. Eventually, the cultural air in the U.S. offices would change. As one interviewee would note, “I can’t really explain it. The influence is very tangible when you’re talking about it. It feels like another country’s influence on America.” First Phase IMPROVED COMMUNICATION

Although the Englishnization mandate did not make the Japanese Rakuten members fluent, their language skills did progress enough to make U.S. employees beneficiaries of improved communication. Individual employees had access to and interactions with more coworkers in Japan, especially once the circle of people with adequate proficiency began to grow. A U.S. accountant, who had worked at the company for over four years, described her experience before the mandate: I wouldn’t necessarily understand their [the Japanese] requests just because of the way it was phrased, so I’d have to go back and ask for clarification. There’s a little bit of back and forth there. Then it seems like certain documents and things I’d sent, I was asked for them again and again several times. I wasn’t sure if there was a language issue . . . or if they were able to fully comprehend everything I’d sent. It was inefficient communication. It seemed very inefficient because I was repeating myself, asking for clarification, redoing what I’d already done. Within a year of the mandate, she had a different perspective: “I think people all kind of feel the same way—it’s better because we can communicate now, it’s easier to communicate with people in Japan.” The duration and the back-and-forth cycles that were customary to develop mutual understanding trimmed down because people had

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an easier time conveying and assimilating each other’s basic information. These improvements enhanced the quality of cross-border work. However, as we will see later in this chapter, and as much of the literature shows, simply having a common language does not eliminate communication issues; organizational and national culture play an important role. An expat perspective means, in part, acknowledging that the interaction of language and culture must be considered.2 Despite the linguistic expats’ struggle with bounded fluency, Englishnization enabled them to communicate better with the American subsidiary workforce; as a result, some work processes improved. For the first two years, the native English speakers could still believe that Englishnization would only make their work easier. For example, a native English-speaking IT support staff member who had worked in the New York office for roughly five years explained that prior to Englishnization, discerning and resolving an issue emanating from headquarters was always a protracted exercise. Much was lost in communication, and technical failures festered for days in the course of diagnosing the nature of the problem. Post-Englishnization, he was pleased by his ability to be more effective in his job because communication was smoother. He explained the shift: Englishnization has definitely reduced the turnaround time on not only getting questions and data and information back to [my counterpart in Japan] but also the turnaround time in closing out a ticket for that [counterpart in Japan]; doors have opened to us for resolution. We used to go back and forth for a few days before I even realized what the issue might be, whereas now we get a ticket, we pretty much know right away what their ask is. Another employee who worked as an accountant reported on the improvements in his work life post-mandate. Previously, he had relied on his Japanese counterparts to serve his clients and had grappled with “getting e-mails in Japanese symbols.” He was often frustrated and attempted to find ways to translate the “symbols” on his end, whether it was through the one bilingual colleague who worked in his area or using online translation tools to get a general idea of what

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the characters meant. Neither of these approaches was sufficient to clarify or confirm communiqués that often had meaningful client service implications. As a last resort, he said that he would often be forced to respond and “remind people that I don’t speak Japanese, and they were always very apologetic.” Englishnization afforded him faster and more accurate exchanges with the right people in Japan: I would say that I do communicate mostly via e-mail—actually 99 percent via e-mail—with more people now, and I understand that I can send an e-mail to anyone on the e-mail chain and for the most part they’ll understand what I’m saying. It’s made it easier. A lot easier . . . I notice just a bigger range of people able to communicate better and really making that effort to communicate even if there are challenges. And a third example, although more problematic than the previous two, also evidences improved communication among American and Japanese workers. Mark (42), a software developer whose previous Rakuten experience included videoconferencing, relied on translators in the room (from Japan or the United States) during these meetings. Despite the enhanced communication cues inherent in video calling (facial expressions, gestures, tone of voice), threeway language communication had taken a long time and misinterpretation of technical information had not been unusual, primarily because translators were not technical experts.3 As Mark said, “Translators don’t necessarily have information and knowledge about the particular things that you’re talking about.” Englishnization promised to remove some of those limitations, enabling people to have direct exchanges without the presence of language brokers. At first, however, setbacks occurred. Mark recalled that shortly after the mandate was implemented, the pace of work slowed down, which conflicted with one of Rakuten’s principles of accomplishing work tasks rapidly: People really were trying their English, but something they could have said in five minutes took them twenty. Those were the lumps that we all had to take as listeners. We all had to just work through it

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all, which was tough to do because one of the five commandments is “speed, speed, speed.” So we’re like, “Come on. Let’s go, let’s go!” Within five months, Mark reported material differences in his engagement with Japanese employees on his videoconferences and his face-to-face conversations. When I met with Mark a year after Englishnization was instituted, he had just returned from a trip to Tokyo. The company was changing fast and he gleaned much more from his trip this time around than he had on previous trips. Despite the Japanese employees’ self-perceived struggle to learn English and discomfort with using the language, Mark boldly ascribed 1000 percent success to Englishnization. I recently went to Rakuten in September, in Tokyo, and it was just amazing to see the progress and people speaking to me in English. And I think that trip was an incredible learning experience. I don’t know if we would have learned as much had there been more of a language barrier. The fact that I went to Japan and saw it firsthand is what really drives me—having experienced what it is like to work with Rakuten prior to going through that, prior to Englishnization, and then having that trip, allows me to be able to say, “Yes, it’s a 1000 percent success, in my opinion.” Speaking English directly, rather than through a translator, also gave native English speakers more nuanced knowledge of the true needs and functions of the organization and a greater understanding of how they fit into the workings of the firm overall. Such was the experience of another U.S.-based employee who had worked at Rakuten for three years and had previously relied on translators to communicate with colleagues in Japan. Whether it’s client facing or whether it’s internally, the English language helped bring us all together so that it’s not a bunch of pieces moving independent of each other. We understand better how we can fit or what our role is in achieving that goal. Having the common language really helped us understand—in a way that translation wouldn’t—where we fit into the larger picture.

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Taken together, then, having a lingua franca afforded communication, tacit and explicit, in a way that went further than it had with translators. While translators could significantly aid two parties who did not have sufficient fluency to communicate directly, they were limited when it came to discerning and accurately conveying content that was profession specific, technical, or organization dependent.4 When translators became obsolete at Rakuten, U.S.-based native speakers experienced a more expansive and direct connection with Japanese colleagues that eventually began to include some nuance and specificity. ANTICIPATION OF CAREER ADVANCEMENT

Cultural expats’ linguistic ethnocentrism trapped them into expecting the language mandate would lead to open-ended and enduring sources of opportunities for career growth. They believed that impending opportunities would allow them to reap the rewards of their (newly) heightened status, as well as to better serve the needs of the greater organization. In particular, many individuals expressed optimism about taking on new, attractive, and globally oriented assignments across Rakuten.5 In the era before the lingua franca, many had viewed their inability to speak the company’s main language, Japanese, as a constant disadvantage, but the company’s adoption of English changed language as a limiting factor. As one employee expressed: Without [the mandate], being able to evolve inside [Rakuten] wouldn’t be possible. I’d probably look for outside opportunities to grow my career. Now, I can move around and work with other groups, getting positions that are open to me. So for me, it’s great. Switching to English definitely opened up opportunities for my career path. Thus native English speakers pictured themselves taking advantage of new career choices. A product manager noted of the mandate, “It could expand opportunities. If this wasn’t an English [speaking] company, it would be hard to visualize myself working in other countries.”

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Moreover, native English speakers’ career expectations rose when they witnessed members of their subsidiary taking on company-wide leadership positions. A director of an engineering group expressed his enthusiasm about a colleague’s new assignment in terms that suggest impending and increased status gains for his social group: “You will actually have an American who is going over there [to Japan] to take over! That’s totally amazing.” Another employee described a colleague’s advancement similarly: “His role has expanded. He’s not just doing work for the [U.S. subsidiary] but for the entire company as a whole, even other locations overseas.” The advances of peers were seen as a palpable marker of the overall potential for personal career movement and as confirmation of the native English speakers’ heightened capacity to, if not “take over,” at least contribute to the firm. A marketing executive’s response was emblematic of this belief: “I think you become more valuable. Imagine the next time [Rakuten] enters another country where English is not the first language, but they speak English.” Fluency in the lingua franca was perceived as a fundamental qualifier for employees’ contributions as the company entered new regions. The following quote from a business analyst portrays this dynamic—wherein the ability to add value melds with the acceptance of greater professional opportunities: I anticipate that there will be more growth . . . [and] lots of opportunities for people to do interesting non-U.S. work integrating new businesses into the company. . . . And I think there will be people here [in the United States] that will be excited about that opportunity. It is clear that following the language mandate, American employee-informants believed that they possessed an enhanced ability to contribute to their greater organization. Whether their contribution involved serving in existing subsidiary locations or aiding the integration of future acquisitions, a majority of informants anticipated that this increased professional value would advance their careers.

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Second Phase LANGUAGE AS CULTURAL CARRIER: THE TROjAN HORSE OF LANGUAGE

Two years into Englishnization, the native English speakers at Rakuten had a very different story to tell. Their euphoric anticipation of career advancement—status hikes with minimal effort and larger contributions to the organization—was proving illusory. Instead, as they became inundated with Rakuten’s corporate culture, which was steeped in Japanese cultural traditions, as well as new demands from the Tokyo headquarters, their position in the company shifted to one they found, at least at first, unsettling and uprooting. Like the radical Englishnization implementation strategy in Japan, which was immediate and across the board, the second phase of Englishnization in the American subsidiaries was implemented without a gradual rollout or pilot study group. One day a massive, encyclopedic-like policy handbook arrived in the U.S. Rakuten offices. Employees were as astonished by the handbook’s size as they were by its very existence, which had been previously unknown. Though the book had long been a fixture in the Tokyo headquarters, Englishnization had recently enabled its translation from Japanese. Although rule-setting and standardization of work processes are often inevitable consequences of an organization’s globalizing expansion, this had decidedly not been the case with Rakuten, where some of the subsidiaries were acquired years before Englishnization and therefore continued operating more or less autonomously. The handbook painstakingly documented the organizational culture, that is, the values, norms, and expected behaviors for a Rakuten employee. Guidelines ranged from the required placement of name badges to specific ways to demonstrate the Rakuten principles. As a marketing specialist described it: “The handbook is like a code, a corporate code. . . . It’s a way of conducting yourself and a corporate set of rules to abide by.” Another American expressed that the handbook made her feel like headquarters was “indoctrinating us with their Rakutenness.”

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For many U.S. employees, the unilateral process by which the sudden and complete installation of the Rakuten corporate culture was implemented was as bewildering as, if not more so than, the daily work changes themselves. In this regard, the cultural expats’ experience of sudden “shock” and “identity threat” was equivalent to that of the linguistic expats. The American employees experienced culture shock. Although the native English speakers did not have to change to a foreign language when stepping from the street to their place of employment (as did native-speaking, Japan-based employees who experienced language shock), the mandate forced a change to a foreign way of thinking and behaving inside the organization, making them belong to a category I conceptualized as “cultural expats.” Nearly overnight, cultural expats realized that their initial enthusiasm had given them a false sense of security. They were entirely naïve to the fact that while previous language barriers had shielded them from the Tokyo headquarters’ frequent demands, the lingua franca adoption enabled Japanese managers to develop sufficient fluency to translate materials into English that called for substantive changes. I call this phenomenon the Trojan Horse of Language. Like the enormous wooden horse that the ancient Greeks gifted the city of Troy that hid warriors who opened the city gates to the encroaching Greek army, the “gift” of English that the U.S. employees greeted so ecstatically at the outset in fact carried something more difficult to fathom, namely, a foreign corporate culture.6 The U.S. employees had thought that the English language mandate would Westernize work practices and work values, that is, their native culture, but in reality the opposite happened: Englishnization transmitted Rakuten’s Japanese work practices and values. Several factors accounted for their surprise. First, had the U.S. employees not harbored so many inflated expectations and such unquestioned linguistic ethnocentricity, the force with which Rakuten’s culture arrived might have been less surprising and they might have been better prepared for the challenges and conflicts it would bring. Second, prior to Englishnization, most non-Japanese

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employees had unwittingly held an incomplete view of Rakuten’s espoused values and norms because language barriers had prevented a significant portion of the company’s culture and practices from making the voyage across continents. Third, logistically, the Japanese employees’ initial difficulties in learning English delayed the subsidiaries’ culture shock for as many as two years. Not until they became aware of Rakuten’s culture and work practice expectations did people actually experience anxiety regarding the loss of familiar signs and symbols that had allowed them to orient in cross-cultural contexts. Much like their mirror images, the linguistic expats, feelings of loss and anxiety ultimately made up the core of the cultural expats’ experience.7 WORK PRACTICES AND WORK VALUES

In the second round of interviews with the cultural expats, I found a marked difference in their responses than I had in the first round. This time, people discussed cultural differences, newly emphasizing reporting to management and management’s desire for data; differences in Japanese versus U.S. work ethics and social customs; whether communication was direct or indirect; and the fact that the policy handbook pushed principles from the top down. Prior to Englishnization, it seemed these concerns were absent, or at least present to a lesser degree, and therefore the cultural expats had reckoned very little with them. These concerns largely fell into two categories: the changes in daily work practices and the changes in the way they were expected to think about their work. Task-Based Processes

Task-based process changes were the most obvious in the second phase: these included website design; performance management systems, such as key performance indicators (KPI); and reports or general company-wide routines, such as the Asakai meetings. As they transitioned toward more formalized, regimented work practices, these process changes impacted U.S. employees’ daily work practices. Even more important, these changes in work practice

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routines shifted the expectations for the American subsidiaries away from their former Westernized culture with its emphasis on the individual to the stricter, striving, group-oriented Japanese culture. While meetings and reports had always been part of task-based processes, post-Englishnization they increased in frequency and intensity. An engineer who had been with the company for a little over three years spoke to the tremendous process shift that had occurred: There’s a huge culture shock. . . . Now, we’re at a process-oriented state where everything is dictated by due diligence, by KPI management. . . . The Japanese culture is a manufacturing culture; it is very, very process-driven. . . . So we had to go through an evolution and an education here. A major post-mandate process change was that work groups were required to report KPIs, which enabled Rakuten to create a strict information system to control an otherwise far-flung global organization. And this information was siphoned up to headquarters through large-scale reporting efforts, involving human touch points throughout the organization that worked on a weekly or even daily basis to update their managers. Two years after the mandate, one Boston staff member resented the close control as “hovering.” They [Rakuten headquarters] sit over you and watch everything you do. A lot of reporting. They want to know daily what’s going on . . . I’ve worked at large companies and I’ve not seen this hovering type of thing, you know, constantly reporting over and over and over again on a daily basis, just the new numbers from one day to the next. Many employees intimately felt the impact of these new routines and processes in their daily lives within the subsidiaries, and some resented the changes. A manager who had been in the high-tech industry for over a decade explained the changes he observed—including the scoring and corresponding monitoring mechanisms—and how difficult it was to conform to these new rules:

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They’ve put a person now in charge of it to say to all the U.S. employees . . . you have to go through this now. And you’re going to be measured by your adoption of that. The Shugi Badge

Robert was sitting at his desk one morning when he received a bewildering e-mail from Sheri, the new manager in charge of shugi. The Rakuten Shugi, translated as the Rakuten Basic Principles, acts as a corporate philosophy or way of thinking to guide employees. The e-mail said he had violated an important code and sent him a chart showing that two missing badge infractions had been logged. Robert looked around at his colleagues, all of whom he knew quite well. The badge sat on his desk near his computer. Why did he need to wear the cumbersome thing? Besides, he felt awkward interacting with people who were wearing identification badges—he knew their names and they knew his. A very tangible measure of the cultural expats’ resentment centered around the identification badge. While prior to the mandate, they could come and go as they pleased, sans badge, after the mandate, employees were required to wear the ID in the upper left-hand corner of their chest (above the heart) at all times and to remove the badge before they left the workplace. Badge-wearing infractions were logged and totaled for individual office-wide scores that could then be compared across subsidiaries. During the course of their careers few had experienced such a degree of organizational discipline for the mere wearing of ID badges. The badge was adorned with Rakuten’s Five Principles for Success (shugi): 1. Always Improve, Always Advance 2. Passionately Professional 3. Hypothesize → Practice → Validate → Shikumika [Systematize] 4. Maximize Customer Satisfaction 5. Speed!! Speed!! Speed!!

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At the Tokyo offices, these principles were also captured in written documents or visual artifacts, such as posters. Mikitani was proud of the principles and intended them to be every employee’s guideposts: Walk into any room in our corporate [ Japanese] headquarters and you’ll see a poster on the wall with Rakuten’s Five Principles for Success. These are the core pillars of our corporate culture, and we display them as art and place them on the back of every employee ID to continually reinforce them as our guiding themes.8 Contrast Mikitani’s pride in the five principles for success and his interpretation of their ubiquity in the workforce as a way to motivate and support his workforce with an engineer’s frustrated reaction to what he feels is the oddness of having to be so closely tethered to those same principles. We always had a scoreboard. Looking at the scoreboard, there’s like shugi—you get shugi score. Does everyone wear their name badges in the office? Do we take them off? [Sheri] is in charge of watching people [monitoring adoption]. So that’s a little odd. . . . But you’re always reminded of it. If you don’t have your shugi on, there’s a little helpful reminder to wear your shugi. It’s just reminders here and there. Kaizen

The Rakuten cultural elements that fused Japanese perspectives and tangible work practices produced a palpable change in how Americans experienced the company, as Samantha described: We moved from just being a U.S. company to being now a Japanese company, and we slowly moved into basically the Japanese culture as far as how we do our day-to-day work here. So they instilled a lot of their qualities of their work ethics over to us, right? You know, the things like the kaizen [the Japanese practice of continuous improvement] and always improving and having daily huddles. The kaizen Rakuten way . . .

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Kaizen, which means improvement, dates to the post–World War II reconstruction of Japan.9 Derived from the exchange between American and Japanese cultures in the postwar years, the practice came later to the United States in the form of Total Quality Management and Six Sigma. Kaizen was especially popularized by Toyota Motors, where employees were empowered to suggest small, continuous improvements in the production process that would boost manufacturing quality or speed. An executive explained how the practice transpired within Rakuten: Kaizen, of course, is the idea of always improving—where every employee of the company has to have a kaizen idea each quarter and has to actually implement it. The idea will hopefully improve processes and bring efficiency to the organization in some way. Ideas were evaluated and implemented based on whether they contributed to improving organizational processes and promoting efficiency; a prize was awarded for the best quarterly kaizen. The result was a subtle shift in the organization; whereas previously, organizational improvements in the U.S. subsidiaries were initiated from the top down, now every employee was made to feel a sense of ownership and responsibility for the process and was expected to remain constantly mindful of opportunities for improvement. Increased Workload

Much like their counterparts in Japan who spent extra time learning English, the U.S. employees reported a spike in their workload. Importantly, the New York–based subsidiary was not a new acquisition but had become part of Rakuten seven years earlier. Up until the language mandate each operated fairly autonomously from the company headquarters. Post-mandate, all that changed. In the U.S. subsidiaries, the new Rakuten way manifested itself through more intense and more frequent KPIs and reporting of activities, more meetings, more headquarters-hosted trainings and conferences, and a rise in joint projects. U.S. employees felt the weight of the culture with all of these changes. Mark felt overwhelmed by his ballooning workload and the many

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more Japanese influences on the framing and the nature of his work. Prior to Englishnization, Mark had operated autonomously. Tighter control and reporting structures increased his workload and manifested in mandatory meetings and elaborate updates with newly strict timelines. He lamented: Your Mondays are ruined because they are meeting days. Your Fridays are ruined because they are data collection days. So really, you have just the three days in the middle to actually do some work. It’s inconvenient when you’re asked to do a conference call at 9:00 p.m., but usually we can do that from our house. . . . Really, the big pain is that whole weekly structure where they need so much reporting on so many KPIs. A lot of times, they can’t see the forest through the trees. . . . Friday’s reporting is heavy-duty— graphs and charts and bullet points. They say, “Oh, this should only take you fifteen minutes.” Regardless of whether you’re on vacation or not, by the way. . . . “Why didn’t they get the Friday report?” “I was in Florida, on the beach with my kids.” It doesn’t matter. That’s a Rakuten thing, too. . . . There are certain things that are just known to be just done. You never miss certain deadlines. U.S. employees struggled to see past the new challenges they were experiencing on a daily basis. For Rakuten’s Tokyo headquarters, like many acquiring companies, increased reporting and more frequent meetings improved their ability to manage the global enterprise. The Americans, however, saw the constant meetings and performance reporting as tasks cutting into their workday, resulting in longer hours at the office and an expectation to be available on nights, on weekends, and even during vacations. The increased workload cascaded down throughout the organization. Even members of Mark’s team, who were otherwise insulated from international collaboration, felt the strain from Japan. As one team member reported: I think it’s more of how the management’s day-to-day activities have affected me. I know it’s been frustrating for Mark, because I know Mark and the entire management team, they go to a lot

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more meetings, and have a lot of reports to pull, a lot of presentations to put together. And that kind of pulls them away from being more available to me for questions. So I feel like their workload is a lot heavier, which kind of affects their availability to be there and support me. The Rakuten Way

In time, after the subsidiary employees had adapted to the process changes, many were able to see positive consequences of the policy handbook’s demands, particularly the ideological dimension that pulled together the disparate global subsidiaries by heightening people’s organizational identification10 of “oneness.” A clearer connection to procedures and the functioning of Rakuten was increasingly evident. Ben, a finance analyst, articulated a common feeling of being part of one organization that was possible only after the lingua franca mandate: The influence I see from Rakuten is much more conceptual or ideological—like the messages and vision that [are] being sent top down. . . . I remember it was the beginning of this year when we had a meeting on how to make sure we’re implementing proper procedures. But little things, even though it’s something so small—how and when you wear your badge—it’s keeping in line with the principles and rules of how Rakuten functions, so you really do feel like you are part of Rakuten, not just like your own independently operating company. Standardizing practices were an important factor in enabling Mikitani’s vision of his company’s expansion from an isolated Japanese company to a global entity to come to fruition. As the Rakuten way became manifest as an overarching organizational identity, it had the power to unite the U.S. and Japanese workforce under the Rakuten banner. Ben went on: But what I see now is exactly the vision that Hiroshi Mikitani was talking about—making this a single entity, making it a company, a global company, and getting everyone on the same page as far as

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not treating it like, “Well, we’re here in the U.S. doing our thing and you’re in Japan doing your thing.” Thus the cultural changes brought about by the policy handbook were only possible once the Japanese employees had become proficient enough in English to translate it into English. What’s startling for our understanding of the expat perspective, however, is that they used the English language to import and infuse the Japanese culture. CULTURAL CHALLENGES: “THEY’RE DOING SOMETHING ENTIRELY DIFFERENT”

Nearly two-thirds of the U.S. employees who interacted with Japanese colleagues cited at least one new joint project with Japanese counterparts within a year of Englishnization. However, the improved cross-border communication and work collaboration that resolved basic language impediments also enabled an increased awareness of the real cultural challenges existing between the U.S. and Japanese workers. My interviews with native English-speaking employees demonstrated a qualitative change two years into the mandate. Rather than the enthusiastic optimism I had heard in the first year of Englishnization, people now elevated cultural differences in their narratives significantly more often. Kimberly’s reflection on her Englishnization journey to date extended to the cultural nuances inherent in communication styles and personal motives. My experience [this past year] has not been just with language, but it’s a combination of language and culture. It’s not simply translating the words. There is a different culture in Japan in terms of hierarchy and the willingness to challenge the status quo. You have to listen. You really have to listen and not take e-mails at face value all the time. You’ve got to really understand the concerns and motives behind the words. Recall from chapter 1 that Mikitani’s hope at the start of Englishnization was that speaking in English would enable Japanese

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employees to become less bound by traditional notions of hierarchy and more direct in their speech. Granted, in speaking English, the Japanese natives dropped formal terms of address so that, for example, “Can you please, Master Sir, pass the salt” became simply “Please pass the salt.” However, the superficial change in language patterns to become more direct did not necessarily translate crosscompany into a less hierarchical organizational culture. In certain cases, such as when Mikitani personally e-mailed his business unit leaders to better encourage English language learning, language did lead to cultural changes, but it was not always so. In any case, what’s clear is that cultural adaptations were a two-way street—in that English-speaking natives had to contend with hierarchy adherence and indirect speech patterns more than they had previously. Kimberly was not alone in perceiving the cross-cultural challenges that had emerged over time. Scott, who had worked in sales for the company for four years, described how the once cultural demands were now informing his position. Implicit in his description below is that post-Englishnization he attempted to change his communication approaches vis-à-vis his newly acquired cultural sensitivities. I have a good relationship with my colleagues in Japan, and feel that, because of their language skills, those conversations are easier. But language is only one form of communication and culture is another massive one. And I don’t know whether we have the cultural integration levels needed in order to really make things happen. . . . Just because you use words doesn’t mean that they necessarily understand. So the [emphasis] on Englishnization is massive and maybe 60–70 percent of that ability to enable ideas to be transferred from one side of business to the other. But if they’re done in an arrogant—let’s forgive my stereotyping here—if you do it in a “get it done now, shut up, move on do it, do it, do it”—American style, frankly you’re not going to get far in Japan. And if you do it in a Germanic style, you’re not going to get the French bought in very quickly. And I’ve horribly stereotyped to make a point that language isn’t the only way to encourage that transfer of thoughts and ideas.

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Scott’s uncertainty as to whether the American employees possessed what he called the “cultural integration levels” is telling. It shows the extent to which the English language revealed the absence of a unified organization culture cascading from the parent company. His apologetic remark about differences between what he calls “stereotypical” cultural communication styles reveals an expat perspective-in-the-making. Robert felt even more strongly that Englishnization had made him understand his limitations regarding cultural integration levels when it came to negotiating the cross-cultural nuances of business or client needs. Prior to the mandate, Robert had assumed that Japanese service offerings and client needs were similar to those in the United States—but this was at odds with the reality he experienced on the ground during a trip to Japan after Englishnization had taken strong root. Robert reflected: “I came back realizing I knew nothing. And I think that’s the biggest thing. And that’s why I think Englishnization is so important, because there was a disconnect, where we thought they were doing one thing over there and after talking with them, I realized this is not what they’re doing. They’re doing something completely different.” Englishnization had opened a window into the daily work and experiences of his Japanese marketing counterparts. Now he would have to translate this enhanced crosscultural understanding into new ways of working. Take, for example, something as simple as buying a pair of shoes online. As Robert explained: Because the Japanese could take on what we’re doing, but because their consumer is different . . . they still need to make adjustments to fit their [cultural] needs. The Japanese needs. So, for example, here [in the United States] free shipping is huge—for, let’s say, shoes. You want to try on shoes, they don’t fit, you want to ship them back, but you don’t want to pay for it. So there are companies that you can ship back for free. In Japan, Japanese people are so concerned about what other people think, that they don’t want to—I guess it’s like they don’t want to upset people, so they don’t return things.

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Because broader issues of individual entitlement versus concern for others were at stake, something as simple as marketing free shipping might produce different behaviors and connotations in the United States than in other cultural contexts. Not until Robert learned the cultural implications associated with how the Japanese consumer approached e-commerce could he cross-train his headquarters’ counterparts on U.S. service offerings. English became a catalyst that shook Robert and other U.S. employees from their previous complacency and false assumptions. RESISTANCE TO CULTURAL CHANGE

Cultural expats became increasingly aware of the cultural implications of the markets not only in which Rakuten operated but also across Rakuten’s global workforce. Recall from chapters 2 and 3 the discussion of individualism versus collectivism across different cultures. Rakuten employees from the United States, with its highly individualistic culture, responded to the organizational changes taking place culturally and linguistically through this lens.11 While not overtly conscious that Rakuten’s culture was rooted in Japan’s collectivistic culture, American cultural expats gradually picked up on the subtleties of the cultural differences they were encountering with their Japanese colleagues. As an account manager described it: “Our impression about employees in Japan has been that they are fiercely loyal to Mikitani-san. It’s very empirical. It’s interesting: they don’t question his authority at all, where all of us do.” An operations manager who had been with the company for seven years echoed this sentiment: “Traditionally, in Japan, if your boss tells you to do something, you do not question it. That was always shocking to me . . . [whereas] we would push back.” A web designer observed that the collectivist Japanese were willing “to do what a company tells them to.” He keenly observed how America is much more individualistic: “It’s very much more like ‘me, me, me.’ . . . It’s all about me, rather than ‘it’s all about we.’ ” American cultural expats valued their autonomy and individuality, their ability to question authority and self-determine both their local objectives and their plans

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to achieve them. Meanwhile, without having developed a perspective that allows for detachment toward one’s own culture, a collectivist orientation was difficult for the U.S. cultural expats to fathom. Indeed, Englishnization carried with it surprisingly significant cultural implications for native English speakers. In the second phase, the Trojan Horse of Language enabled Rakuten to impose its Japanese-centric corporate culture in the subsidiaries. Much like the legendary Trojan horse, more was at stake than was apparent on the surface. Just as linguistic expats in Japan remained in an effortful struggle to achieve English language fluency, the cultural expats, who had believed at first that the mandate would be easy for them to fulfill, remained uncomfortable about detaching from their cultural values and working to achieve corporate Japan’s cultural fluency. Increasingly, American employees began to experience cultural demands in their interactions with Japan. Consumed by the cultural shifts taking place, the Americans became frustrated at times with the “Japanese ways” of operating. In some cases, the tendency was to comply with rather than commit to the Japanese cultural infusion. “I take the badge off as soon as I leave” was a common refrain. In other instances, a Japanese versus American operating style became synonymous with the conflict between their respective identities. The “Japanese way” was at once a threat to the cultural expats’ sense of their own American identity and operating style. The “Japanese way” was described pejoratively as “isolationist” or “pre-global” in mind-set. When frustrations mounted, cultural expats sometimes responded with nonconformity to the Japanese requests. Take, for example, the conflict that arose during a joint technology implementation meeting when an American IT manager negotiated between her local team and her Japanese superiors. Her U.S. team members felt overwhelmed by “cultural roadblocks,” including a view that the Japanese team perceived the U.S. team as lazy or uncommitted to the project merely because of employee absences owing to illness or disagreements about what a reasonable deadline might be for a project: I’ve been leaning on Hiro [the Japanese manager assigned to the U.S. team] a lot because there’s been so much frustration,

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and I have a couple of VPs, and they were frustrated, so I told them, I said, “Go set up a meeting with Hiro and tell him exactly how you feel.” So Hiro finally came around and understood our side of it. The last few months, he’s been trying to understand where we’re coming from. But there were a few months where he was like, “You’re not doing it!” We’re like, “You’re not understanding where we’re coming from, you know?” And things came to a head when everybody was ready to kill each other. The “Japanese way” simply did not involve unattended meetings or flexible deadlines, and the Americans perceived disrespect when sick time or deadlines weren’t viewed in their familiar American way, thus producing cultural misunderstandings. Both sides felt like they weren’t being heard or respected. When the Americans disagreed and ultimately went against the “Japanese way” of working, their Japanese colleagues both locally and at headquarters noticed the cultural expats’ nonconformity. At times, the Japanese questioned the Americans’ commitment to the joint project and blatantly accused them of “not doing it!” These conflicts went beyond isolated misunderstandings or cultural clashes and instead resonated down to the root of the Americans’ identities. The cultural expats’ experience suggests that the tension between retaining a native language and having to adapt to cultural infusions resulted in a cultural “identity threat.” While one foot was on a native (linguistic shore), the other foot was suddenly placed in unfamiliar cultural waters. Their initial post-mandate euphoria, fueled by the idea that their English language skill would help them secure higher organizational status and progress in their careers at Rakuten, emphasized their linguistic identity. However, once they realized that the use of a common language enabled greater dissemination of the Japanese cultural values, they experienced a clash between their familiar English linguistic identity and the unfamiliar cultural expectations of the evolving organization. While they were by far the most skilled in the lingua franca as the only native speakers at Rakuten, this did not placate how unsettling the imposed cultural changes were in the subsidiaries.

5 Dual Expats’ Global Work Orientation “BEEN THERE , DONE THAT, KNOW THAT!”

If you’re not stupid, you know you need English. — FR E N C H E X EC U TIV E

What took Rakuten so long? — G E R M A N M A N AG E R

If you can speak English, you can reach everyone. — I N D O N E S IA N CO N S U LTA NT

The third group of employees that I examine worked at Rakuten’s subsidiary offices in Asia, Europe, and South America. Like the Japanese employees, after the Englishnization mandate they too were required to communicate in a lingua franca that was different from their native tongue. Like the American employees, they too had to adapt to the many workplace changes that made up the Rakuten organizational culture. Because this group worked in both

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a language and a culture that was not their own, I call them the linguistic-cultural expats or, alternatively, dual expats. Communication in the new lingua franca presented challenges for dual expats, particularly when both parties lacked proficiency in English. However, what set them apart from their Japanese counterparts was their attitude toward the language change. Recall that the Tokyo employees initially resisted the Englishnization mandate by citing, among other things, the threat to their identity as a Japanese company. Not until Mikitani’s intervention did linguistic expats settle into a productive and systematic study of English. In comparison, dual expats, who also faced a difficult transition to English, were from the outset ready and willing to take up the mantle of learning a new language. Such was the case with Gabriella, a Brazilian quality analyst: In one of our Friday meetings right after the acquisition. . . . All the teams got together to report about their team status. And we were told that next week we were supposed to make a presentation about our area in English. And I thought to myself, oh my God, what? Now? It was very complicated. And at that point I wasn’t even taking English classes. I told myself, I have to start learning English because how am I supposed to deal with this situation? What if there is someone from outside coming to visit us? So I couldn’t follow what was said in English, didn’t know what was going on, and I couldn’t report what’s happening to my team. And that was also the reason why I decided to learn English. Because it is really terrible to have someone speaking English to you while you’re not understanding them. In other words, Gabriella, unlike the Japanese linguistic expats, was acutely aware from the beginning of the mandate that taking classes to learn English was a necessity. Anxieties similar to those she described were found elsewhere among dual expats. Concerns over fully understanding and being understood were common, yet simultaneously served as a source of motivation to learn the language of the company. In time, dual expats’ fears were quelled as they realized that linguistic perfectionism in English was not the end goal and that

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they could be comfortable with imperfect language skills—not only among their local colleagues but among employees globally as well. A Thai engineer described the lower English proficiency of his headquarters counterpart as beneficial and disarming: One thing that I think is good for me . . . the Japanese are nonnative speakers, unlike Americans or some Europeans. Our English is non-native also. With non-native speakers, it’s easier to understand them because we use simpler language to communicate . . . [with] Americans, since they’re native speakers, [it] is more difficult to understand. This sentiment, that communication was easier among themselves, was shared by dual expats across countries. In a sense, they saw the linguistic challenges inherent in the learning process as shared with Japanese linguistic expats. With a level playing field, dual expats found a degree of comfort, which enabled them to take risks and practice English with colleagues from abroad. While misunderstandings would occasionally arise, it created the sense of a collegial, safe environment in which to collectively practice and engage in the lingua franca. Nor were dual expats immune from the cultural challenges posed by having to adopt new work practices, such as kaizen and observance of the five Rakuten principles. In Thailand, for example, dual expats described the cultural shift as having to change from their local sabai sabai environment, meaning relaxed and easygoing, to the more disciplined, performance-driven, and process-oriented culture of Rakuten. Prem, a Thai content developer with seven years at the company, admitted that the organization’s culture was “totally different,” that “the pressure [was] stricter than before,” and that a select few of his peers were unwilling to accept the new ways of working. The chief discernable difference between dual expats’ response and that of the cultural expats resided in their receptivity toward the cultural changes. Similar to the majority of Thai employees, by the second phase, Prem credited the challenging changes to tangible benefits: “In terms of the productivity, it is increasing [in Thailand].

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It’s increasing 20–30 percent. Business is growing . . . that’s good enough [for me].” He stated that his performance target had nearly doubled since Rakuten’s mandate. A midcareer Brazilian sales manager echoed a similar receptivity: “We are much more open to new thinking, new ideas. . . . And all of that has to do with culture and how people mix and it gets passed through language.” In sum, dual expats were able to put aside their complaints and frustrations and see that the benefits of change outweighed its costs. The mandate’s shift from working in a local market to broader and frequent cross-border collaboration held another set of challenges. Global work required more flexibility and greater sensitivity to each other’s needs; however, when requests became inequitable or unreasonable, dual expats had the wherewithal to resist. While the Americans complained about demands they found unreasonable, Clement, a French human resources manager, discussed how his peers pushed back on excessive requests from headquarters: Now, the fact is that [the Japanese] are demanding—they work very hard. You get e-mails at 3 a.m. Nonstop. At the beginning, they also tried to schedule manager’s meetings, which would have been at 3 a.m. here. And we had to tell them that’s against French law. At first they didn’t understand why not. But I think by now they’ve understood that we can’t. Such frustrations were common at Rakuten’s numerous acquisitions as dual expats defined their relationship and boundaries with the parent company. Even the most culturally receptive employees had to make an effort to learn and understand new differences in the early stages of cross-cultural interactions. As Clement suggests, once that common understanding was found, collaborations ran more smoothly. Dual expats emerged as the group who were at the vanguard when it came to working in a global context. Some dual expats had experience with English as a second or third language prior to the mandate. They viewed English proficiency as a desirable skill worthy of their effort. They embraced new cultural practices or ways of being and a developed global world orientation. As a result they

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were more advanced than the linguistic expats or the cultural expats in “global literacy”; they were globally aware, connected, and poised to effectively engage in global work. More important, the characteristics that they displayed are teachable to members of any organization that seeks to develop a workforce with a global mind-set. First Phase NO SHOCK

Inga, the German IT specialist we met in chapter 1, sat at her desk at the Rakuten office in Bamberg staring at the website of an online retail customer who had recently launched a sale. When asked about having to wear the Rakuten badge—which she wore on her blue sweater, on the left side, over her heart, per regulation—she waved her hand dismissively. “It’s not so important,” she said. “It’s about respecting the rules.” Later in the interview, she referred to the Japanese as “a bit like the Germans of Europe,” because both cultures are rule-oriented and value a rigorous work ethic. She was equally nonplussed about the English language mandate. Prior to Rakuten, she had worked for a Danish company, and she explained that English was a default lingua franca in the presence of non-Germans: So it’s quite normal that we communicate in English with a foreign mother company, either in Tokyo, in wherever. Whereas before, the former company I worked for was Danish, and the common language also was English when meeting with them. So I think for Germans it’s quite normal when you have a foreign mother company to communicate with in English. In Frankfurt, where Inga had grown up and which ranks first in Germany in terms of overall English proficiency, she had studied English all through school and done well on her qualifying exams. The German language is closely related to English and is therefore relatively easy for native German speakers to learn. Perhaps more important, as German sociolinguist Juliane House writes, “English in its role as a language with a ‘high communication value’

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was welcomed by many after World War II, not least because of its (maybe naive) association with democratic statehood. In West Germany, English was embraced wholeheartedly as a means of helping people forget the past.”1 English in Germany served as a tool for Germans to move beyond their past and reestablish their role in a modern, democratic, and global society. In contemporary Berlin, which has become a popular destination for Americans on vacation and youth attracted by the city’s vibrancy and cultural diversity, English is heard regularly on the street and in the Ubahn. Given this context, the initial reaction to the Englishnization mandate from Inga and her coworkers in the German subsidiary included none of the shock experienced by the other two groups. Instead, they were simply astonished that Rakuten, hailing from a major industrial country, had only recently shifted to English as the lingua franca and even more astonished that it was one of the first Japanese companies to have done so, whereas it had long since become the norm in Germany. Although Inga’s story is particular to Germany, an equivalent case could be made for each of the countries from which the dual expats hailed. I closely examined narratives from Rakuten employees in Brazil, France, Indonesia, Taiwan, and Thailand. Each of these country locations extended the Rakuten online retail stores to their respective markets. Unlike the Tokyo headquarters, these subsidiaries were already by default operating in English for cross-border communication. English had been essential for many aspects of dual expats’ regular work—Asakai meetings, reporting, management or cross-functional meetings worldwide, and headquarters-hosted conferences or trainings. In addition, routine communiqués in many e-mails had been written in English, or in a mix of the local language with an English translation, for the explicit purpose of allowing Japanese colleagues to follow or backtrack conversation threads. Some pockets of customers, as I will discuss later, also required English. However, the Englishnization mandate, which called for all English all the time, intensified and extended employees’ lingua franca use. As one German manager explained, communicating with counterparts in Japan

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required a complete shift to English during cross-border interactions at all levels: Like tonight, for example, I have a videoconference. This is a videoconference with [members of his unit], and it’s obviously in English. So you have to know English in the management level. And in the level of the normal employee or the employees, the developers, for example, they need to know English. They need to communicate with all the people that do not speak German. The sentiment that English was fundamental to interactions across borders was echoed by a Brazilian engineer: “Communication has to happen in English orally or via e-mails . . . those who couldn’t speak English would have a hard time and were unable to exchange information.” Unlike the other two groups, the dual expats expressly recognized the reasons for Englishnization and endorsed the benefits of the lingua franca. NO IDENTITY THREAT

Before I began my research, I expected that dual expats who had to shed their foundational languages and cultures to be the “doublejeopardy” group. In fact, I found just the opposite to be true. Although they had two feet in non-native waters, dual expats did not experience the same “identity threat” as their native English-speaking and Japanese colleagues. In fact, this group did not have to contend with identity struggles because they did not appear to have a native identity at play in the workplace that was entrenched to the same degree as did the other two groups. Unlike the linguistic expats, they did not feel a lowered status when struggling to learning English; unlike the cultural expats, they did not have to try to protect their initial feelings of presumptive privilege from the new demands of Japanese work practices and values. Compared to their counterparts, dual expats did not have a status position to protect, which likely freed them from identity struggles.2 With the perception that they had less to protect, they were more open to change. In addition, dual expats’ relatively lower status position as subsidiary members of Rakuten

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who were not from the hub of e-commerce, as were those in the United States, seemed to help them be more open to the possibilities that Rakuten offered with Englishnization. All told, dual expats were more likely than the other two groups (who were still mired in questions of self-identity) to identify with the global facet of Rakuten, the superordinate identity that’s part of the larger organization.3 Why was this so? What can we learn about adopting a lingua franca from the adaptability of dual expats? Several insights about language learning and cultural literacy stand out. First, awareness and experience of English as a global trend was a prominent characteristic among this group. Second, market demands for English outside of linguistic-expats’ geographic locales were a strong motivator and influencer. In a world where managers are called upon to conduct business in English with employees who may vary considerably in their language fluency and cultural flexibility, examining the strengths and backgrounds of dual expats proves instructive where culture and language do and do not match up. Awareness, Experience, and Acceptance of English as a Global Trend

As discussed in previous chapters, the Japanese and American employees were largely monolingual, with very limited exposure to and experience with global work. Were I to chart their characteristics in Table 5.1, I would have to record “0” in each column. In contrast, a staggering majority of dual expat interviewees—an average of 89 percent—expressed an awareness and acceptance that English was a global business lingua franca. Over half of the interviewees, without prompting, indicated that they were not surprised by Rakuten’s Englishnization mandate. A small percentage, roughly 10–25 percent, had used English in a previous job. Seventy-four percent interacted with members of the headquarters in Japan on a regular basis. On average, dual expats regularly interacted with two other Rakuten subsidiaries (mean of 2.58), an important dimension. Overall, they spoke an average of 2.22 languages; the Europeans (French and Germans) led with a mean of 2.89 languages; Asians4 (1.33) and Brazilians (1.07) less so. While the majority had studied English in school (83 percent),

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TABLE 5.1.

Characteristics of Dual Expats

Country Location Mean Number of Languages Spoken Studied English in School Studied Abroad Worked Abroad English Spoken in Previous Jobs Awareness of English as a Global Trend Englishnization Was Unsurprising Eager to Learn English

Brazil France Germany Indonesia Taiwan Thailand Average N = 29 N = 81 N = 26 N = 19 N = 12 N = 12 N% 1.07

2.89

2.88

1.11

1.92

1.08

2.22

62%

89%

88%

89%

75%

75%

83%

14% 7% 10%

31% 35% 26%

15% 4% 15%

26% 16% 16%

41% 8% 8%

42% 0% 25%

28% 17% 20%

86%

91%

92%

79%

83%

92%

89%

45%

64%

42%

53%

8%

42%

51%

90%

57%

69%

68%

67%

83%

68%

Brazilians were the least likely to report this (62 percent). These percentages might be even higher, as the number of mentions we tracked was based on counts from interviews only. Unlike the employees in Japan, the vast majority of dual expats we interviewed had begun as children to be aware of the role English plays in a global setting. They reported that their parents had stressed its importance and that they, in turn, prioritized English as a skill for their children. According to a report published by the European Commission in 2012, more than two-thirds of Europeans cite English as a critical language for children to learn to be better equipped for the future. When it comes to their adult development, 67 percent of Europeans reported English as important.5 Further evidence that the parents of dual expats were prescient in prioritizing English proficiency as a tool for success is provided by a group of MIT researchers who analyzed online data from Wikipedia, Twitter, and book translations (2.2 million volumes) to map the relative importance of languages, as measured by which languages most often connect to other languages and therefore allow communication with the widest population. English was found to be the “hub” for information to be translated from one language to another.6 Cesar Hidalgo, who led the study, said, “Basically, being born

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into a highly connected language is a better predictor of whether that person is going to be important or not, than being born into language that is very populous, or that is spoken by people that are very wealthy.” Interestingly, this finding supports the Americans’ self-important euphoria during the first phase of Englishnization at having been born into the highly connected language of English. For those who are effortful learners of English, Hidalgo points out that “the centrality of a language in the global language network is a significantly strong predictor of whether that language produces a large number of successful people after controlling for their income and the population of the language.”7 In other words, those who are proficient in the lingua franca, as Mikitani envisioned his workforce to be, are more likely to be predicated for success. In many cases, Rakuten employees’ parents who promoted an early awareness of English backed up that awareness with education. Rakuten employees in Indonesia recounted how their parents enrolled them as children in English-based schools for upwards of six years, knowing that it would be easier to learn a new language at a young age. Indonesian interviewees who had remained in schools where teaching was conducted in the native Bahasa Indonesian language had been enrolled by their parents in outside English courses. One interviewee testified that his parents had this consciousness a full generation before his own: “They always said that English language is a must for every single person to learn.” In France, however, this belief was only now beginning to bud in parents’ minds. According to a French employee: Any parent that wants their children to get some leading role or interesting role in business knows that they need to speak English. . . . It’s a belief now in France . . . it’s getting more and more true . . . many of my friends think about how they’re going to put their kids in bilingual schools. Notice that here, much like Mikitani’s “English only” supposition, the foreign parents do not mention anything about wanting or needing to school their children in national Anglo cultures. Rather, it’s the English language that’s stressed.

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English, over time, has replaced French as the international language of diplomacy, as the most commonly learned and taught second language around the globe, and as the language of trade and commerce. In the United Nations, for instance, while French is used as a language of verbal translation, it is not the language for drafting documents, and the number of delegations choosing French as their preferred language of communication has declined as the number of delegations choosing English has increased. These shifts demonstrate not that French is losing ground in France but that the country is losing ground as an international economic and political influence. For France to accept English, which signifies their acceptance of current globalization trends, means they are also acknowledging that the global role of France is shifting.8 While previous generations in France have not felt linguistic pressure, the time has come to adapt to English as the language of business. A thirty-five-year-old French advertising manager who had been with the company only two years echoed the importance of English from his previous experience in business and travel. Like Inga in Germany, he considered English a sine qua non—an indispensable ingredient for global business: “I consider Englishnization to be normal. Here, I think it’s just something that seems to have slipped by sort of unnoticed, really. There’s a lot of people I work with who are multilingual anyway.” French labor laws still prohibit companies from requiring their employees to operate and be evaluated in a non-French language. A number of documents, such as legal, internal and external regulatory, and human resources only have legal standing if drafted in the French language. English proficiency was not formally factored into job evaluations or promotions, as it was in Japan; however, market forces ensured that English became the default language in the French subsidiary. Thus, although there were no legal means to mandate the English lingua franca in France, English was nonetheless made indispensible given expansion demands from customers outside France, cross-border communication with other Rakuten subsidiaries or with headquarters, and the need to communicate with Japanese nationals.

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Twenty percent of dual-expat interviewees had been required to use English in previous jobs. A French sales professional emphasized this: “The concept is not new; even in my previous job, the company was very multicultural and English was the official language.” Considering that the number of Japanese interviewees who had experience with English in previous jobs was nearly zero, 20 percent was a relatively large figure. A Taiwanese manager who had been with the company for six years mentioned that some Taiwanese companies had established HR requirements that included having a degree from overseas or a suitable language measure when vetting new hires. He went on to explain how dangerous it would be for Rakuten not to be on par and actively pursue English across its global entities, saying that “every company asks their staff to keep improving their language ability. And if Rakuten doesn’t do the same, we will be left behind and the future might be very dangerous. But if Rakuten can just follow this trend and keep improving at the same rate, it is a very, very good idea.” Research shows that bilinguals have a greater capacity to acquire fluency in additional languages.9 In Thailand, the fact that Mandarin is taught as a foreign language in Thai schools (and has been since the eighteenth century) is likely to make it easier for Thai natives to learn another language, such as English. National awareness of English as the language of globalization and as an international lingua franca is supported by English language instruction in all government-run schools. Likewise in Indonesia, where the national lingua franca is not the majority language, most individuals speak more than one language and are comfortable in a multilingual society. In Jakarta, the largest city in a country of 200 million, over 400 language varieties are spoken among dozens of ethnic groups. English has increasingly been used in political discourse since 1998, which marked the end of President Suharto’s thirty-year presidency, in the period of reform that included building a more open and democratic government.10 English is also used in tourism and in Western music, films, and advertising.11 Given their comfort level with multilingualism, learning English for a Thai or Indonesian employee then becomes less of a

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burden and less threatening to their identity than it was for Rakuten’s Japanese employees. Brazilians expressed the most eagerness to learn English (90 percent). In fact, Brazil has emerged as the number one market for English training entities worldwide, particularly since a survey of multinational employees found that in Brazil half of the respondents reported that their English language skills were not sufficient to do their jobs.12 Pedro (31), an e-commerce consultant and manager, expressed his desire to gain more formal training: “I just think that my grammar is a little rusty. And I have been forgetting a lot of what I have learned. I need a refresher course for my grammar. The course that I took was very good, but I missed a portion of the advanced parts. And now I’m missing it.” In a similar vein, many interviewees wanted more opportunities to practice English at work or otherwise. In many of the country sites (e.g., Indonesia and France), interviewees revealed that they were taking English classes that they themselves financed after work hours in order to sharpen their English skills. It is important to note two possible questions about influences that could have shaped dual expats’ eagerness to enhance skills that they deemed crucial for global work. First, is there a self-selection bias motivated by an interest in being part of an international organization? Second, is self-selection motivated by a desire to be part of an innovative, cutting-edge, high-tech organization such as Rakuten? If so, it is possible that dual expats’ awareness and receptivity present a special case. We may have encountered less awareness and more resistance had we examined employees in a different industry or in companies with lesser international aspirations. While more research is warranted to better understand the potential influence of these factors, there is much we can learn from this group of dual expats’ behaviors and attitudes in the context of global work. Market Demands for English Contribute to Lingua Franca Use

Global customers were a powerful force in propagating English. And needing to serve customers outside of specific geographic locales had automatically influenced and motivated many dual expats to integrate English into their work. Customers regularly asked a French

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sales associate, Martine: “What other countries are you based in?” She also received requests from her existing customers to use English. One of her active customers wanted Rakuten to assist with expansion plans in Spain and the United Kingdom. An increase in similar cross-border requests had Martine and many other dual expats scrambling to sharpen their English skills, especially since those deals would dramatically enlarge their portfolio of clients. Similar pressures abound in Brazil. Pedro had a growing clientele who only spoke English. Acquired a year into the Englishnization mandate, Rakuten Brazil experienced a gradual uptick in English use. In fact, client demands had already made English a language Pedro used daily, which helped him grow his business even more. Pedro provided a tour of some of the ways English, and the need to communicate with foreigners in particular, had penetrated his daily work: We recently launched a store for a client—from the United States. From the beginning, the client spoke English in some of the meetings—phone conferences, and some in person—so I had to speak English too. And before him, we had a client from Australia who didn’t speak Portuguese so a lot of our conversations were, of course, in English. I believe that the whole team, the directors at least, all came with him from Australia to start the store operation here. And also, there are always projects with someone who is a foreigner. A project that we are doing with [an electronics company] has an integration team from Mexico, and most of them speak English only. So we frequently have to speak English and send e-mails in English. And some of our internal presentations are also done in English so that people from Japan can also understand the information. With these internal and external pressures to learn English, Pedro started studying English at night. Soon after, he and his colleagues created one of several study groups that stayed after work to learn and practice English. Study groups like these sprung up organically throughout the organization and were self-organized based on proficiency levels and individual needs. In addition, client demands helped maintain Pedro’s motivation.

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In Indonesia, up to 30 percent of interactions with customers were conducted in English. As Amina, an Indonesian e-commerce consultant, remarked, “I have merchants from Malaysia, from Hong Kong, and Japan that I have to talk to in English by phone, e-mail, and sometimes by instant messaging or Skype.” A Taiwanese manager drew the same picture. He too was accustomed to speaking English at work. He explained that he communicated with “our partners in Japan in English . . . I have to collaborate with our overseas partners in Thailand, Indonesia, and Cambodia—this is what I’m responsible for. So most of the time I have to use English, so I have to get used to an English environment.” Second Phase GLOBAL WORK ORIENTATION

So far, I have shown that dual expats were the group that was most flexible and adaptive to the global organizational shifts taking place. In further probing my data to understand the attitudes and behaviors that the dual expats exhibit, a construct emerges, which I label global work orientation, to describe the multidimensional factors that influence individuals’ open disposition to working across national borders. Dual expats who are most emblematic of a global work orientation evidenced five common attitudes and behaviors: they (1) exhibited positive indifference, (2) sought commonality where differences existed, (3) identified with a superordinate global organization, (4) aspired to a global career, and (5) sought global interactions with other subsidiaries and/or headquarters. Dual expats were further along the path toward being “globalized” than their linguistic expat or cultural expat colleagues. This was well evidenced across their narratives, though they varied by degree and intensity. In comparison, the narratives of the other two groups, even when mentioning global work, saw it as an exception or a novelty rather than integral to their careers. positive Indifference

Much like the U.S. cultural expats, dual expats had to contend with a deluge of Japanese cultural values and practices. However, rather

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than feeling the Rakuten culture and practices as a burdensome weight, they exhibited what I label “positive indifference.” Indifference because they possessed the goodwill and ability to shrug off the weight of the cultural elements and to engage them with limited concern. Positive because in regards to the mandate’s changes, their indifference was a desirable attribute, one that helped ease their transition. Although positive indifference is similar to aspects of cultural acceptance and tolerance, a distinction exists. While acceptance or tolerance implies that some degree of resistance to cultural difference must be overcome, positive indifference overlooks cultural differences as not especially important or worthy of attention while remaining optimistic about the process of engaging the culture seen as foreign. The concept of positive indifference was captured by Bernard, a German interviewee, who described his response to the new rule about wearing the badge: “Personally, it didn’t bother me. . . . It wasn’t a question of agreeing or disagreeing with it.” The key word here is “personally.” Bernard could observe the new rule without it acquiring in his mind a threat to his personal identity; for him, it was just a new rule rather than a cultural difference he had to expend energy learning to tolerate. His neutrality was, in this situation, a positive development. Dual expats could easily take on a positive (or neutral) position vis-à-vis cultural differences, in part because they were able to see differences in language or culture as superficial changes rather than as substantial impediments, even if what they were asked to do did not make immediate or complete sense. Positive indifference did not preclude the dual expats from noticing or having opinions about unfamiliar challenges in work practices and approaches required by their parent company once the English mandate took effect. A customer service manager, despite admitting to this pressure, spoke positively of the Japanese demands: “The pressure I am under is part of the normalization of work. It is stimulating. It is a challenge. It is a pleasant pressure.” They learned that Japanese colleagues were likely to tackle a problem by first analyzing all the different angles and issues, while the French admitted that their approach was to attack a problem “kamikaze style,” head-on. They

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acknowledged that while the French strategy might be more efficient in terms of time than the Japanese strategy, it might also be less effective. Their creative use of a Japanese word as a metaphor for a French characteristic is evidence of the kind of freedom and receptivity that dual expats experienced. When some of the German and Indonesian dual expats chose to wear kimonos at regional conferences, they again demonstrated a creative acceptance and even a willingness to embrace the Japanese cultural infusion as a positive change. The required ID badge with the five Rakuten principles that so many cultural expats found difficult provoked a more or less indifferent reaction in dual expats, even if they did not altogether see its value. Others referred to previous experiences where they had to wear name badges (e.g., “I did have to wear one at another company”). Overall, they were open to trying it and it did not cause any troublesome emotions. Celine from the French office explained her perspective in which she characterized the demands from the corporate headquarters as inconsequential: “And what has been added is the Monday morning meeting, wearing a name tag, and miscellaneous small changes . . . I’m indifferent to it. . . . Once it’s there, we forget about it.” Bernard, who initially described his indifference to the badge, in the course of the interview found justifications for how it could yield positive results for a growing company. In his words: I’m very neutral about it, but I don’t think it is something very useful. They said it was for security reasons that we had to wear a badge, but we only wear it once we are at work. It’s true that it can maybe be useful when you meet somebody you don’t know, seeing how fast the company is growing. “It’s not so serious,” explained Alfred (32), a German interviewee who enumerated the series of norms and rules that were instituted, even though such practices were novel for him as someone who had spent his career to date working in the technology sector in Germany. Alfred’s coworker found the onslaught of values enacted by Rakuten overly “pedantic.” But like Alfred, he trivialized their significance: “I do not put a lot of importance on that.”

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Asakai meetings and the policy handbook with meticulously documented guidelines were also obvious changes for all dual expats. Here, too, they found ways to appreciate difference. A content developer from France gave his opinion: [The Rakuten culture] is more ceremonial [than French culture]. . . . Every Monday we have the Asakai, and there are more things that you have to strictly follow. . . . More rules. More exchanges. When we send an e-mail we have to add more people in copy. It doesn’t complicate things. I think it is a beneficial thing; for example, we have more info on how the company is doing, we feel more involved . . . I think it is important. We feel we are part of a big family. We have family meetings. The fact of wearing a badge is important so that we know who we are talking to. Dual expats’ ability to engage in positive indifference contributed to both their sense of security and, correspondingly, their lack of an identity threat. A forty-five-year-old Japanese manager charged in part with managing Rakuten’s European operations explained, “The French are doing really well. They see the good and bad points of the ‘Japanese way’ and they integrate their [French] ways, so it happens naturally. They’re adapting.” Unlike the cultural expats who eventually rebelled against the source of their own identity threat—the Trojan Horse and cultural infusion from Japan—the dual expats experienced a natural progression. Integration happened without the bitterness and frustration experienced in the United States. A client engagement representative from Brazil expressed her excitement about working for Rakuten: I like to always develop . . . to grow . . . I think in a Japanese company you are expected to not stay where you are. You have to find new things day-to-day, to understand new things, to search for more knowledge and I think that’s something awesome about a Japanese company . . . I would say that it [ Japanese culture] doesn’t affect me. In a negative way it doesn’t. I think it is really good and everybody is adapting and following the way.

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She realized the positive benefits of being in a Japanese company, where she would be greeted with novel experiences and pushed to adapt and grow as a person. Like other dual expats across Rakuten’s global offices who exhibited positive indifference, she was impervious to the perceived harm felt by her linguistic expat and cultural expat colleagues who experienced identity threats. Seeking Commonality

While some of the cultural expats perceived differences between their native culture and a foreign one as negative and repellent, dual expats displayed a willingness to find commonalities between the two cultures that could draw them closer. In the same way that Inga, whom we met at the beginning of this chapter, was able to find common ground between German and Japanese regard for rules and hard work, finding a commonality enables one to draw closer to the foreign culture and become receptive to its differences. Interestingly, the aspect of Japanese culture with which natives chose to identify varied according to nationality. Bhoddi, a Thai interviewee, traveled to Tokyo for manager training sessions that emphasized the five shugi principles at the basis of Rakuten’s corporate culture. A devout Buddhist, Bhoddi extrapolated commonalities between Buddhist principles/principles of the Buddha and Rakuten’s shugi, suggesting that the Japanese were not the first to come up with the concept of five principles and that both the shugi and Buddhism stressed that the five principles must coexist. When discussing the Rakuten cultural values, a linguistic-cultural expat from Brazil spoke about omotenashi as one of the Eastern concepts that he identified with personally. He found commonality with omotenashi, the inherent emphasis on caring for others, while also acknowledging the stringent realities of producing rigorous measurable results: I identify with Rakuten’s philosophy a lot. They focus a lot on the people, they have this concept that is hard to translate into Portuguese, which is the omotenashi, a server’s soul. . . . You

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really worry about attending to the other person as if he were a close, good comrade of yours. And I really like that; I think that humanizes a little the work atmosphere even though there are a lot of goals and numbers. It is always metrics, measurements, and numbers all the time, but you can feel that there is a more human part within the company, I think that at least for me that makes all the difference. And an accountant in Germany sought commonality by focusing on the natural progression between the local ways of working and those newly introduced by Rakuten: I feel like much of that is introduced was already in place in Germany but by another name. It wasn’t explicitly formulated. “Speed, speed, speed,” for instance, we already had that. There is no difference, it was like that before. But now it is written down as a rule. Then you explain to your coworker: “We’ve done that for the past five years, and that’s the reason we are where we are! It’s nice that the Japanese realized that too!” . . . It’s clear, it’s common sense. . . . Normal stuff! So, someone included it in a philosophy. And we abide by it. It is okay. But actually, we already do it that way, and we do it because it is something that we believe in. A French engineer highlighted a number of commonalities that were salient to him between French and Japanese culture: I think that the fact that we [France and Japan] have exactly the same way of working—that we’re very focused on results, that we’re rigorous and professional, that we put our means where they’re necessary and not elsewhere, that we always analyze everything we do to find axes of improvement. . . . It makes it such that, even when there are cultural differences, if we have the same way of working, it will work out well. The search for commonality was also reflected in the narrative of the following Indonesian consultant, who compared Rakuten’s ritual of asking employees to clean their work area for five minutes weekly with his religious practice.

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I’ll give you one example. Like [desk] cleaning. . . . Say for instance most of the people, 90 percent of the population [in Indonesia], are Muslim. So I said, “Hey, when you go to mosque, you wash your hands, wash your feet. Exact same concept. It’s like work. Work is more like you have to commit. And then this is your place. And that’s why you are responsible.” In sum, dual expats displayed an interest to grow and develop in new and unexpected ways as a result of Englishnization and found positive ways to connect with cultural aspects of the Rakuten way. The dual expats, like the cultural expats, were required to adopt the new and stricter work practices imported from the Japanese headquarters, but the dual expats were capable of realizing the benefits of such practices—namely, that they allow for action either to improve processes (kaizen) or to preempt issues. Dual expats were also able to find common ground that drew their ways of working together instead of apart. This continuity and commonality between the old ways of the local subsidiary and the new ways of the parent organization helped dual expats accept the changes taking place around them and seemed to further buffer them from the experience of identity threats. Identifying with a Global Organization

Lingua franca adoption can have mixed outcomes in terms of how individual workers perceive their relationship with the employer organization. Language can influence whether people see themselves as inside or outside a group.13 Some research has shown that learning the common language increases individual perceptions of belonging and connection with the organization and serves as a reminder that the organization has a global vision.14 Certainly that was the case with the dual expats at Rakuten. The sense of being inside an organization, or experiencing oneness with a company, known as organizational identification,15 enabled dual expats to identify with Rakuten as a global enterprise. Employees typically emphasized their sense of belonging to a dynamic global group where they felt information is shared, people are valued, and the strategy is very clear. Around the world, dual ex-

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pats melded their individual identity with the company as a global enterprise and saw themselves as part of its globalization process. An Indonesian interviewee noted his intention that his work be aligned with the global effort: “Because from my perspective, if I’m doing my job, I’m becoming part of the globalization of the company.” Individual identity, in his mind, was synonymous with the collective global company and its further expansion. Moreover, dual expats felt that they embodied the global company’s identity and were its representatives. A German e-commerce specialist remarked, “I can definitely identify myself with the company. And I also support the decisions that are made in Japan and can represent this accordingly.” A manager in Taiwan spoke of his pride in belonging to a larger successful global group. I’d say it’s primarily a source of pride, in the sense of belonging to a global company that has not only grown but is part of a larger group. Then, the fact that it’s Japanese, it’s perhaps an even greater source of pride—the Japanese model is so successful. Cultural or national differences did not impede the ability to adopt a global superordinate identity, as one might expect, but rather hastened it along. Dual expats’ sense of belonging to a single, united organization was a further extension of their capacity to see difference as positive and find commonality. In fact, global organizational identification was made possible through the increased feelings of connectedness brought about by a common, accessible language. Dual expats were quick to realize not only that the influx in information sharing and communicating was a strategy but that each person’s role in the larger picture was a hallmark of the lingua franca movement. Global organizational identification was also driven from the top down in the form of explicit messaging from Rakuten headquarters. It featured prominently in the CEO’s frequent messaging. An Indonesian business analyst attested: “I think it’s a global company. It’s on Hiroshi Mikitani’s mind every week during Asakai. He makes the global company always stay on my mind-set.” The company’s efforts to globalize were prominent for all of Rakuten’s linguistic-cultural

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expat employees in ways they were not for the other two groups. In Brazil, the tangible sense of being global was ever-present in informants’ work lives, from the Japanese CEO’s messaging to the Japanese expats that the Brazilians worked alongside: Our Asakai starts with a video of the CEO in English . . . and it’s a palpable reminder that you are in one global company. Then you have interactions in English, or you see a guy from Japan speaking in English, you think. . . . Yeah, I am global. Employees across all of Rakuten’s subsidiaries were constantly reminded of Rakuten’s globalization efforts. Identifying with a global organization thus became a foundational component of dual expats’ global work orientation. Without it, employees might be perceived as lacking a crucial organizational characteristic by which they could prove themselves and improve their position within the company. By melding their individual or local identity into the collective, global organization, dual expats avoided any sense of threatened identity. Instead, these identities were one and the same. “For me, it’s interesting to be a subsidiary of an international group,” a French staff assistant affirmed. “It’s interesting, it’s positive. . . . To be honest . . . I’m happy to come into the office every morning.” Aspiring to Global Careers

Another component of dual expats’ global work orientation was a deep desire to serve in a global job role, inside or outside of the company. Some interviewees had preexisting ambitions to work globally, while others’ dreams had been kindled by Rakuten’s Englishnization, as well as by its global growth and reach. Many hoped to undertake a global career because they expected that such a path would be replete with opportunities to grow professionally. These ambitions were also tied with Rakuten’s globalization efforts and its stated goal to become the “number one Internet company in the world.” Especially after the lingua franca mandate was introduced, these dreams became realizable ambitions that were openly discussed. A Thai employee who was interviewed post-mandate was quick to suggest, “I dream that I’ll go abroad someday. So I prepare myself

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with English.” A French quality control analyst, also interviewed post-mandate, spoke of a possible future: “The opportunity I can see is to be transferred abroad, not necessarily to Japan, as well as the opportunity for [global] business travel.” Dual expats hoped that improving their proficiency in the lingua franca, combined with a parent company set on globalization, would improve their long-term global career trajectory overall. Including a line in their résumé that said “English speaking” would, they knew, boost their appeal as future job candidates. The potential to live and work abroad was very enticing to many employees regardless of their current location. Some even professed that their global career aspirations had led them to apply for a job at Rakuten. A recent hire from Brazil said: “I had just returned from Canada. I wanted to keep improving [my English] . . . and I was thinking of moving abroad . . . then I saw this opportunity.” A Taiwanese marketing specialist who had been with the company for over six years looked forward to the day when his hard work in learning English would pay off in a global opportunity: “It’ll be great for me to have the chance to go to another country, to work in another country. It’s definitely something I want to do in the future— when my English is better.” Other dual expats wanted to jump into an international role for the very purpose of refining their English skills, as another Taiwanese employee who desired a global assignment expressed: “I just really want to have a job which can let me speak English every day.” Regardless of the country in which they originated or lived, Englishnization presented not only an opportunity for personal growth but also a key to unlock possibilities they could only dream of beforehand. Seeking Global Interactions

Dual expats’ immediate workdays were transformed by manifold interactions with employees at other Rakuten locations. Unlike employees from the other two groups, who merely tolerated necessary contact with employees from other locations, the dual expats regularly sought out such interactions. Rakuten employees were engaged in a twenty-four-hour work cycle spanning the world from Europe to

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South America and Southeast Asia. Yet employees in each of these locations, even when intimately tied to their individual markets, were far from isolated. The extent of voluntary interactions with other subsidiaries reported by each subsidiary was as follows: Brazil, 51.7 percent; France, 25 percent; Germany, 10.7 percent; Indonesia, 15.8 percent; Taiwan, 15.4 percent; and Thailand, 30.8 percent. These numbers were significantly higher than that calculated for the cultural expats’ voluntary interactions with other subsidiaries, which hovered around 2 percent.16 Rakuten dual expats’ experiences were in keeping with research findings that when interactions are high, there is a greater ability to develop trust and shared vision among international coworkers.17 Their interactions were vital for knowledge sharing across sites. One Taiwanese business development manager explained the advantage of these engagements: In the videoconference, there are maybe ten different countries that come together for the global marketing meeting. So there’s a lot of people on the screen . . . I think that it’s good for me and my members. I tell them it’s a good chance to learn something from different countries, because usually we run the business locally. . . . How do you know someone did very well in France, Japan, Thailand, or other countries? For example, last time France shared what they did for [a campaign]. . . . Then we know that Japan did this very well, so they ask other subsidiaries to do the same thing. We tried to copy Japan and so far it’s good, but I heard that France had very good success and then they shared it with everyone. It proves that not only Japan can do that. In other words, dual expats’ ability to communicate directly with others across linguistic and cultural boundaries allowed tacit knowledge to become more explicit within the organization.18 They realized that sharing information or best practices with peers in other subsidiary locations could be advantageous to their own markets. Often initially encouraged by headquarters, colleagues in similar functions around the globe would come together on their own to harness the knowledge resources that the broader company

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offered. Subsidiaries that faced similar challenges and opportunities shared common experiences that other, dissimilar subsidiaries or headquarters might not find relevant. A Thai informant discussing the implications of the rapidly expanding Internet business in his country pointed this out: “Learning from other countries, especially other developing countries, is very, very key. So that means I have to learn English to communicate.” Implicit in his comment is that issues the Thai subsidiary faced might not necessarily align with those of the more developed American or French markets. Similarly, more advanced markets or more mature subsidiary companies such as those in the United States might not find it as relevant to initiate interactions with less developed sister companies. In Germany, for example, informants reported frequent contact with the subsidiary in neighboring France. With a similar time zone and a shared Western European local market base, it was relatively easy for France and Germany to initiate frequent engagements. As a German linguistic-cultural expat said, “With the colleagues in Europe, there’s more of a knowledge exchange.” He elaborated on how these self-initiated interactions were often beneficial: Our team talks with people in France at least once a month. Sometimes you are just asking how business is going, or if you want to [get] advice regarding a specific topic . . . for example, the [another subsidiary] requested some telephone conferences because they have to shift their business model completely from the first-party sales model that they have at the moment to a third-party sales. Dual expats’ more frequent interaction across subsidiaries was an important indicator of their global work orientation. Unlike the cultural expats in the U.S. subsidiaries who believed, at first, that their superior language knowledge itself was sufficient for their jobs, or the linguistic expats in Tokyo who at first struggled with learning English, dual expats actively sought more global interactions and reaped the benefits of this added contact. In addition to this blossoming of cross-subsidiary interactions, subsidiaries had become accustomed to interactions with Tokyo headquarters from their time of acquisition. After the mandate, the

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frequency of these interactions was unequivocal; 74 percent of dual expats reported regular interactions with their headquarters-based colleagues. Headquarters’ policy of setting organizational priorities and monitoring each subsidiary’s performance helped ensure frequent interactions, particularly in cases where the subsidiary had significant room to transform (i.e., mature). For example, dual expats in Brazil (97 percent) and from the Asian subsidiaries of Taiwan, Thailand, and Indonesia (86 percent), all of whom were eager to mature, were significantly more likely to report interactions with headquarters than their French and German counterparts (63 percent), who were farther along in maturation. A Taiwanese marketing manager discussed his frequent contact with Tokyo as they guided him during the post-implementation phase of a new customer relationship management (CRM) system: We are just learning this system and only have the handbook, so I am in constant contact with them because I want to know how they use it. . . . We didn’t know how, why, all the details. I want to know more of the details, since they have a team to manage the system and in Taiwan, we don’t have anyone to manage it. While contact between Tokyo and Taiwan was initiated by headquarters, the subsidiary informant was quick to realize the potential benefit of his headquarters colleagues’ knowledge about the new CRM technology. Rather than trudging through another routine interaction with headquarters, he became motivated to take advantage of an opportunity to learn “all the details” and later utilize them for his own benefit. Once these subsidiary-Tokyo interactions were under way, dual expats’ eyes opened to the inherent new opportunities and advantages that were available globally. Rising above Resistance to Cultural Change

Unlike the Japanese linguistic expats who aligned with Hofstede’s notion of Japan as a collectivistic culture, or the American cultural expats who aligned with his notion of the United States as an individualistic culture, dual expats were from a mix of individualistic

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(France, Germany) and collectivistic (Brazil, Indonesia, Thailand, Taiwan) cultures. Yet they were all emblematic of a global work orientation that encompassed collectivistic tendencies. While this is perhaps unsurprising within the context of the collectivistic cultures of Brazil, Indonesia, Thailand, and Taiwan, dual expats from traditionally individualistic societies such as France and Germany would conceivably be more averse to closely linking with the global organization and resist being motivated by its values, norms, and goals. My research does not contradict Hofstede’s characterization of France and Germany as individualistic societies; however, my findings clearly show that in spite of this distinction, dual expats exhibited an open disposition toward collaboration across national borders, as well as strong ties and shared values with other international offices. This discrepancy likely lies in the French and German expats’ ability to accommodate a foreign culture as embraced by Rakuten headquarters in Japan and throughout a majority of Rakuten’s countries of operation around the globe—Brazil, Indonesia, Thailand, and Taiwan—a culture that happened to be collectivistic. Rather than maintain a native, nationalistic culture focused on the individual, the dual expats took on a superordinate identity in their professional lives and therefore did not experience identity threat. Within Rakuten’s global organization, dual expats from France and Germany transcended their traditionally individualistic home office cultures and stood at odds with traditional dimensions postulated by Hofstede. Despite their subordinate position to Japanese headquarters and a subordinate position linguistically in terms of the English language mandate, dual expats did not experience the “identity threat” of their cultural expat and linguistic expat colleagues. Although dual expats, including those from the individualistic cultures of France and Germany, had two feet in non-native waters, they were able to rise above the perceived need to protect their own native culture or resist Rakuten’s global organization, inclusive of its culture, values, and cross-border collaboration. This likely allowed the dual expats, regardless of their native cultures’ tendency toward individualism or collectivism, to take on a global work orientation.

6 Five Years Post-Mandate

The lingua franca mandate at Rakuten was a radical move intended to facilitate several ambitious and interrelated goals. Global expansion and knowledge sharing across geographic borders were top priorities. Although not emphasized at the outset, Englishnization would allow the company to tap a larger, worldwide talent pool for potential employees than it had done pre-mandate. Mikitani held steady his ambition for Rakuten to serve as a test bed and a motivator, one that would show Japanese society that learning English was feasible, even for those with limited proficiency at the outset, and that it was a skill necessary for Japan to compete economically on the world stage. He was aware of the prying eye of the world press that covered Englishnization with varying levels of skepticism and pragmatism. To many, his sweeping vision for globalization with language as a key mechanism extended to all of Japan seemed impossibly ambitious and unwarranted. Previous chapters have discussed how the lingua franca affects individuals and groups, but I turn now to examine the impact of the lingua franca five years post-mandate across key areas for the organization. It bears repeating that the mandate’s most measurable

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goal—for employees to demonstrate base English language proficiency requirements or risk demotion, an initiative that was initially greeted with shock, fear, and resistance by the linguistic expats— was met by 90 percent of the Japanese workforce in a little over two years. Those employees who did suffer demotions as a consequence of failing to meet language goals were offered a six-month grace period to improve their scores. Given this success, to what extent did Englishnization at Rakuten facilitate each of its interrelated organizational goals, including global expansion, global integration, global talent, and global knowledge sharing? What were the unintended consequences? Did the mandate become a motivator to the nation as Mikitani had hoped and predicted? Global Expansion

Recall that from the very beginning of the mandate, Mikitani had announced Rakuten’s ambitious aspirations to deploy operations in foreign countries and significantly raise the overseas portion of the company revenue. He emphasized the United States as an important market for e-commerce global growth strategy. Indeed, five years prior to Englishnization, Rakuten had begun its modest foray into foreign markets, with entry into the United States, Taiwan, and Thailand.1 Following Englishnization in 2010, the company began to rapidly and aggressively acquire, enter into joint ventures, or launch greenfield entities in Brazil, Canada, Cyprus, France, Germany, Indonesia, Singapore, Spain, the United Kingdom, and additional locations within the United States.2 As of this writing, Rakuten has made over $3.3 billion (US) worth of disclosed acquisitions (and still ongoing) as well as much more in undisclosed acquisitions. Supported by growing English fluency among the employees and an understanding that Rakuten as an organization deploys a lingua franca, the expansions reflect a diversity of initiatives across these geographically distributed markets and set up similar e-commerce platforms, e-books, digital publishing, entertainment media, financial services, insurance, online travel, fashion, mobile phone services, mobile advertising, affiliate

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marketing, online rebates, video chat and voice call services, and webbased logistics, among others.3 During this time period, Rakuten also established regional development centers to focus on innovation and operations outside of Japan. In 2010, the first research and development center was established in New York to focus on advanced Internet technologies,4 followed by the San Francisco Agile Development Center in 2011, which was aimed at supporting global services.5 Centers in India and Paris were formed in 2014.6 The next year, additional centers were established in Boston, Estonia, Ukraine, Singapore, and Tel Aviv.7 In keeping with Mikitani’s focus on the U.S. e-commerce market, Rakuten established a campus in the heart of Silicon Valley, California. Rakuten also made several financial investments in early stage start-up technology companies in China, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Malaysia. These investments focused primarily on e-commerce, social media, peer-to-peer ridesharing, online rebates, online payment platforms, and even the airline industry. Two of Rakuten’s high-profile transactions were its $100 million investment in the social media site Pinterest in 20128 and its $300 million investment in the ridesharing service Lyft in 2015.9 Had Rakuten not embraced Englishnization, it is unclear whether the scope and speed of these expansions would have been possible. Yet, however accomplished Rakuten’s growth and expansions, it is likely that doing so without a fully-fledged lingua franca program— that enabled disparate expat populations to communicate and that furthered the ensuing transport of the Rakuten way—would have kept it from becoming a global company. Global Integration

Bringing new entities into a parent company effectively is always a challenge and a concern for the leaders of global organizations; Mikitani was no exception. He credits the Englishnization initiative for markedly shrinking the duration of post-merger integration, defined as the extent to which the operations of the acquiring and acquired

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firms materialize in the effective use of existing capabilities10 by combining procedural, physical, and sociocultural elements of separate entities.11 According to Mikitani, English as a lingua franca facilitated the complex pragmatic and psychological work of absorbing companies into the Rakuten portfolio. To start, Mikitani believed that a lingua franca ensured that acquired companies did not feel alienated during the absorption process. In his words: Post-merger integrations are much smoother [post-mandate]. And of course, selling the company is a very difficult decision. Because you’re not just selling your house and getting out of it. You’re basically selling your organization, which needs to be absorbed by the company who is acquiring you . . . and we need to basically synchronize. Therefore, making sure acquired companies don’t feel alienated after the acquisition is very, very important and our language strategy has been a huge advantage for us in this area. A lingua franca enabled all parties to communicate with one another around differences, concerns, and goals to minimize misunderstandings and miscommunications; ultimately, it facilitated the coordination and collaboration necessary for synchronization. Once synchronization was in play, Rakuten was able to increase its capacity to deploy a broad range of employees, from other markets as well as Japan. During the course of my study, I closely followed Rakuten’s acquisition of Kobo, the Toronto-based e-reader manufacturer, in order to capture the lingua franca’s role in the integration process. As soon as the deal that granted Rakuten full ownership of Kobo was struck, a group of Rakuten’s Japanese business operation consultants and engineers traveled to Toronto. The internal consultants were accustomed to taking on integration assignments. What was particularly distinctive about this integration process was that for the first time, highly seasoned Japanese engineers, because they possessed adequate English skills, could participate in the technology assessment and integration process outside of Japan. As one of the senior consultants explained at the time:

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We are joined by seven engineers who have been studying English for two years to help with the rapid platform integration with our technology in Japan. And if we did not do this Englishnization, we would have had a lot more difficulty. But we now have a sufficient number of engineers who can speak English, so we are able to send many people to be efficient in foreign countries. This view was widely shared among Rakuten leaders, who attested to the fact that the increased mobility of those with know-how and their ability to share knowledge across borders had not been possible prior to the sweeping English conversion at the company. Within a short eight months, Kobo made its debut in Japan as a digital book platform, albeit fraught with the common technical challenges inherent in technology deployments. This aggressive move, made possible by Englishnization, was viewed as necessary to fend off competitors who were inching toward the Japanese e-book market. In addition to effectively folding newcomers into Rakuten’s portfolio, Mikitani occasionally promoted executives from newly acquired entities into senior roles within the parent company. Doing so had a reciprocal effect that included both bringing in an expanded global perspective for the company at large while also expanding the career trajectory for the executives from the newly acquired companies. The latter was motivating for the individual who had ascended in the larger organization as well as for the members of the acquired firm. Mikitani explained his rationale as follows: We promote many executives of the companies we acquire to the senior level of our corporate organization. So they become what we call senior executive officers of the parent company and the fact that they now have sort of a global career path will motivate not only the senior executives but also the entire organization that we’ve acquired. Executives from newly acquired companies were able to share longstanding institutional knowledge or other useful, outside per-

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spectives. And promoting them within the parent company widened the scope of their job roles to encompass a more global context. Global Talent

Although Mikitani did not necessarily emphasize changes in hiring practices in his weekly address to his workforce, he did express the aspiration that Englishnization would allow Rakuten to access a deeper talent pool for job placements across the company as part of the process to further its competitive standing in the global economy. The expectation and the eventual manifestation was that people from all corners of the world would be hired so long as they could communicate at least adequately in the lingua franca. Within a year of Englishnization, a non-Japanese executive who only spoke English was named the head of a highly visible 1,000-person engineering group in Japan. Within five years of Englishnization, 81 percent of new engineers, representing 45 nationalities, had joined the headquarters. This was a positive development for Mikitani and in line with his vision: There are so many people who are interested in working in Asian countries or Asian companies. And definitely Japan has an advantage because it’s very safe, it has a very international culture and, you know, the food is good. And it’s a very interesting place to live, less polluted than some other countries, but until we launched our Englishnization it was difficult for very talented engineers to find interesting opportunities in Japan. But now they can find Rakuten, so now we’ve got so much interest from very, very talented engineers around the world. We are seeing massive change of this society because of this intelligence. Therefore Rakuten needs to evolve and we need to hire the best and brightest from all over the world. Because of Englishnization we have been able to hire engineers from Facebook, Google, . . . etc. The following example from the head of the engineering department provides a sense of the ease with which a post-mandate

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Rakuten was able to recruit talent around the globe: “I found a great French programmer living in Bangkok who was just right for a job I had. I immediately contacted our Thailand site to interview him locally.” And he underscores Mikitani’s statement that Englishnization is key to hiring international candidates: “This definitely wouldn’t be possible if Rakuten wasn’t pushing Englishnization for all groups that they acquire or grow.” In the five years of my study, Rakuten experienced a 60 percent increase in its workforce. For Mikitani, it was a question of supply and demand: In Japan, there are only about 20,000 university students in one graduating class who are majoring in computer science. In the U.S., that number is approximately 360,000 . . . in China maybe 1 million, something like two million graduates in India. Do you want to choose your engineers from a very small talent pool or do you want to go after the millions? The answer is very, very obvious! It would be understandable if Rakuten’s Japanese employees felt their value to the company threatened by the sudden plethora of new talent imported from elsewhere in the world. But rather than usurping the positions held by existing employees, Mikitani maintains that the additional 6,000 workers were necessary to expand the company’s scope. “We cannot hire enough Japanese engineers,” he says. “It’s not debatable. Accessing engineers from all over the world is necessary.” He reports that now, for example, the search teams on all the big data teams are not Japanese. I personally witnessed the change in the makeup of Rakuten’s human capital during the five years post-mandate. I walked through the department workspaces and the cafeteria pre- and postEnglishnization and found the contrast visually striking. What was once mostly an ethnically Japanese workforce is now much more demographically heterogeneous; employees’ physical features and skin colors reflect a correspondingly wide range of origins. However, instead of a conflicting cacophony of languages typically associated with such diversity, everyone is speaking English to one another.

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Global Knowledge Sharing

Since the company’s founding days, Mikitani had a deliberate strategy to foster the exchange of knowledge across various functions and business units. He believed that knowledge sharing played a vital part in the growth and success of the company’s domestic operations: “We grew in Japan very fast and have held the number one position domestically in the majority of our businesses because we always encouraged people to share their expertise across groups.” However, the absence of a shared language that could transport information to people outside of Japan and vice versa became a barrier. The result was that the knowledge developed within the Japanese headquarters—and any potential knowledge generated in the subsidiaries that would be helpful to others in the company—was trapped at its point of origin. As Mikitani lamented, Language was a wall. I just couldn’t mix people from our global operations. I knew that all the groups needed to leverage knowledge that was within the groups, but there was this wall . . . I even found myself translating from the head of one subsidiary to the head of another. Of course, that’s not sustainable. I also wanted our staff-level employees to learn from each other. Otherwise, people will be reinventing the wheel over and over again. The linguistic barrier separating different parts of the company was a constant source of frustration for many employees besides Mikitani. A software engineer in Indonesia, for example, commented that language barriers made him unable to gain knowledge from employees in other parts of the world who had more experience in advanced markets: “I know that I struggle with many things that other people in the company have been doing for much longer, but it is not easy to know how to get help from other people.” Once a sufficient number of people in Japan possessed working English skills, cross-border interactions could be actively promoted. For example, global functional meetings were now held remotely and required the attendance of colleagues in similar functions (e.g., marketing, engineering, IT) who worked in different locations. The

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agenda for these sessions varied; there might be a round-robin update on activities taking place in each locale, or participants might raise pressing issues and discuss possible solutions. A Taiwanese marketing manager described his weekly marketing meetings this way: You can see all the marketing people across ten countries. I tell everyone it’s a good chance to learn something from the different countries because usually we run the business locally. We never think about it globally. Otherwise, how do we know someone did something well in France, Japan, Thailand, or other countries? For example, last time France shared what they did for a big, daylong client convention, and we usually have a similar big campaign here. Learning practical details about France’s convention gave the manager a slew of ideas that he used for his own event later that year. The global functional meetings, arranged and insisted upon by company leaders, served as an important vehicle to help employees in different countries exchange insights in a formal setting. A German consultant found that the weekly videoconferences with his counterparts in other subsidiaries ended the isolation he had previously felt. By communicating with his peers about the ways they overcame challenges, he quickly learned several tactics for using proprietary technology to address a customer problem he had been struggling to solve. Similarly, an Indonesian engineer had questions about his work on search engine optimization and how to improve a website’s visibility in search results. He looked forward to his meetings with more experienced Japanese engineers, which accelerated his development work: “We’re still in baby stages. No one here knows enough about search engine optimization. That’s why I need to connect with this guy who takes care of this at headquarters.” Rather than struggling on his own, he took advantage of the opportunities to communicate with his peers and obtain the organizational knowledge now at his disposal. Top executives from various subsidiaries also benefited from mutual exchanges made newly possible by sharing a lingua franca. The executives almost universally lauded Englishnization as allow-

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ing greater integration across subsidiaries in knowledge and personnel, while expanding their reach into global markets and local expertise. A European-based executive expressed her excitement: “Englishnization has torn down the walls of communication. My clients aren’t only getting the benefit of insights hard fought from England; they’re gaining the benefit of global knowledge, which is now at my fingertips.” Another executive explained the practical impact of this knowledge sharing that influenced new additions in respective locales: “We have enjoyed great success with our online TV show BuyTV and video segments for the last five years. It has helped manufacturers clearly and easily explain their new technologies online, helping us achieve our goal of delivering an in-store experience online and increasing conversion rates. From our learnings, recently Rakuten launched SuperTV on Ichiba [e-commerce platform]. On the flip side, we are now incorporating many Rakuten Ichiba best practices including Seller Storefronts at Buy.com.” In another practice, headquarters began hosting conferences periodically throughout the year to facilitate interaction among global employees who might not otherwise interact. Managers and other personnel were required to attend, and standardized training was often part of the formal agenda. Experts from headquarters or the subsidiaries were called upon to share their insights during these sessions. A marketing manager in France discussed his experience: I had the opportunity to attend a training class in Japan for a week at the beginning of the year. . . . It’s a training class they have for managers worldwide; they do two or three sessions a year and try to gather forty-odd managers from worldwide offices to explain the Japanese business model and share best practices between international offices. . . . We went over the business culture and also the company’s best practices and case studies, so we can cascade the information down to our teams internationally . . . [and] I had the opportunity to speak English every day. These remarks point to a secondary benefit of these conferences: the opportunity to practice English with additional and more advanced speakers on a regular basis, which is necessary to improve fluency.

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Rakuten also implemented standardized communication platforms—an intranet and a social media network—for internal communication among global employees. The intranet, formerly in Japanese only, was translated into English in its entirety before it was pushed out to all the country sites. The social media platform, designed as an interactive tool for communication and information exchange, was also launched in English. The intranet and social media platforms provided a centralized and systematic means for all global employees to read important company information, share documents, access common tools, and collaborate, regardless of their location or fluency with the lingua franca. Within two years, the formal communication activities had succeeded in bridging the gap that had previously separated global employees. Employees worldwide became increasingly proficient in and accustomed to using English. Aforementioned activities such as global functional meetings, combined with periodic and regular cyber communications, helped gradually open employees’ eyes to the organization’s knowledge resources worldwide. A bottom-up, grassroots desire for even more opportunities to engage began to emerge. A French executive, for example, yearned for follow-up to the global functional meetings: Everybody can speak English and we can share. . . . But we don’t have that many opportunities because it’s always in a global meeting with all the nationalities. And so someone is presenting an interesting business case in front of his webcam, and we don’t have enough room for the Q&A part. Ultimately, staff began to seize opportunities to communicate. An Indonesian marketing manager explained how she began engaging distant colleagues after formal meetings: Usually after this global meeting . . . I have a different, short meeting. For example, I see that Japan has this success story, but it might not work so well if directly implemented in Indonesia. So I ask them, “What do you think if we did this?” So we will discuss

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things like that, not in the [global functional meetings], but usually after that. Through follow-up interactions that included seeking informal opinions the Indonesian manager was able to dig deeper into the issues and determine if a given practice was applicable to her specific market. Employees across the country sites noted similar opportunities. They took interest in other country sites’ success stories, learning about, for example, effective sales and marketing promotions, productive annual vendor conferences in France, the creation and piloting of a new analytical report in Germany comparing consumer shopping statistics internationally, and an effort by the UK office to provide data services to its global peers cheaply and efficiently. These types of conversations, solicited during exchanges, moved across the organization. Furthermore, the information exchange activities created meaningful connections among employees, which they could then build and deepen into mutually beneficial professional relationships. Following a headquarters-hosted conference, a German product development specialist explained this relationship-building process and how new contacts could later be harnessed in additional engagements: One of the most useful experiences was not only the exchanges with staff in Tokyo itself, but also [those with] people from all around the world: from the U.S., Britain, France, Brazil, Taiwan, Thailand, and so on . . . I think we made very good connections there. I’m still participating and benefiting from that. . . . When I have a question, I know who to call and it’s always like, yeah, we met before personally. There’s always a very strong feeling of connection from the very beginning. I could pick up the phone, say, “Hey, hi. How are you doing? Oh, you remember me from Tokyo?” The formal encounters served as a foundation on which informal communication could emerge when a need arose. By knowing who at another site might be knowledgeable about a given topic, the

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German product developer felt that valuable resources were just a phone call away. The face-to-face and technology-aided communications worked together synergistically. For example, the company’s internal social media platform allowed people to post examples of their work online that they later discussed offline with foreign colleagues whose interest had been piqued. People often sought tips and ideas from individuals or groups with similar responsibilities. A U.S. employee described the abundance of opportunities that arose out of the social media platform: You get to know the person, and you write a comment, a tweet. Then you can follow what they are saying. It kind of helps nurture communication across different teams. . . . You can make it formal, informal. . . . You can set up more global meetings so that you get to know what’s being cooked in France, the United States, Japan—and have a more frequent exchange of ideas. The interactions could originate online and transition offline, or vice versa. Conversations covered both pressing work questions— concerning legal regulations, advertising, IT development, or who to reach out to in an unfamiliar country site—and non-work matters, such as international news, local issues, natural disasters, family vacations, or sporting events. Unintended Consequences: Displacing Bilinguals

As I noted in the introduction, in addition to the three employee categories, a fourth, smaller employee group existed: the bilinguals. Fluent in Japanese and English, most of these employees reacted to the mandate with their own particular feelings of dread. Their fears were well-founded, for the adoption of a lingua franca had the unanticipated effect of displacing bilinguals who had previously served as key brokers in cross-border communication. In the pre-mandate era, bilinguals played a vital role at Rakuten, especially when the demand for professional translators outpaced the supply. Bilingual employees, who held regular positions in

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engineering, marketing, and human resources, also served as intermediaries between colleagues at their local sites who spoke one language and colleagues at another site who spoke a different language. When a Japanese manager wanted to communicate with an American counterpart, for example, he would have to find a bilingual colleague to compose an e-mail in English before sending it to the American. When the response came back, he would have to again find a bilingual colleague to translate the contents of the message. Yet bilinguals were scarce at the company. As a result, they were perceived as valuable and necessary. Proud of their unique niche, they enjoyed the occasional invitation to join meetings with executives to serve as a translator, or a trip to Europe to evaluate a potential site for expansion. Some had moved to Japan out of a love for the language, culture, and lifestyle. However, from an administrative perspective, the bilinguals, although necessary, were often, inadvertently, bottlenecks to efficient communication. After the lingua franca mandate, the demand for bilinguals began to drop. People were increasingly capable of communicating directly with each other in English. As a result, the demand for bilinguals to serve as communication brokers reduced dramatically. A bilingual Japanese employee described the shift as follows: A lot of communications that used to go through me or my team, and then to the [subsidiary] members, now goes directly from the finance team in Japan to the finance people here [in the United States]. I was sent all the e-mails before, but now I’m just cc’d. I won’t have to connect people anymore. That is something that really changed for me. Within eighteen months of the lingua franca mandate, the need for bilinguals to facilitate communication across global boundaries had largely disappeared. The changes meant that the bilinguals at Rakuten no longer had the same privileged access to people and information across the organization. Many bilinguals described a loss in their status. One employee stationed in Thailand explained the drastic change in his function as the go-between: “I’ve always taken on the liaison role

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with Japan. They would send me instructions or questions in Japanese. I would have to translate that and then send it off to the appropriate people. Now that’s 80 percent gone.” The vast majority of bilinguals commented similarly on the degree to which their work activities, access to information and people, and overall influence shrank company wide. Some became discontented enough to leave Rakuten. As one explained: The reason I joined a Japanese company, for heaven’s sake, was to be in a Japanese atmosphere, speak Japanese, and not to feel penalized for doing do. If I wanted to speak English all the time, I would not have gone there in the first place . . . I used to be unique there. . . . I was on the first team sent to Europe to explore the European market because I could speak both languages [ Japanese and English]. I stopped getting these invitations. I hated it! Another bilingual employee lamented the years and thousands of dollars that he had invested to learn and work in Japanese. The lingua franca and formal communication activities ended his desire and opportunity to speak Japanese full time. While not all bilinguals decided to leave the organization, there was a nearly universal and radical decrease in their role as conduits of communication. This, in turn, led to associated feelings of status diminution. Although bilinguals suffered personally as a result of the rise of English skills across the organization, most of the other employees at Rakuten heralded the reduced role of language brokers and welcomed the opportunity for direct communication. Language beyond the Organization

Mikitani had always envisioned Englishnization not only as a core element to Rakuten’s ability to become more competitive globally but also as important for the country as a whole. Accordingly, as mentioned in the beginning of this chapter, Englishnization within the organization was to serve as a test bed and a motivator for those entities that lay beyond its walls. As Mikitani asserted, “From the very beginning, I have always believed that empowering Japan and

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restoring it to its former glory are two of Rakuten’s most important missions. If Rakuten is to fulfill these missions, we must foster the vitality needed to accelerate the global expansion of Japanese businesses and revitalize Japan.”12 In 2012, two and a half years after the Englishnization mandate had taken effect at Rakuten, the need for Japanese businesses to expand globally was becoming urgent and timely. Declining exports, increasing conflict with China, and reconstruction costs associated with the tsunami and subsequent nuclear disasters earlier in the year had pushed the country into a recession. The lack of global competitiveness in Japanese businesses had been dubbed the “Galapagos Syndrome” as early as 2009.13 Inspired by Charles Darwin’s groundbreaking study of flora found solely in the Galapagos Islands, which posited that highly complex systems, allowed to develop in isolation in a singular environment, make survival in other geographies impossible, Galapagos Syndrome was first used in reference to Japanese cell phones, which were deemed too complex to operate outside of the country, in part because they could not interface with outside networks. This insular focus toward research and development limited the global growth of the Japanese cell phone industry as well as businesses in other sectors.14 And now the economy was in crisis. In November 2012, when Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was reelected, the incoming government was faced with the difficult task of revitalizing the economy.15 Often called “Abenomics,” Prime Minister Abe’s “three-arrow” approach to stimulate the Japanese economy included initiatives relating to “fiscal expansion, monetary easing, and structural reform.”16 While the fiscal and monetary reforms, though significantly risky and challenging, involved the implementation of clear-cut fiscal policy, the “third arrow” relating to structural changes that would make Japanese business more competitive globally was a much more complex initiative to both define and implement. This third arrow aligned with Mikitani’s vision. Rakuten’s advancement with Englishnization, as well as its corresponding global expansions, positioned Mikitani as a business leader with relevant skills and experience. He had met Prime Minister Abe

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shortly before the election, and now, along with other Japanese business leaders, he was increasingly sought for advice. When the prime minister established the Industrial Competitiveness Council in January 2013, he appointed Mikitani as one of its advisors.17 The Industrial Competitiveness Council was established specifically to propose strategies for Abe’s “third arrow” and focused on how to restructure Japanese businesses in order to make them more competitive globally.18 Now Rakuten’s success and Mikitani’s influence proved to be motivating factors spurring Prime Minister Abe to recognize the ability to communicate in English as essential for successful globalization.19 In 2009, data from the ETS had showed Japan as ranking second worst in English proficiency levels among thirty Asian countries.20 Recall that all Japanese Rakuten employees, whether or not their job required interaction with non-Japanese employees, were required to achieve adequate proficiency in the lingua franca. Not only was this a practical decision (employees would be less likely to lapse into Japanese if all work communications were conducted in English), but Mikitani saw learning English as an opportunity for every employee. More people who knew English meant that fewer were stuck in the insular thinking of a Galapagos Syndrome. Prime Minister Abe and the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) made the decision to devote significant resources to a new program of English education reform. The prime minister called on an Expert Panel on English Education within Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) to develop a set of recommendations for English education reform. Published as a plan, with implementation scheduled during 2014–20 (in time for the Tokyo Olympics), the reform recommendations are briefly summarized below:21 1. English lessons to begin at grade 3 (moved down from grade 5). The government to set goals and proficiency targets for listening, speaking, reading, and writing at every grade level.22 2. Improved teaching and evaluation techniques to help increase student motivation for learning English and increase student exposure to opportunities to speak English.

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3. Improved assessment of English proficiency at high school and university entrance exams. Instead of one comprehensive test at the end of the year, more focused tests to be given intermittently throughout the year.23 4. Improvement in the educational textbooks and resources. 5. Broader improvements to the educational system for English learning, including the provision of specialist teachers, teacher training and certification, and increased collaboration between teaching teams across educational levels. In addition to these recommendations, as urged by Mikitani, Prime Minister Abe and the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) proposed to set minimum TOEFL scores for university entrance and graduation.24 The idea behind this proposal was that by raising the bar for students, the skills of the entire country would also begin to improve. Mikitani had seen close up how challenging it was for Rakuten’s Japanese employees to learn English as adults. Ideally and ultimately, these new education standards would help ensure that Japanese nationals would have less difficulty using English at work than had the current linguistic expats at Rakuten. Other planned initiatives to encourage globalization through education included increasing the number of International Baccalaureate (IB) programs offered to students and increasing the number of universities that would accept the IB diploma as a qualification for acceptance. They also proposed a new Japanese Dual Language IB Diploma Program ( Japanese DP) in which some subjects would be taught in Japanese.25 In conjunction with these initiatives, Prime Minister Abe proposed requiring all new government workers to achieve a higher level of English proficiency. While English proficiency testing had been a part of the selection process for government positions for several years, the new measures proposed that candidates must achieve a minimum TOEFL score in order to be considered for a position.26 Mikitani’s Englishnization mandate, once decried as outrageous in the national press and shockingly radical among his own employees, was beginning to sound closer to the norm.

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The outcomes and effects of Englishnization across and beyond the organization and as examined in this chapter suggest that the mandate has been effective across several dimensions. Despite initial employee fear of demotions due to failed proficiency and the linguistic expats’ doubts as to their ability, the English learning goals were met by nearly all of the workforce within a reasonable time period. Rakuten’s substantial global expansion was accelerated and integrated in part because the new lingua franca enabled knowledge sharing across linguistic, cultural, and national borders. Finally, Rakuten’s progress served as a test bed for Englishnization as a means to expand Japan’s globalization and motivated national policy changes in language education when Mikitani became involved as an advisor to Prime Minister Abe in implementing economic reforms. Although some of the challenges faced by Rakuten and the methods used to implement a lingua franca as a necessary mechanism for expanded globalization are unique to that particular company, the underlying issues between culture and language that Englishnization brings to light provide valuable insights for scholars and are germane to practitioners. The next chapter focuses on ways top leaders, managers, and employees can mitigate the challenges that cross-border collaborations present when communications are expected to be conducted in the lingua franca.

7 Lessons for Top Leaders, Managers, and Employees Adopting a single language requires a deep and committed effort on the part of top organizational leaders, managers, and employees.1 Leaders have to determine if a common language is appropriate for their companies, communicate their vision clearly, and offer abundant training in the area of language acquisition, as well as in the realm of enforcement and leadership for managers. For their part, managers need to understand the hurdles employees will face in learning and using the common language in their work. Potential difficulties are many—from the substantial time investment it takes for practice to the confusion that may arise when learning a new language exposes existing and new cultural elements. Finally, employees at all levels have an important role to play for a new language to take hold in the organization. For top leaders, managers, and employees alike, embracing cultural awareness is tied to the successful, long-term adoption of the lingua franca. In this chapter, I will draw on lessons from this study and my research on the topic of language and globalization more broadly to elaborate on these key points.

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Top Leaders: Choosing a Language Strategy

To determine whether or not a language strategy is appropriate for the organization, top leaders have to consider a number of factors: 1. Is language important for the critical tasks or the basic work that the organization must do well2 in order to create distinctive value for stakeholders?3 2. Is the organization serving customers globally? To access global markets—and build accessible global brands—dispersed workers must be able to engage with external international partners and customers effectively. A common language makes it easier to synchronize services. 3. Is the organization expanding globally? A common language helps accelerate the integration of new entities from different regions by helping achieve efficiency in migrating onto common platforms, sharing resources, strengthening internal communication, and fostering cohesion in the newly formed organization. 4. Do members of the organization need to collaborate across borders? Globally dispersed workers who have interdependent roles internal to the organization need a shared language in order to communicate effectively, whether they need to exchange knowledge or collaborate on joint projects. 5. Does the organization need to standardize technology platforms? Enterprise software in an organization with global operations can proliferate into many disjointed tools that obstruct a clear view into operations, financials, customer insights, and employee data. Full standardization across platforms, built on a common language, can solve that problem. Every organization has its unique concerns, but depending on the scope, scale, and urgency of these factors, a common-language strategy may be appropriate. If and when leaders decide to adopt a common language, their considerations include whether they will take on a wholesale si-

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multaneous implementation (as Hiroshi Mikitani did) or one that is sequential. That decision, too, depends on circumstances and priorities. A simultaneous implementation across units and regions— adopted by Rakuten, as well as by the German software company SAP and the Chinese company Lenovo, to name a few—requires a larger-scale effort up front to obtain resources, gain buy-in, and create a clear road map for adoption. However, this approach can prevent linguistically advantaged versus disadvantaged subgroups from forming. And it can improve collaborations and reduce language barriers more rapidly than can a sequential rollout. Importantly, the organization can begin the long journey of unifying the workforce through a standard language like English. Alternatively, shoring up language skills sequentially, in one part of the company at a time, is a second option. Although it can delay widespread benefits, a sequential approach allows leaders to identify best practices for a broader implementation and revise tactics over time. For instance, it may be fruitful to focus initially on people who work across borders, or on senior managers and high-potential employees, who are often early adopters of new languages.4 PROMOTING LANGUAGE ADOPTION

Rakuten’s practices to encourage buy-in and sustain employees’ belief in their capacity to acquire English provide many examples of promoting a lingua franca. In particular, three specific tactics can help people feel more confident and motivated: (1) continual messaging, (2) internal marketing, and (3) branding the organization as global. Leaders need to make a persuasive case for why a common language matters to employees and the organization. Think back to Mikitani’s relentless sell of the English- only policy for two years during his weekly messaging. Employees need to understand that the company’s global successes depend on adopting a lingua franca. Messages should stress the importance of globalization in achieving the company’s mission and strategy, while also demonstrating how language supports those efforts. Recall Mikitani’s strong push to

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frame the English language as a means to achieve a global agenda that could disseminate the firm’s values, such as omotenashi, across markets, and how that message motivated employees. Mikitani repeatedly assured his entire workforce that he would do everything in his power to help every employee meet his or her English-proficiency goals. He made it clear that he believed that with effort, everyone could adequately learn the language of business and that he did not want to see anyone leave the company because of the English-only policy. The firm also held monthly, company-wide meetings to discuss Englishnization. Another smart move leaders can make is to engage in internal marketing and publicity. Because a language transformation is a multiyear process, and its complexity can far exceed that of most other change efforts, it is crucial to maintain employee buy-in over time in a number of ways. At Rakuten, employee success stories, regularly featured on the English intranet and newsletters, emphasized best practices for increasing language competence. Outside experts also addressed the entire organization on the virtues of rapidly standardizing the language used for internal communication. Finally, top leaders should brand the organization as a global one and encourage people within it to self-identify as global, rather than local, employees. Such identification speaks to the heart of the ideal expat perspective as exhibited by the dual expats, which is flexible and nimble enough to reject geographical and cultural lines that stand in the way of global unity. Indeed, it is difficult to develop a global identity with limited exposure to an international market. Rakuten tackled this challenge by instituting an internal social media site to promote cross-national interactions and to serve as a window where global connections could form and flourish. Employees used the site to actively and newly engage with colleagues worldwide. ON-THE-JOB TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT

Offering employees opportunities to gain experience with language is crucial. Whether it is classroom education, e-learning, tutoring,

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employment, or living abroad, experience tends to give people the skills and confidence they need to succeed in using a new language. Providing opportunities, such as overseas language training and job rotations, opens new doors and allows employees to stretch their skills. Rakuten has sent employees to English-speaking countries like the United Kingdom and the United States for full language immersion training. Other employees have attended weeks-long language training programs in the Philippines. Although not easily scalable to 7,100 Japanese employees, the programs successfully produced a substantial number of individuals with functional English skills. Paying for language training is also crucial. By providing allexpenses-paid courses, the organization signals that language proficiency is a company priority. And if the training is framed as an investment in employees’ marketable skills, people are more likely to match that with their own investment of time, energy, and determination. In one language change I have studied, when a U.S. company acquired an entity in Peru, they paid for language development that included language instructors who were embedded in the organization full time to coach employees daily. This is distinct from language instructors holding a few sessions per week. Relatedly, companies need to make sure they contract with language vendors who are intimately familiar with the context of the company so that instructors can appropriately guide employees’ learning—for example, how best to allocate time for skills improvement or what strategies to use for composing e-mails in English. Employees are seldom asked to learn to use new software or complete other essential training on their own time, and learning a required language needs to be treated similarly. At some companies, language learning is considered an essential part of people’s jobs. Rakuten similarly considered language development to be part of every job and granted people time during the workday to devote to their training. Some employees studied English during the entire morning period before turning their attention to other work after lunch. Scheduling the training during the workday, and providing an accessible location on site, further demonstrates corporate investment in the program and emphasizes it as a strategic priority.

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Coursework was customized to incorporate employees’ goals, including their personal wants and needs for language development, and class time was devoted weekly to areas that students desired more practice in. For example, in the Peruvian subsidiary, language instructors rotated their seating assignments throughout the various departments to support employees company wide and encourage English use. Within two years, a remarkable 70 percent of learners developed a functional level of English. Managers: Supporting and Evaluating

Encouragement and positive reinforcement from managers during the language acquisition phase—through simple statements such as “you can do it” or “I believe in you”—make all the difference. Managers can remind and encourage employees to “please use English,” which becomes increasingly relevant when employees lapse into their native language owing to time constraints or other stressors. Other times, managers can rally workers to use English to accomplish goals, rather than simply learning enough to meet proficiency standards. When applicable, managers must model their own language learning behavior for employees, demonstrating a willingness that includes trying new things, making mistakes, and learning from those mistakes. Whenever possible in meetings and other structured interactions, managers must keep track of who is and is not contributing and deliberately solicit participation from less fluent speakers. Sometimes it may be necessary to get dominant-language speakers to dial down their remarks to ensure that the proposals and perspectives of less fluent speakers are also heard. In addition, managers must ensure they are not allowing fluency in a lingua franca to overshadow their assessments of employee skills, growth potential, and knowledge of markets and cultures. This is a common blind spot; even managers who have fully overhauled their methods of hiring and training global talent need to continually keep language in perspective when evaluating employee performance and promotion decisions. Language ability does not necessarily spell high

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performance. As a result, it is important to assess skills and various attributes through 360-degree evaluations, which solicit feedback from subordinates, peers, supervisors, and (when appropriate) clients. Multiperson evaluations can serve as a reality check, a way to make sure managers are not unduly swayed by fluency. Employees: Communication Strategies

Ultimately, the day-to-day practices and behaviors of the employees determine the success of the lingua franca. While top leaders and managers need to set the stage for successful adoption of a new, company-wide language, employees carry it out. For their part, employees need to adopt positive attitudes about their abilities to learn the language of choice. An initial important task is for employees to develop an awareness of which expat community they belong to. Are they a member of the linguistic expat, cultural expat, or dual expat group? Once employees have this awareness, they can translate it into strategies for communicating with colleagues who are in other categories. Linguistic expats and dual expats can take advantage of the opportunities to learn a new language, and, regardless of how far along they are in attaining fluency, they can contribute to formal and informal conversations and become members of a globally effective workforce. Cultural expats have to learn to adapt to a non-native work culture in order to harness their language advantage and contribute to the larger organizational goal. Beyond individual development, good communication among coworkers drives effective knowledge sharing, decision making, coordination, and ultimately performance results. But in global work, varying levels of fluency with the chosen common language are inevitable. People who can communicate best in the organization’s lingua franca often exert the most influence, while those who are less fluent risk becoming inhibited and withdrawn from common discourse. Mitigating these effects typically involves insisting that all communicators respect the key rules for interacting in meetings and daily contact, as well as remain mindful of an inclusive

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expat perspective. In addition, aggressive actions that exclude or ostracize any speaker, such as scheduling meetings at inopportune times, should be discouraged. Fluent lingua franca speakers do best when they dial down dominance during common discourse. Strong speakers must slow down their speaking pace and use fewer idioms, slang terms, and esoteric cultural references when addressing a group. They should limit the number of comments they make within a set time frame, depending on the pace of the meeting and the subject matter. They should actively seek confirmation that they’ve been understood, and they should practice active listening by rephrasing others’ statements for clarification or emphasis. Native speakers may need coaching from managers on how to include less proficient colleagues who are working at a linguistic disadvantage. In contrast, less fluent lingua franca speakers do best when they dial up engagement and contribute to common goals. Non-native speakers have a responsibility to comply with the global lingua franca and to refrain from reverting to their mother tongue, even in informal meetings and communications. Less fluent speakers should monitor the frequency of their responses in meetings to ensure that they are contributing verbally. In some cases, it’s even worth setting goals for the number of comments made within a given period. Speakers should not use their own language and have a teammate translate because that can alienate others and set a discouraging example. As with fluent speakers, team members who are less proficient in the language must always confirm that they have been understood. They must routinely ask if others are following. Similarly, when listening, these employees must be empowered (by themselves, their coworkers, and their managers) to say, when appropriate, they have not understood something. It can be tough for non-native speakers to make this leap, yet doing so keeps them from being marginalized. Embedding Cultural Training with Language Acquisition

Language fluency does not equal cultural fluency—for either global leaders or their subordinates. Integrating cross-cultural competence

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is tied to the successful, long-term adoption of a lingua franca. Additionally, it prepares native lingua franca speakers to adapt the more flexible dimensions exemplified by the dual expats: culture is viewed as learnable and adoptable, but it does not unduly shape selfdefinition. However, it is also important that language training accommodate the expectations of various cultures within the lingua franca. Understanding the cultural background of coworkers, as well as the company’s role, products, services, and the customers in its various cultural and regional contexts, is as essential as learning nouns and pronouns. The same can be said of expat employees at all levels: even when they are fluent in the lingua franca, a lack of cultural awareness can cause significant misunderstandings and disagreements; it can lead to divergent group norms, practices, and expectations. To prevent such rifts, cross-cultural training must be embedded in language training. This training should focus on the types of negotiations employees might undertake, the decisions they will face, the social events in which they might participate—and the wide variation in behaviors and preferences across cultures.

8 Conclusion

Language is everywhere. It pervades organizational life, from the moment people enter their workplaces, to the e-mails that far-flung collaborators exchange, to the informal interactions that deepen rapport, to the mundane reports employees generate, to the daily execution of core competencies. Organizations must, therefore, recognize language as a fundamental factor that cannot be separated from other imperatives of globalization. A lingua franca can facilitate globalization because changing to one language will invariably affect key aspects of organizational life. My study of Rakuten’s language adoption shows that a global company integrates its diverse and disparate pieces not only by specifying and adopting technical and organizational policies but also through the dynamic and evolving experiences that employees encounter as they meet the demands of global work. Among the intriguing ironies that emerged: Employees we might think will be lost—the unmoored dual expats outside Japan, whose native language is not English—fare best because they are most open to learning and least resistant to change. Those who were at the outset most hopeful professionally, the native English-speaking Amer-

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icans, become cultural expats when they discover new constraints as the Japanese realize English language fluency as a vehicle for imposing Japanese corporate culture. The Japanese linguistic expats, who were most fearful professionally at the start, discover newfound opportunities and responsibilities as they gain fluency. Those we assume would fare best—bilingual workers—ended up faring worst because their services become obsolete. In writing this book, I set out to deepen our understanding of and empathy for the lived experiences and challenges each of these groups endure when they must work in a non-native language, culture, or both. By capturing the experiences, thoughts, and feelings of employees and survey participants over the course of five years, my hope is that scholars and practitioners will take into account the complexities involved in tasking workers to adopt a language and to operate in a global organization. The presence of a lingua franca has profound implications for individuals and groups in global organizations. Not only does it demand that non-native speakers rely on selflearning for improving language skills, but it also challenges people to move beyond their cultural constraints. Employees, whether they begin the lingua franca journey as native speakers, native cultural adherents, or both, will experience a shift in their everyday reality. In addition, a one-language organization enables greater collaboration across national boundaries. It reshapes the makeup of an organization as new foreign entrants join the environment once an accessible common language exists. It even challenges the leadership approach of the most seasoned employees. For all these reasons and many more, it is crucial to continue empirical inquiry into the lingua franca phenomenon at the global workplace. Like all studies, my research approach limits the type of claims that I can make. My choice to primarily collect and analyze qualitative data to capture employee experiences, by definition, limits my ability to make causal connections. For example, my approach does not support comparisons between the influence of language and culture changes and the influence of other organizational changes that result from global expansion through acquisitions. Similarly, in

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the absence of comparable cases, it is difficult to untangle the impact that stems from dynamics between headquarters and subsidiaries, acquirer and acquired, and on the other hand, the impact that stems from language and cultural dynamics. Comparisons and connections of this type are ripe for future research. My focus on language and culture offers several useful insights to the cross-border acquisitions domain. For instance, my findings suggest that an acquisition does not automatically and immediately confer language and cultural changes on the acquired organization. At Rakuten, in some cases, subsidiaries that had been acquired seven years prior to the infusion of the lingua franca had continued to operate in a language and culture set apart from those of the headquarters. It was only after the firm instituted the single-language policy that its espoused culture began to spread across the subsidiaries. In addition, linguistic expats experienced a decline in their status as they grappled with learning a new language. This language-based diminution of status runs contrary to the relatively higher hierarchical rank that is often conferred to members of an organization’s headquarters. Findings such as these can bring into sharp relief global workers’ otherwise overlooked experiences and challenges in both headquarters and subsidiary locations. At the organizational level, a lingua franca can be a decoupling force between language and culture, and has the capacity to redistribute influence through a company in unforeseen ways. Most notably, an English-speaking Western culture is not necessarily always dominant in globalized organizations. An e-commerce giant like Rakuten that hails from an island country can forcefully assert its cultural identity. Of course, Rakuten’s journey is still in process and we do not know where it might lead. This study represents only a portion of what we can expect longitudinally when a globalizing organization makes a fundamental change to its official language. Additional research can uncover the next phases of the organization’s global evolution. Finally, my hope is that globalization, as it continues to be facilitated by language, can become not only a tool for economic expansion and exportation of the home culture but also a tool for greater

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empathy. The underlying urges that drive organizations to pursue opportunity, to secure a sustainable economic future back home, and to expand, capture, and export goods and culture all need to be complemented with fundamental empathy, self-learning, collaboration, and transformation.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A large and diverse community shaped the ideas in this book. My in­ terest in large­scale global projects can be traced back to Pam Hinds, who took me on my first research journey when I was a student at Stanford University. Along with Bob Sutton and Steve Barley, Pam fostered a vibrant intellectual space for me to explore the issues of language and global work. At a time when such issues were barely theorized in the organizational behavior field, and were not the saf­ est path for a scholar­in­training to take on, they were extraordinary early mentors who continue to lend support and insight. I am deeply grateful to all three for believing in the importance and possibility of this work when it was no more than a seed. My heartfelt gratitude goes to my team of bilingual researchers from the various HBS Global Research Centers (Europe, Japan, and Latin America) who worked with me closely to collect data for this book meticulously. Most important, they were my teachers and coaches when it came to understanding the local contexts that I was studying. I am also grateful to my Boston­based team, current and former: Tom Barrow, Kelly Basile, Alex Kayyal (HBS ’11), Marina Miloslavsky, Nathan Overmeyer, Steven Shafer, and Ben Shamash (HBS ’11), who were indispensable in advancing this work. I am deeply grateful to Elaine Backman for helping me talk through emerging theories and frameworks and for providing very insightful comments on several versions of the work­in­progress. I wish to thank Jean Bartunek for also reading an early draft of the manuscript, encouraging me, and steering me in the right direction. I am grateful to Paul Leonardi for being an amazing friend who gave his insights along the way.

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This book has improved immensely from the invaluable contribu­ tions of my Harvard Business School colleagues: Robin Ely, Linda Hill, Jay Lorsch, Joshua Margolis, Tony Mayo, and Leslie Perlow. Jay Lorsch, who was the first person to encourage me to write this book, always reminded to analyze the global organization as a sys­ tem. Robin and Linda scrutinized the manuscript line by line more than once. They provided crucial feedback and always made them­ selves available when I reached out to obsess over anything that was in process. Their generosity humbles me. What I learned from them will last me a lifetime. I am also very thankful to colleagues, current and former, who have helped me think through the material that formed the basis of this book, especially Michel Anteby, Julie Battilana, Ethan Bern­ stein, Bill George, Boris Groysberg, Ranjay Gulati, Rob Kaplan, Chris Marquis, Gautam Mukunda, Jeffrey Polzer, Ryan Raffaelli, Lakshmi Ramarajan, and Scott Snook. I am deeply appreciative to Harvard Business School for the gen­ erous financial support of this resource­intensive endeavor. I am grateful to Karen Propp for her outstanding editorial support every step of the way. I couldn’t have asked for a more patient and skilled partner. I wish to thank Meagan Levinson and Princeton University Press for helping me realize the substance and spirit of this work. I am also very appreciative to the anonymous reviewers whose insightful comments have helped sharpen the book’s over­ arching frame, concepts, and presentation. I wish to thank Frankie and Angie Rance for making FDR in Ja­ maica my family’s home away from home, where many pages of this book were written. I have always benefited from parents who supported my various endeavors unconditionally. Producing this book was no different. I am grateful for their sustained encouragement through the ups and downs. In word and deed, they have modeled perseverance in the face of uncertainty. My mother’s frequent refrain, “Go all out and yemeta yemta!” is forever engraved in my mind. My husband, Lawrence, and I sat side­by­side at cafés all over the Bay area for a year writing our respective doctoral dissertations.

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Little did we know then that we would still be immersed in the same subjects a decade later. I couldn’t ask for a better emotional and intellectual partner to walk with me through every phase of this project: discovering the twists and turns that language created in the field, the time I felt stared down by thousands of pages of data, my tenth rewrite of a chapter that never made the final cut, the countless hours spent talking through budding concepts, and the joy when the framework emerged as if it had always existed, undeniable. If Law­ rence’s intellectual support were not enough, I am very thankful for how he created the conditions for me to work freely on weekends and evenings while ensuring that our two young sons—Gabe and Daniel—continued to feel whole. At the ages of six and four, Gabe and Daniel have learned to en­ dure my absences while I traveled extensively. I am sure my trips away from them, in my role as a global field scholar, seemed as end­ less to them as it did to me. Still, the many people in the various countries I encountered during those trips have indirectly gifted them with exposure to the vastness of the world beyond their yards. Their global curiosity has been piqued, just as mine was piqued by my parents when I was their age. Gabe and Daniel’s contribution to this book came forcefully toward the end. Wanting to test if the title, The Language of Global Success, would “stick,” I shared it with them once and then asked them to repeat it several times from mem­ ory. When they remembered it again and again over a period of twenty­four hours, I knew that we had finally landed on the right title. I finally turn to the many current and former Rakuten employees who generously opened their worlds to me. I am grateful beyond words for their willingness to share their experiences, insights, ques­ tions, fears, and hopes. As I started to draft the manuscript, I relied heavily on a number of people around the globe to get the contextual factors right. This was particularly important because the compa­ ny’s global expansion was rapid during the period of my study. I am deeply thankful to cofounders Masatada “Seichu” Kobayashi and Akio Sugihara for their passion and insights along the way. Kyle Yee, who led the Englishnization implementation, and Koichi Noda have

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been invaluable in helping me understand the complex ecosystem and organizational culture that formed the Rakuten way. This book would not have been possible without Hiroshi Miki­ tani’s willingness to let me fully “enter” his organization. I will for­ ever be grateful that he trusted me to study and write about Rakuten without imposing a single condition. Mikitani has always expressed a desire to make his company a role model for the betterment of Japanese society and the wider world. He has always wanted others to learn from his experiences, be they positive or negative, in order to empower their journey. My deepest hope is that this book will continue that journey of learning and empowerment for scholars and practitioners involved in global work.

APPENDIX A

Research Design, Methodology Details, and Sample

My work has sought to fill theoretical and empirical gaps that can have a profound impact on global work. I conducted many in-depth studies focused on the intrapersonal, interpersonal, and intergroup challenges people encountered in global communication and investigated how language challenges influenced the ways in which workers—particularly non-native speakers— experienced themselves, their collaboration partners (other foreign non-native speakers as well as native speakers), and their organizations. I began to publish papers and present at conferences, introducing the subject of lingua franca and its dilemmas for global work to the organizational studies field.1 One of the logical next steps for my work was a longitudinal research study that would capture the evolution of a lingua franca in a single company over an extended period of time. Because language issues are inextricably linked to globalization I wanted to capture processes and outcomes in a company that had an expressed interest in global expansion and its attendant cultural exchanges. To truly understand the role a lingua franca transformation could play in an organization’s globalization agenda, I needed to design and conduct a study that was longitudinal, gather data from multiple members across multiple country sites, and use a hybrid approach to analyze qualitative and quantitative data. Rakuten’s Englishnization mandate provided an ideal setting to fulfill all those research design goals. I was fortunate to begin studying Rakuten’s journey to lingua franca from almost the beginning. 147

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Data Sources

Over a period of five years, my approach resulted in the sample study, which informs this book, and is comprised of 650 interviews across 8 country sites in 5 languages, a total of 3,056 quantitative survey data collected twice (1,564 respondents in the first round and 1,492 respondents six months later), including 660 open- ended optional comments responses, 183 open-ended responses, and over 20,000 pages of archival data (see Table A.1 for more information about the data sources for this book). TABLE A.1.

Interview Summary

Location

Membership

Native Language

Age Range Informants’ in Years Gender

Number of Interviews

Brazil

Acquired 2011 Acquired 2010 Acquired 2011 Acquired 2011 Founded 1997 Acquired 2008 Acquired 2009 Acquired 2005, 2009, 2010

Portuguese

24–48

29

French

21–41

German

21–47

Indonesian

22–45

Japanese

22–55

Mandarin

24–46

Thai

27–48

English

21–62

France Germany Indonesia Japan Taiwan Thailand United States (three entities)

62% Male 38% Female 65% Male 35% Female 71% Male 29% Female 58% Male 42% Female 75% Male 25% Female 30% Male 70% Female 54% Male 46% Female 64% Male 36% Female

85 28 25 306 16 21 140

Total Interviews = 650 Surveys Japan Japan

Wave 1—May 2011 Wave 2—November 2011

1,564 1,492 Total Surveys = 3,056

Archival Documents Optional Narratives Open-Ended Surveys

> 20,000 pages 660 183

Note: Twenty translators in five languages participated in this study.

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FIELD INTERVIEW DATA

I rigorously trained a team of 13 bilingual researchers in qualitative data collection techniques, who also traveled to various country sites to gather data for this study, We conducted semi-structured interviews with the 650 members of Rakuten located across 8 country sites, including Brazil, France, Germany, Indonesia, Japan (headquarters), Taiwan, Thailand, and three locations in the United States. The country sites that I selected, from a list of countries in which Rakuten operated, represented important markets for the company’s global strategy. I chose semi-structured interviews, an approach that includes a set of prepared questions, yet is open to covering areas that are most pressing or salient to the interviewees, because it allowed us to expand into unexplored territory, seek alternative accounts on a given topic, or adapt our interview questions and construct new lines of questioning on the fly. Prior to my arrival or my research team members’ arrival to the various country sites, the subsidiary leaders sent out e-mails inviting employees to participate in a study about their experience of the English language mandate at Rakuten. Participants were assured that interviews would be both voluntary and anonymous. In most cases, we limited our informants to those who had tenure at Rakuten for at least one year prior to the announcement of the lingua franca mandate. This ensured that informants could discuss their organizational life before and after the language stipulation. In certain circumstances, a country site was acquired post-adoption of the lingua franca, rendering the tenure requirement inapplicable. Interviews were conducted in person with a few exceptions when scheduling issues dictated they be conducted by telephone. Interviews lasted 45 to 75 minutes and were held in either private offices or conference rooms. Informants were interviewed according to their individual language preferences. Overall, 53 interviews were conducted in French, 20 in German, 29 in Portuguese, and 128 in Japanese; the remaining interviews were conducted in English. Table A.1 summarizes the number of informant interviews we conducted in each country site and includes demographic information

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on age and gender. Forty informants were interviewed twice, 15 were interviewed a third time, and 8 were interviewed 7 times in order to track changes people were experiencing over time as a result of the English language mandate. Each interview was recorded on a digital audio recorder with the informant’s permission. Interview protocols were primarily organized into four sections, in line with standard procedures for conducting semi-structured interviews.2 The first section covered background questions, including work history at the organization, demographic details, and a description of current job roles. We made sure to capture a baseline of information for each interviewee. In the second section, we focused on questions pertaining to informants’ perspectives and experiences. We asked informants to provide in-depth descriptions about their daily tasks and how language affected those tasks, if at all. Sample prompts in the section included: “What role has the language mandate played in your daily work?” and “What do you think of the policy? Is it right for the organization?” In the third section, we investigated how the language affected informants’ daily interactions both within and between country locations; for example, we asked: “In your work, with whom do you interact most often?” “In what ways do you communicate within and across company locations?” “How has Englishnization changed your work?” In the fourth section, we posed grand tour questions; for example: “Describe your typical work week.” This allowed us to follow up with mini-tour questions that could uncover details about specific events and participants.3 We found this line of inquiry useful in probing delicate subjects such as perceived changes associated with the introduction of the lingua franca, how the informants’ feelings might have evolved relative to the mandate, or informants’ impressions of the mandate’s potential impact. Given the large scope and scale of the research design, with 13 interviewers collecting data from over 650 people across 8 countries, I developed rules to ensure thorough and consistent documentation. During the data collection phase, each researcher generated three forms of field notes, which I had adapted from Yin.4 The first form

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captured demographic data within a standard template, noted the most salient points that surfaced during each interview, listed informants’ discussions of post–lingua franca work practices, and described interactions between country sites and headquarters. The second form, a comprehensive memo written at the conclusion of each researcher’s data-gathering day, chronicled the thoughts and ideas that flowed following a collection of interviews. Finally, the third form consisted of a single case summary created by each researcher upon completion at a given country site. For example, if five researchers conducted interviews in France, they would each generate a case summary, yielding five summaries for that location. The case summary reflected a synthesis of daily memos and emergent themes, primarily on how the change to a lingua franca impacted informants’ organizational lives. I read the field notes shortly after they were generated to remain adaptive and alert to emerging patterns, insights, and concepts.5 Importantly, the three forms of field notes set the foundation for both individual and cross-case analyses that I discuss later. All interviews were transcribed verbatim, and those conducted in a language other than English were translated into English. I took several steps to ensure that the translated interviews were identical to the original language version. First, I recruited translators who specialized in translating the specific language (e.g., Portuguese, German, or French) to English. Second, additional translators blind to the original interview performed a back translation on a random selection of these transcripts. If there were discrepancies between the original and the back translated material, additional translators were recruited to translate the transcripts anew until the original language version and the translation were equivalent. (Note: In total, twenty translators participated in this research study.) Occasionally my research team and I sat in on meetings at the various country locations. For example, in Thailand, we observed the Asakai company-wide meeting where CEO Mikitani gave a presentation via videoconference from the headquarters in Tokyo. We attended Asakia meetings in France, Germany, and Taiwan, providing

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us with cases for comparison. Attending group events helped us gain a richer understanding of informants’ experiences and vantage points, as well as the overall organizational context. FIELD INTERVIEW ANALYSIS

Following Strauss and Corbin’s6 recommended practices for qualitative analysis, we began by aggregating interview transcripts by country locations into NVivo qualitative research software. While in the field, I had sensed differences between narratives from the various groups within the company but did not have a systematic grasp on how those differences played out. To develop a theoretical account of how the mandate affected employees given their specific cultural and linguistic backgrounds, my research team and I spent two years painstakingly coding the data through several iterative stages. The first stage entailed open coding, in which we associated the data with codes (categorized labels). Non-native English speakers from the Tokyo headquarters (mostly Japanese) had to adapt linguistically to comply with the English mandate, while native English speakers, impacted by the increased interaction between offices as a result of the mandate, were obliged to adapt culturally. This led me to label the non-native speakers based in the Japanese office as “linguistic expats” and the U.S.-based employees as “cultural expats.” In addition, the non-native speakers in the various subsidiaries (Brazil, France, Germany, Taiwan, Thailand, and Indonesia) who were not part of the Japanese country headquarters had to adapt linguistically and culturally. I labeled that group the “linguistic-cultural expats.” In the course of our analysis, we cycled back and forth between data analysis and the literature to make sense of emerging concepts and to refine our codes. Similar to the interview process, our team wrote memos to capture our reflections following each coding session. This activity served as a foundation to ground the research and eased the transition from coding data to conceptualizing.7 Again, I read every memo on the day it was produced so that I could remain alert to any emerging concepts that may have required adapting codes across the board.

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During the second stage of coding we began axial coding, which entailed categorizing and organizing codes by evaluating their corresponding relationships. While coding for any given group (the point at which I began to think of three archetypical social groups), we first queried the data for employees’ experience of and response to the linguistic and cultural shifts taking place within the organization. These experiences and responses were multifaceted and led to an iterative process of creating, reevaluating, refining, and abandoning codes. For example, cultural expats’ positive responses toward the mandate were emblematic, at least initially, of euphoria. As we went deeper into the data, it became apparent that this euphoria was connected to the anticipation of future benefits, or as a direct experience of positive benefits. Specific benefits evidenced in the codes included “enhanced communication” and “increased knowledge sharing.” In a similar way, cultural shifts were documented in the coding process based on cultural expats’ experience of the cultural infusion from headquarters. For example, we created codes for the weekly company-wide meetings Rakuten held within each subsidiary. Similarly, codes were created for headquarters-hosted conferences, which involved subsidiary members traveling to Tokyo to attend trainings, conferences, and other events. As informants referred to more such practices, it became clear that “work practices,” defined as the ways of accomplishing work within the organization, was a high-level category, capturing one way that Japanese culture infused the company culture. Alongside “work practices” were other highlevel categories: “values,” defined as the organization’s guiding principles that direct employee behavior, and “artifacts,” items that are culturally significant and convey information from headquarters, such as posters and publications. Subsequently, we began the cross-case analysis stage8 by looking for patterns manifesting laterally across country sites (country ↔ country) and vertically between country sites and headquarters (country ↔ headquarters). Iteratively, we performed the data analysis, hypothesized relevant constructs, assessed these constructs and any inconsistencies present, revisited the data, and then decided whether the construct should be abandoned or refined.

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As we continued to code and analyze, it became apparent that each archetype contained adaptive and less adaptive “expats” with respect to their global work experience. We looked again at the linguistic- cultural expats, the group who had most successfully adapted to the new organizational environment brought about by the lingua franca mandate. As we investigated these dual expats’ attitudes and behaviors, we noted in our provisional codes a pattern of an open disposition to working across national borders, a category we labeled “global work orientation.” Two research assistants and I coded the data separately in order to identify the dimensions that comprised the concept of global work orientation. We met frequently to discuss the codes and to ensure that we could capture the nuances of the concept. We iterated multiple conceptual models as we sought to understand how potential codes might interact or otherwise work in concert. In this same vein, we iteratively analyzed our models against the data to test our emergent theory of global work orientation, and referenced related literature when applicable to sharpen our conceptualization. For example, we created a provisional code for “thinking globally” when our interviewees expressed the virtues of a global mind-set. Yet upon review, the codes that we developed to capture patterns on thinking globally were not sufficiently consistent with our definition of thinking globally; nor were they pervasive enough. We ultimately rejected this aspect of the model. The final model that inductively and robustly captured the concept of global work orientation had five elements. The first captured the manner in which the dual expats’ narrative projected a benevolent attitude, coupled with expressions that diminished the heaviness of having to adopt certain foreign cross-cultural practices (e.g., Adopting this custom is not that serious; I’ll try it). We labeled this element “positive indifference.” Second, analysis uncovered a pattern in which the dual expats espoused a willingness to find commonality between cultures in statements about foreign colleagues as well as in response to the influx of Japanese cultural values that came from Rakuten’s headquarters (e.g., Our culture has similar customs). Third, our analysis surfaced sentiments that encompassed dual

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expats’ emphasis on a global superordinate entity in Rakuten (e.g., We are part of a global company). Fourth, dual expats espoused career paths that spanned countries outside of their native ones or what we termed “aspired to global careers”: statements such as “After two years, maybe I’ll ask to go to Brazil . . . transfer to other countries” or “[I’d] like to work abroad . . . in the United States, or anywhere in the world” were pervasive in the data. Finally, the data indicated a pattern in which dual expats sought global interactions with their peers at other subsidiaries or headquarters as a regular part of their work repertoire to seek guidance, explore possible solutions for local concerns, or initiate collaborations. My research team and I discussed the coding categories and to reach a consensus on which categories should be abandoned or refined; we also discussed the newly emergent concepts as they arose from individual analyses. Iteration between data, categories, and concepts concluded once the team reached theoretical saturation and our theoretical development no longer produced new categories or concepts. FIELD SURVEY DATA

I designed a survey to collect data about Rakuten employees’ experience during their transition to the lingua franca that was sent to 4,000 eligible employees. By the time the first survey was launched, fourteen months after the mandate, I had already interviewed 128 people in the company in order to construct the survey that best fits the organizational content. Six months later I conducted the second survey. Prospective respondents were assured that participation was voluntary and that responses would remain anonymous. The survey took approximately 30 minutes to complete and participants were given the choice to complete the online survey in Japanese or English.9 As with the interviews, I took several steps to ensure that the translated survey was identical in both languages. First, I recruited a translator who specialized in English-to-Japanese translations to translate the original English survey into Japanese. Second, another

156 A P P E N D IX A

translator, blind to the original English survey, who specialized in Japanese-to-English translations performed a back translation of the survey to English. As previously noted, back translations validate the reliability of translated material by allowing comparison of material in different languages.10 As a third step, we reviewed the back translation next to the original English survey and noted changes to be made by the translator. The English-to-Japanese translator reviewed this feedback and incorporated minor changes into the Japanese survey. This step ensured that the intended meanings of the survey items were identical in both English and Japanese. As a fourth step, we conducted a pilot of the Japanese survey with bilingual Rakuten employees. I altered some words at this step for the sake of clarity and to ensure that the survey captured contextual information accurately. As a fifth step, two Japanese speakers independently reviewed the entire survey before it was deployed. As noted, data were collected from our sample of 4,000 at two points in time. The first wave of data collection took place between May 29 and June 13, 2011, and the second wave was collected between October 27 and November 19, 2011. The timing of the data collection is important to the methodology. The first collection was done 14 months after Mikitani announced the Englishnization initiative and the second wave occurred six months later (20 months after Englishnization began), once employees began to see the initiative in action. In designing the survey, I used the scales described below to measure aspects relevant to the research. CEO leadership. I used the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire11 to measure the CEO’s leadership, defined as idealized influence and inspirational motivation.12 I slightly modified the instruction for the questions by asking respondents, “Please indicate the extent to which your CEO demonstrates the following regarding the English lingua franca mandate,” in order to examine the CEO’s leadership approach, particularly during this period of organizational change. Sample items included, “Talks enthusiastically about what needs to be accomplished” and “Specifies the importance of having a strong sense of purpose.” Respondents indicated their agreement with each

R E S E A RC H M E TH O D O LO GY 157

statement for their CEO, using a 7-point Likert response scale (1 = “not true at all,” 7 = “very true”). The Cronbach’s alpha for this measure in Time 1 was .91 and in Time 2 was .90. Business unit leadership. I also used the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire13 to measure the leadership of the department head. Based on my discussions with Mikitani, I knew that these individuals were integral in the deployment and monitoring of Englishnization as well as in shaping the delivery of Mikitani’s message. In addition to the idealized influence and inspirational motivation dimensions included in the CEO leadership measure, I also included contingent reward and individualized consideration, owing to the ability of respondents to assess the day-to-day leadership activities of these individuals. Respondents were asked to indicate their agreement with each of the 20 items using a 7-point Likert response scale (1 = “not true at all,” 7 = “very true”). Sample items included, “Talks enthusiastically about what needs to be accomplished” and “Provides me with assistance in exchange for my efforts.” The Cronbach’s alpha for this measure in both Time 1 and Time 2 was .97. Individual beliefs in change efficacy. To assess the extent to which Rakuten employees believed in their ability to achieve the mandated change, I used a subscale of the Organizational Change Recipients’ Beliefs Scale (OCRBS), “efficacy in organizational change.”14 This scale reflects employees’ beliefs in their ability to implement the change initiative, which is consistent with our inductive findings.15 Survey items included, “I have the capability to implement the lingua franca mandate that has been initiated” and “I am capable of successfully performing my job duties with the lingua franca mandate.” Participants also responded on a 7-point scale, ranging from 1 (“not true at all”) to 7 (“very true”). The Cronbach’s alpha for this measure at Time 1 was .87 and at Time 2 was .86. Beliefs in collective efficacy. To measure employee perceptions of collective efficacy, or the idea that their group or department will be able to achieve the intended outcomes, I developed a 3-item measure based on Gully et al.’s meta-analysis of team efficacy, potency, and performance.16 Participants were asked to evaluate each item on a 7-point scale, ranging from 1 (“not true at all”) to 7 (“very true”).

158 A P P E N D IX A

Sample items included, “We are confident that we can achieve the required TOEIC scores for Englishnization as a business unit (or a department if you are not affiliated with a business unit)” and “With focus and effort, my business unit (or a department if you are not affiliated with a business unit) can do anything we set out to accomplish.” The Cronbach’s alpha for this measure at both Time 1 and Time 2 was .79. Job attitudes. I measured two types of job attitude variables: job insecurity and turnover intention. I used Kelloway’s 6-item scale for job insecurity and Dougherty et al.’s 4-item scale for turnover intention.17 All items were evaluated on a scale ranging from 1 (“not true at all”) to 7 (“very true”). Sample items for job insecurity included, “To what extent are you concerned that you may not retain the status that comes with your position in the company?” and “To what extent are you concerned that you may not retain your current access to resources (people, materials, information)?” Sample items for turnover intention included, “To what extent are you thinking about leaving this organization?” and “To what extent are you planning to look for a new job?” The Cronbach’s alpha for job insecurity was .90 at both Time 1 and Time 2 and for turnover intention was .92 at Time 1 and .90 at Time 2. Perceptions of productivity change. In order to calculate the perceived change in productivity among Rakuten employees since Englishnization had been implemented, respondents were asked to rate their productivity on a scale from 1 meaning “unproductive” to 5 meaning “extremely productive” for both “before Englishnization” and “since Englishnization.” The change perception score was calculated by subtracting the score given for “before Englishnization” from the score for “since Englishnization.” A positive score indicates that the employee perceives an improvement in productivity since Englishnization was adopted and a negative score indicates perceptions of productivity decline. Control variables. In the final model analysis, “confidence in English” was treated as a control variable because of my supposition that greater confidence in English would have an impact on employee attitudes toward Englishnization. Confidence in English18

R E S E A RC H M E TH O D O LO GY 159

was measured using a 5-item measure that asked respondents to rate the truthfulness of each item on a scale from 1 meaning “not true at all” to 5 meaning “very true.” Items assessed respondent perceptions of their abilities in English use, writing, reading and understanding, speaking, and listening. Sample items included, “I feel confident reading and understanding English” and “I feel confident using English in general.” The Cronbach’s alpha for this measure was .95 at Time 1 and Time 2. Additional variables such as age, gender, and education were analyzed using regression analysis to determine their impact on the final model, and the results demonstrate that these demographic factors did not influence the relationships described. FIELD SURVEY DATA ANALYSIS

Upon completion of each wave of the survey data collection, data were extracted from the survey software and compiled into SPSS. Indicators were added to track each wave of data collection for subsequent time series analysis. The data were reviewed for missing values, outliers, and out-of-range responses and were cleaned as appropriate. As is common during online survey data collection, there were incomplete surveys and missing data. Any surveys in which the respondent did not move past the first series of question items were removed. In addition, subsequent missing data were accounted for in the analysis using listwise deletion, whereby any case that was missing a relevant variable was removed from the analysis. In total, the final sample had 1,564 responses at Time 1, for a response rate of 39 percent, and 1,492 responses at Time 2, for a response rate of 37 percent.19 I also received 660 open-ended, optional reflections from survey participants, which were all translated from Japanese to English. Respondents were representative of the company’s overall breadth in terms of positions, age, gender, and tenure at Rakuten. Overall, survey respondents ranged in age from 21 to 68 years old, with an average age of 32.13 years. Tenure with Rakuten ranged from one year to 13 years, and the average tenure among survey respondents was 3.45 years. More than three-quarters of survey respondents indicated that they had graduated from college or university.

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The initial review of the data consisted of analysis of descriptive statistics and bivariate correlations to detect relationships between variables that might be of potential importance to our final model. In addition, composite scores were created in order to facilitate the analysis of each of the individual constructs. Reliability testing was run for each construct to ensure that all items of the construct were internally consistent, meaning that they measure the same construct. The reliability scores (as noted above) for all items were at or above the traditionally accepted cutoff of .80.20 In addition, factor analyses were run for each of the constructs measuring multiple dimensions. The purpose of these factor analyses was to ensure that the dimensions identified in the published versions of the construct scales were also replicated in our data collection. The analyses demonstrated general consistency overall with the published dimensions, with some deviations relating to organizational change beliefs, CEO leadership, and business unit leadership. Based on these results, I made the decision to analyze CEO and business unit leadership as single constructs in their entirety, rather than their individual dimensions. In addition, I selected only items relating to efficiency to study organizational change beliefs, as these items seemed to have the strongest relationship with our outcomes. In addition, means comparisons (t-tests) were run on data collected at Time 1 versus data collected at Time 2 in order to determine whether there were significant differences in employee attitudes over time. In order to further specify the relationships between leadership, beliefs, and employee attitudes I employed structural equation modeling using MPLUS Version (7.2).21 MPLUS is a useful statistical package because it allows for “the analysis of both cross-sectional and longitudinal data, single-level and multilevel data, data that come from different populations with either observed or unobserved heterogeneity, and data that contain missing values.”22 MPLUS works by using regression-based analysis to specify the relationships between variables and then assesses the overall “fit” or ability of the defined relationships to explain overall variance of the model. I began by using data only from Time 1 of data collection in order to test my overall, theoretical model. Several versions of the model

R E S E A RC H M E TH O D O LO GY 161

were examined before the final model was produced, based on its goodness of fit with the data and theoretical justification. Following the development of this model with Time 1 data, it was tested again using data from Time 2 and continued to emerge as the model with the optimum fit for the data. This final model, detailed in appendix B, represents the set of relationships that offers the best model fit and makes theoretical sense. While a longitudinal design for the survey data would have been ideal, given the importance of anonymity in this context, we chose to employ two cross-sectional surveys early and late in the change process. The collection of data at two points in time, and the fact that the model holds its fit across both time periods, indicates replicability and increases our confidence in the results. However, it is important to consider the range of common method biases that could exist in data when both predictor and outcome measures are collected from a single source. One way to examine the extent to which common method bias may be influencing data is to run confirmatory factor analysis using Harmon’s single factor test.23 For each wave, data variables were entered into a confirmatory factor analysis to determine whether the variance between the variables would be better explained by a single factor. The results demonstrate that a single factor solution was not the optimal factor solution for each time period. This suggests that my data do not present substantial common method bias variance. ARCHIVAL DATA

To better understand organizational cultural features, I triangulated the interview data and survey with publicly and privately available data.24 Data triangulation is a powerful corroborating strategy that helped me fully capture the richness and complexities that are inherent in a field study.25 Interviews, meetings, and other occasions where we interacted with Rakuten’s employees were opportunities to obtain a wide variety of documentation. If during the interview an informant referenced e-mail exchanges, presentations, or other documents relevant to the study, the interviewer would ask to view

162 A P P E N D IX A

or copy the relevant archival data. For example, I asked to see the e-mail inbox of one of the subsidiary leaders so I could trace his internal and external patterns of communication. If necessary, we followed up with the informant by phone or e-mail after leaving the research site. I reviewed publicly available content that included annual reports, investor relations and analyst reports, and other documentation to learn about Rakuten and the industry in which it operated. Throughout the study, I used Google Alerts to monitor the web for relevant content, which included the approximately 8,000 times Rakuten was mentioned on the Internet. Some alerts pertained to products for sale, but the alerts I was interested in helped me learn about any global activities, press releases, or media coverage that Rakuten was receiving in real time. Other archival data took the form of internal documents, including company presentations, reports, newsletters, internal booklets, white papers, personal e-mails, and memoranda. In total, I reviewed over 20,000 pages of documentation, which included over 2,000 e-mail exchanges with informants. Reviewing the data iteratively throughout the research process allowed me to raise new questions, refine my thoughts, and seek out additional data when applicable. Though I often had access to confidential information, I do not cite or disclose any such information in this book. I also read the books that Hiroshi Mikitani authored. I was especially interested in his book Marketplace 3.0: Rewriting the Rules of Borderless Business because he covered important topics like Englishnization, the evolution of his corporate culture, and his thinking about the global marketplace.26 INDIVIDUAL CONVERSATIONS

Over the last five years, I have spent informal time with many Rakuten members that included over sixty meals, e-mails, text messaging, and conversations on location during my trips to the various research sites, at social gatherings, or while Rakuten employees were visiting Boston. I also kept in close contact with over a dozen people

R E S E A RC H M E TH O D O LO GY 163

who left Rakuten during the period of the study. This provided me with additional perspectives about Englishnization and helped me stay abreast of the industry’s broader trends. In addition, I had extended conversations with Hiroshi Mikitani, the company’s cofounders, and other top Rakuten executives several times per year.27 Our candid and confidential discussions helped me understand, on a fairly deep and nuanced level, their decisionmaking thought processes that inform this book. As we got to know one another, I developed insights into individual personalities and Rakuten’s identity that illuminated aspects of the study. The encounters were also invaluable in helping me remain attuned to the evolving expat perspectives as the lingua franca mandate took hold and unfolded over time.

APPENDIX B

Quantitative Analysis of CEO Leadership and Employee Confidence

Although the interviews allowed me to understand how Mikitani’s leadership style and skill influenced Japanese employees, the use of a survey methodology allowed me to better understand and quan­ tify the underlying mechanisms that influenced the relationships between leadership perceptions and job attitudes. In this way, the survey data served as a complement to my qualitative data to illumi­ nate further the role of leadership in managing employee response to a lingua franca. Accordingly, I relied on two waves of survey data to test whether Mikitani’s leadership and that of his business unit heads were influencing employee confidence and job attitudes (job insecurity and turnover intentions), as well as their influence on employee perceptions of how Englishnization had impacted their productivity. My team and I used MPLUS (Version 7.2) to perform structural equation modeling (SEM), which depicts and tests the significance of various models of the relationships among variables. Specifically, we modeled the effect of Mikitani’s leadership style, defined as “inspiring followers to commit to a shared vision and goals for an organization or unit, challenging them to be innovative problem solvers, and developing followers’ leadership capacity via coaching, mentoring, and provision of both challenge and support,”1 and its effects on individual and collective efficacy, individual job in­ security, productivity loss, and turnover. We also modeled Mikitani’s effect on “business unit leader leadership” and “collective efficacy” 165

166 A P P E N D IX B

over time and reflected on how Mikitani’s leadership style and ac­ tions contributed to the changes we observed. Because the data were collected at two points in time, we ran the structural equation models separately for each wave of data collec­ tion. I anticipated (as noted in appendix A) that Mikitani’s leadership initiatives would contribute to changes in the relationship paths. These relationships were entered into MPLUS and tested for “fit” in order to define the best model. Fit was assessed using CFI (compar­ ative fit index) and RMSEA (the root mean squared error of approx­ imation) statistics. The CFI compares the fit of the proposed model with a model representing null hypotheses, or the idea that there is no relationship between variables. A CFI score of greater than or equal to .90 is the generally accepted cutoff to indicate that a model has good fit.2 In addition, fit was also assessed using RMSEA, which compares the covariance found within the study population with the parameter estimates specified by the model.3 A RMSEA score of below .08 suggests goodness of fit for the model.4 The final mod­ els were determined using model fit, the significance of the pathways between variables, and theoretical sensibility. For the data from Time 1, the results of the correlation analy­ ses can be found in Table B.1. Figure B.1 presents the results of the structural equation model at Time 1. The CFI score for the model in Time 1 was .998. The RMSEA score for the model in Time 1 was .037. Leadership affects collective efficacy, individual efficacy, and turnover. As the model shows, the CEO leadership is positively related to individual efficacy (β = 0.438, p < .001) and directly negatively re­ lated to turnover intentions (β = −0.087, p = .002). CEO leadership is significantly positively related to collective efficacy (β = 0.476, p < .001); in turn, it also acts as a predictor for individual efficacy (β = 0.268, p < .001). The impact of the interaction between CEO leadership and collective efficacy on individual efficacy was exam­ ined for possible moderation effects; however, the interaction coef­ ficient was not significant (β = 0.805, p = .607). This indicates that both CEO leadership and collective efficacy influence individual efficacy in unique ways.

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TABLE B.1.

Descriptive Statistics and Correlations among Study Variables (Time 1)

Variable

N

Mean SD

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

1. CEO Leadership 2. Business Unit Leadership 3. Individual Efficacy 4. Collective Efficacy 5. Turnover Intentions 6. Job Insecurity 7. Productivity Change 8. Confidence in English

1,200 5.43

0.95 1

1,131 4.31

1.34

.447** 1

1,200 4.34

1.38

.471**

.336** 1

1,053 3.79

1.38

.369**

.400**

1,188 3.54

1.50 −.330** −.255** −.548** −.335** 1

1,188 3.80

1.40 −.287** −.253** −.526** −.335**

1,200 −.82

1.25

.271**

.229**

.510**

.335** −.385** −.365** 1

1,096 3.22

1.64

.190**

.105**

.586**

.356** −.398** −.397** .405** 1

.573** 1

.853** 1

* p < .05, ** p < .01

Turnover intentions

–0.078 (.028) –0.519 (.035) CEO transformational leadership

0.438 (.032)

0.476 (.041)

Individual efficacy

0.268 (.023)

–0.478 (.032) 0.369 (.029)

1.125 (.055) Job insecurity

–0.170 (.040)

–0.144 (.038) Productivity change

Collective efficacy

Structural Equation Model at Time 1. Note: Not shown above—confidence in En­ glish was also entered into the model as a predictor of individual efficacy, collective efficacy, turnover intentions, job insecurity, and productivity change and was a significant predictor for each dependent variable.

FIGURE B.1.

8

168 A P P E N D IX B

Individual efficacy affects turnover intentions, insecurity, productivity change. Next, the relationships between individual efficacy and the three outcome variables—turnover intentions (β = −0.519, p < .001), job insecurity (β = −0.478, p < .001), and productivity change (β = 0.369, p < .001)—were examined. All three relation­ ships were found to be significant. Individual efficacy was positively associated with productivity change and, as might be expected, negatively associated with turnover intentions and job insecurity. Last, the model shows that the three outcomes variables—turnover intentions, job insecurity, and productivity change—are all highly correlated ( p < .01), suggesting that the outcome factors do, to some degree, influence each other. We also anticipated that an individual’s confidence in English would have an important influence on his or her perceptions of lead­ ership and job attitudes throughout the Englishnization process. Be­ cause I wanted a deeper understanding of whether the relationships between our measures would be robust, confidence in English was entered into the model as a predictor for each of the dependent vari­ ables in the model, in effect, controlling for the impact of confidence in English on each of the relationships. Therefore, the values shown and discussed in this section reflect the inclusion of confidence in English. Although not shown in the figure, the pathways between confidence in English and dependent variables were significant (in­ dividual efficacy β = 0.356, p < .001, collective efficacy β = 0.262, p < .001, turnover intentions β = −0.100, p < .001, job insecurity β = −0.105, p < .001, and productivity change β = 0.126, p < .001). Time 2. We then assessed the fit of the theoretical model de­ veloped from Time 1 data to Time 2 data in MPLUS, and the data showed that the level of fit was almost identical to that of the model for Time 1. Table B.2 presents the descriptives and correlations among variables at Time 2. Figure B.2 presents the results of the structural equation model at Time 2. Similar to Time 1, the model fit indices were strong. The CFI score for the model in Time 2 was .998 and the RMSEA score was .035. As seen in Figure B.2, the same pathways for relationships exist between variables, although the strength of some of the relationships is slightly different, reflecting

A N A LYS I S O F LE A D E R S H I P A N D CO N FI D E N C E 169

TABLE B.2.

Descriptive Statistics and Correlations among Study Variables (Time 2)

Variable

N

Mean SD

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

1. CEO Leadership 2. Business Unit Leadership 3. Individual Efficacy 4. Collective Efficacy 5. Turnover Intentions 6. Job Insecurity 7. Productivity Change 8. Confidence in English

1,337 5.38

1.00 1

1,306 4.43

1.34

.472** 1

1,395 4.28

1.35

.445**

.357** 1

1,226 4.00

1.39

.358**

.364**

1,334 3.62

1.46 −.287** −.250** −.467** −.302** 1

1,334 3.89

1.37 −.236** −.245** −.444** −.306**

1,350 −.76

1.21

.148**

.161**

.392**

.271** −.357** −.349** 1

1,264 3.10

1.55

.101**

.107**

.526**

.379** −.336** −.337** .299** 1

.571** 1

.870** 1

* p < .05, ** p < .01

Turnover intentions

–0.087 (.022) –0.406 (.032) CEO transformational leadership

0.384 (.029)

0.443 (.035)

Individual efficacy

0.323 (.022)

8

–0.374 (.030) 0.293 (.027)

1.280 (.056) Job insecurity

–0.292 (.040)

–0.268 (.038) Productivity change

Collective efficacy FIGURE B.2. Structural Equation Model at Time 2. Note: Not shown above—confidence in En­ glish was also entered into the model as a predictor of individual efficacy, collective efficacy, turnover intentions, job insecurity, and productivity change and was a significant predictor for each dependent variable.

slight changes over time. Some of these changes may be accounted for by the improvements in business unit leadership and collective efficacy, which are further discussed below. CEO leadership affects collective efficacy, individual efficacy, and turnover (Time 2). Again, in the Time 2 model, CEO leadership is

170 A P P E N D IX B

significantly related to both individual organizational change effi­ cacy belief (β = 0.384, p < .001) and collective efficacy (β = 0.443, p < .001), and has a significant negative relationship with turnover intentions (β = −0.087, p < .001). Collective efficacy, again, acts as a predictor for individual organizational change efficacy belief (β = 0.323, p < .001). The impact of the interaction between CEO leadership and collective efficacy on organizational change efficacy belief was examined for possible moderation effects and again, the interaction coefficient was not significant (β = 0.104, p = .453). Individual efficacy affects turnover intentions, insecurity, productivity change. The relationships between individual efficacy and the three outcome variables of turnover intentions (β = −0.406, p < .001), job insecurity (β = −0.374, p < .001), and perceptions of pro­ ductivity change (β = 0.293, p < .001) were examined and all three relationships were significant. Finally, this model also shows that the three outcome variables—turnover intentions, job insecurity, and productivity change—are all highly correlated ( p < .001), again suggesting that the outcome factors do, to some degree, influence each other. Again, confidence in English was entered into the model as a predictor for each of the dependent variables in order to control for its impact on the relationships. Although not depicted in Figure B.2, the values shown and discussed in this section reflect the inclusion of confidence in English in the model. The pathways between con­ fidence in English and dependent variables again were significant (individual efficacy belief β = 0.323, p < .001, collective efficacy β = 0.311, p < .001, turnover intentions β = −0.124, p < .001, job insecurity β = −0.126, p < .001, and productivity change β = 0.098, p < .001). Change over time. After examining the data from both waves sep­ arately, we compared the two time periods to observe differences in respondent perceptions of leadership, beliefs, and attitudes from Time 1 to Time 2. Using independent sample t­tests to compare mean scores across Time 1 and Time 2, the data revealed signif­ icant improvement in perceptions of collective efficacy (mean of 3.997 at Time 2 versus mean of 3.792 at Time 1) (t (2277) = 3.509,

A N A LYS I S O F LE A D E R S H I P A N D CO N FI D E N C E 171

p < 0.001).5 The improvement in collective efficacy suggests that at Time 2, following Mikitani’s strong push to develop positive mes­ saging relating to Englishnization, respondents were more likely to believe that their group or department would be able to achieve the intended outcomes associated with Englishnization. We also observed an improvement in the leadership behaviors of their de­ partment head (business unit leadership) (mean of 4.427 at Time 2 versus mean of 4.306 at Time 1) (t (2435) = 2.223, p = 0.026). The more positive rating of the leadership behaviors of their business unit executive or department head suggests that these individuals, likely due to Mikitani’s urging, took on a stronger role in driving the Englishnization initiative.6

NOTES

Introduction 1. M. Kesteloo and N. Hodson, “Industry Perspectives 2015 Retail Trends: PricewaterhouseCoopers,” http://www.strategyand.pwc.com/perspectives/2015-retail -trends. 2. Jack W. Plunkett, M. B. Plunkett, J. S. Steinberg, J. Faulk, and I. J. Snider, “E-Commerce & Internet Business Statistics and Market Size Overview,” E-Commerce & Internet Industry, 2015, http://www.plunkettresearchonline.com. 3. K. Garcia, International Cross-Border Ecommerce: A Country-by-Country Breakdown of Consumer Behaviors and Preferences, 2015, eMarketer database, https://www.emarketer.com/Report/International-Cross-Border-Ecommerce -Country-by-Country-Breakdown-of-Consumer-Behaviors-Preferences/2001502. 4. Rakuten, 2014 Annual Report, http://global.rakuten.com/corp/investors /documents/annual.html. 5. See “Business Model,” About Us, http://global.rakuten.com/corp/about /history.html. 6. C. A. O’Reilly and J. A. Chatman, “Culture as Social Control: Corporations, Cults, and Commitment,” in Research in Organizational Behavior, ed. L. L. Cummings and B. M. Staw, 18 (1996): 157–200, quote on 160.

1. The Lingua Franca Mandate: “Englishnization” 1. The TOEIC is designed to assess English language proficiency for non-native English speakers working in international contexts. Specifically focused on everyday fluency in business, the TOEIC covers English use in a range of contexts including general business, office and personnel administration, dining out, and travel and purchasing, although no industry-specific vocabulary is required. The test takes approximately two and a half hours to complete and is administered by the Educational Testing Service (ETS). ETS scales each section (Listening and Reading) score to a maximum of 495 points (990 points possible) and provides test takers a detailed score report including scaled totals, percentile rank for each section, and a description of the English language abilities that are typical for other test takers at the same level (three possible for the Listening and four for the Reading section). 173

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2. Hiroshi Mikitani, Marketplace 3.0: Rewriting the Rules of Borderless Business (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 7. 3. T. Neeley, “Global Business Speaks English: Why You Need a Language Strategy Now,” Harvard Business Review 90, no. 5 (2012): 116–24. 4. R. Piekkari, D. Welch, and L. S. Welch, Language in International Business: The Multilingual Reality of Global Business Expansion (Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2014). 5. Tsedal Neeley, “The Language of Global Management,” in Wiley Encyclopedia of Management, 3rd ed., vol. 6 (New York: Wiley, 2014). 6. R. Marschan, D. Welch, and L. Welch, “Language: The Forgotten Factor in Multinational Management,” European Management Journal 15, no. 5 (1997): 591–98. 7. Ibid. 8. A. W. Harzing and A. J. Feely, “The Language Barrier and Its Implications for HQ-Subsidiary Relationships,” Cross Cultural Management: An International Journal 15, no. 1 (2008): 49–61. 9. Marschan, Welch, and Welch, “Language.” 10. I. Chotiner, “Globish for Beginners,” New Yorker 86 (May 31, 2010): 76, http://search.proquest.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/docview/356827699?ac countid=11311. 11. D. Crystal, English as a Global Language, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). 12. Ibid. 13. A. Nardelli, “Most Europeans Can Speak Multiple Languages: UK and Ireland Not So Much,” theguardian.com, September 26, 2014, http://www.the guardian.com/news/datablog/2014/sep/26/europeans-multiple-languages-uk -ireland; Neeley, “Global Business Speaks English.” 14. Seth Mydans, “Across Cultures, English Is the Word,” New York Times, May 14, 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/14/world/asia/14iht-14englede .5705671.html?_r=0. 15. S. Ronen et al., “Links That Speak: The Global Language Network and Its Association with Global Fame,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 111, no. 52 (2013): E5616–E5622. 16. A. W. Harzing and M. Pudelko, “Language Competencies, Policies and Practices in Multinational Corporations: A Comprehensive Review and Comparison of Anglophone, Asian, Continental European and Nordic MNCs,” Journal of World Business 48, no. 1 (2013): 87–97. 17. Kyung Lah, “How to Boost Corporate Japan: Stop Speaking Japanese,” CNN.com, November 16, 2010, http://edition.cnn.com/2010/BUSINESS/11/15 /ilist.japan.englishization/index.html. 18. A. Ohnsman, “Honda Adopts English as Official Language in Global Meetings,” November 22, 2013, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-11-22 /honda-adopts-english-as-official-language-for-global-meetings. 19. “English to Be Honda’s Official Language by around 2020,” Nikkei Asian Review, June 30, 2015, http://asia.nikkei.com/Japan-Update/English-to-be-Honda -s-official-language-by-around-2020?n_cid=NARAN012.

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20. S. King, “Stephen King: Japan’s Stagnant Economy Warns Us That We Are Not Yet in the Clear,” theindependent.co.uk, January 11, 2010, http://www.indepen dent.co.uk/news/business/comment/stephen-king-japans-stagnant-economy -warns-us-that-we-are-not-yet-in-the-clear-1864055.html; Kyung Lah, “How to Boost Corporate Japan.” 21. H. French, “Insular Japan Needs, But Resists, Immigration,” nytimes.com, July 24, 2003, http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/24/world/insular-japan-needs -but-resists-immigration.html. 22. IPS National Competitiveness Research Report 2009–2010, 2014, Institute for Industrial Policy Studies and the Institute for Policy and Strategy on National Competitiveness, Seoul, Korea. 23. IMD 2010 World Competitiveness Yearbook Rankings, 2010, IMD World Competitiveness Center, Lausanne, Switzerland. 24. H. C. Triandis, Individualism & Collectivism (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995), 560. 25. G. Hofstede, G. J. Hofstede, and M. Minkov, Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind, Intercultural Cooperation and Its Importance for Survival, 3rd ed. (London: McGraw-Hill, 2010). 26. Y. B. Zhang, M. C. Lin, A. Nonaka, and K. Beom, “Harmony, Hierarchy and Conservatism: A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Confucian Values in China, Korea, Japan, and Taiwan,” Communication Research Reports 22, no. 2 (2005): 107–15.

2. Leading the Lingua Franca Mandate 1. Center for Equal Opportunity, The ABCs of English Immersion: A Teachers’ Guide, 2000, http://www.ceousa.org/attachments/article/536/ABC’s%20English %20Immersion.pdf. 2. Mikitani, Marketplace 3.0. 3. E. H. Lenneberg, N. Chomsky, and O. Marx, Biological Foundations of Language, vol. 68 (New York: Wiley, 1967). 4. Mikitani, Marketplace 3.0, 9. 5. K. A. Ericsson, R. T. Krampe, and C. Tesch-Römer, “The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance,” Psychological Review 100, no. 3 (1993): 363–406. 6. K. A. Ericsson, M. J. Prietula, and E. T. Cokely, “The Making of an Expert,” Harvard Business Review 85, no. 7/8 (2007): 114–21. 7. P. J. Hinds, T. B. Neeley, and C. D. Cramton, “Language as a Lightning Rod: Power Contests, Emotion Regulation, and Subgroup Dynamics in Global Teams,” Journal of International Business Studies 45, no. 5 (2014): 536–61. 8. T. B. Neeley, P. J. Hinds, and C. D. Cramton, “The (Un)Hidden Turmoil of Language in Global Collaboration,” Organizational Dynamics 41 (2012): 236–45. 9. On the “Omotenashi” Concept or Altruistic Attitude, December 17, 2013, http://fuji-academy.co.jp/essay/unclassification/62.html.

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10. H. M. Belal, K. Shirahada, and M. Kosaka, “Value Co-creation with Customer through Recursive Approach Based on Japanese Omotenashi Service,” International Journal of Business Administration 4, no. 1 (2013): 28–38, quote on 29. 11. D. Carter, “The Business of ‘Omotenashi,’ ” Japan Times, May 4, 2014, http:// www.japantoday.com/category/opinions/view/the-business-of-omotenashi. 12. Belal, Shirahada, and Kosaka, “Value Co-creation”; Carter, “The Business of ‘Omotenashi.’ ” 13. N. Ikeda, “Omotenashi: Japanese Hospitality as the Global Standard,” in Japanese Management and International Studies: Volume 9, ed. Y. Monden, N. Imai, T. Matsuo, and N. Yamaguchi (Singapore: World Scientific Publishing, 2013). 14. Rakuten, Inc., Rakuten Is Unique: Annual Report for Fiscal Year Ended December 31st, 2012, 2012, http://global.rakuten.com/corp/investors/documents /annual.html. 15. N. Gottlieb, “Japan,” in Language and National Identity in Asia, ed. A. Simpson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 186–99. 16. H. E. Jing, “The Validity of Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis: Rethinking the Relationship among Language, Thought and Culture,” US-China Foreign Language 9, no. 9 (2011): 560–68, quote on 560. 17. P. Kay and W. Kempton, “What Is the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis?” American Anthropologist (1984): 65–79; E. F. Koerner, “The Sapir‐Whorf Hypothesis: A Preliminary History and a Bibliographical Essay,” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 2, no. 2 (1992): 173–98. 18. I. R. Davies, P. T. Sowden, D. T. Jerrett, T. Jertett, and G. G. Corbett, “A CrossCultural Study of English and Setswana Speakers on a Colour Triads Task: A Test of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis,” British Journal of Psychology 89, no. 1 (1998): 1–15. 19. R. Hoosain, “Language, Orthography and Cognitive Processes: Chinese Perspectives for the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis,” International Journal of Behavioral Development 9, no. 4 (1986): 507–25. 20. A. Bandura, “Collective Efficacy,” in Self-efficacy: The Exercise of Control, ed. A. Bandura (New York: Freeman, 1997), 477–525. 21. J. M. Bartunek, D. M. Rousseau, J. W. Rudolph, and J. A. DePalma, “On the Receiving End: Sensemaking, Emotion, and Assessments of an Organizational Change Initiated by Others,” Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 42, no. 2 (2006): 182–206; R. Greenwood and C. R. Hinings, “Understanding Radical Organizational Change: Bringing Together the Old and the New Institutionalism,” Academy of Management Review 21, no. 4 (1996): 1022–54; A. E. Rafferty and M. A. Griffin, “Perceptions of Organizational Change: A Stress and Coping Perspective,” Journal of Applied Psychology 91, no. 5 (2006): 1154. 22. Robustness check: To ensure that the final models presented were the most representative of the relationships between the leadership, beliefs, and attitudes constructs, numerous alternative models were run and assessed on model fit, theoretical sensibility, and the significance of the pathways between variables. For example, I looked at an alternative model that suggested affective commitment as a moderating influence on the relationship among CEO transformational leadership, individual efficacy, and the outcomes of interest. Although many of the pathways (relationships)

N OTE S TO C H A P TE R 3 177

were indeed significant, the model fit was inferior to the final model we used. Similarly, I also examined whether productivity change was, in fact, best modeled as an outcome or as a construct linking individual efficacy to turnover intentions and job insecurity. Again, the model fit was not strong enough to justify this approach. 23. T. Yaffe and R. Kark, “Leading by Example: The Case of Leader OCB,” Journal of Applied Psychology 96, no. 4 (2011): 806.

3. Linguistic Expats and Bounded Fluency: “I am an expat in my own country” 1. Si Fan, “Language Shock: A Challenge to Language Learning,” Internet Journal of Language, Culture and Society 2, no. 31 (2010): 42–51. 2. J. L. Petriglieri, “Under Threat: Responses to and the Consequences of Threats to Individuals’ Identities,” Academy of Management Review 36, no. 4 (2011): 641–62. 3. Most widely known is the U-shaped curve posited by Sverre Lysgaard that traces an individual’s emotions from a “honeymoon stage” to “shock” to “adjustment” to “adaptation.” Rakuten employees clearly bypassed the honeymoon stage. S. Lysgaard, “Adjustment in a Foreign Society: Norwegian Fulbright Grantees Visiting the United States,” International Society Science Bulletin 7 (1955): 45–51. 4. T. B. Neeley, “Language Matters: Status Loss and Achieved Status Distinctions in Global Organizations,” Organization Science 24, no. 2 (2013): 476–97. 5. Ibid., 484. 6. Much of the description draws heavily on T. B. Neeley and T. L. Dumas, “Unearned Status Gain: Evidence from a Global Language Mandate,” Academy of Management Journal 59, no. 1 (2016): 14–43. In particular, the qualitative examples are drawn from this paper. 7. We calculated an individual “difference score” whereby we subtracted the “after” score from the “before” score. A positive difference score indicated that the individual felt that productivity improved, while a negative score indicated it declined. This difference value was entered into our regression and structural equation modeling analyses as a possible outcome of leadership behaviors. In looking at the difference scores over time, the decline in productivity at wave one (−.822) is higher than the reported decline in wave two (−.764); however, the difference is not statistically significant. 8. Much of the description draws heavily on Neeley and Dumas, “Unearned Status Gain.” 9. A brief three-month extension was added to the Englishnization deadline because of the devastating earthquakes in Japan on March 11, 2011. 10. J. K. Henderson, “Language Diversity in International Management Teams,” International Studies of Management & Organization 35, no. 1 (2005): 66–82; E. Ö. Bircan, “English as a Lingua Franca for Global Business Communication,” American Academic & Scholarly Research Journal 5, no. 6 (2013): 61. 11. Piekkari, Welch, and Welch, Language in International Business, 3.

178 N OTE S TO C H A P TE R 5

4. Cultural Expats and the Trojan Horse of Language: “It’s their culture wrapped in our language” 1. M. Charles, “Language Matters in Global Communication,” Journal of Business Communications 44, no. 3 (2007): 260–82. 2. Marschan, Welch, and Welch, “Language”; V. Peltokorpi and S. C. Schneider, “Communicating across Cultures: The Interaction of Cultural and Language Proficiency,” Proceedings of the 2009 International Workshop on Intercultural Collaboration (February 2009): 289–92; L. Zander, A. I. Mockaitis, A. W. Harzing, J. Baldueza, W. Barner-Rasmussen, C. Barzantny, . . . and L. Viswat, “Standardization and Contextualization: A Study of Language and Leadership across 17 Countries,” Journal of World Business 46, no. 3 (2011): 296–304; F. J. Flauto, “Walking the Talk: The Relationship between Leadership and Communication Competence,” Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies 6, no. 1–2 (1999): 86–97. 3. Neeley, “The Language of Global Management.” 4. Ibid. 5. Much of the description draws heavily on Neeley and Dumas, “Unearned Status Gain.” In particular, the qualitative examples are drawn from this paper. 6. M. Howatson, “Trojan Horse,” in The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). 7. K. Oberg,  “Culture  Shock:  Adjustment to New  Cultural  Environments,” Practical Anthropologist 7 (1960): 177–82. 8. Mikitani, Marketplace 3.0, 105. 9. Europe Japan Centre and M. Colenso, “Kaizen Strategies for Improving Team Performance: How to Accelerate Team Development and Enhance Team Productivity,” Financial Times Management (London: Prentice Hall, Pearson Education, 2000), 32. 10. B. E. Ashforth and F. Mael, “Social Identity Theory and the Organization,” Academy of Management Review 14, no. 1 (1989): 20–39; J. E. Dutton, J. M. Dukerich, and C. V. Harquail, “Organizational Images and Member Identification,” Administrative Science Quarterly (1994): 239–63. 11. Hofstede, Hofstede, and Minkov, Cultures and Organizations.

5. Dual Expats’ Global Work Orientation: “Been there, done that, know that!” 1. J. House, “English as a Lingua Franca: A Threat to Multilingualism?” Journal of Sociology 7, no. 4 (2003): 556–78, quote on 561. 2. K. E. Horton, P. S. Bayerl, and G. Jacobs, “Identity Conflicts at Work: An Integrative Framework,” Journal of Organizational Behavior 35, no. S1 (2014): S6–22; I. Sachdev and R. Y. Bourhis, “Power and Status Differentials in Minority

N OTE S TO C H A P TE R 5 179

and Majority Group Relations,” European Journal of Social Psychology 21 (1991): 1–24. 3. J. E. Stets and P. J. Burke, “Identity Theory and Social Identity Theory,” Social Psychology Quarterly 63, no. 3 (2000): 224. 4. Taiwan, Thailand, and Indonesia were grouped for the cross-subsidiary statistical analyses because the small number of samples for each of those subsidiaries did not allow for individual statistical analyses. Grouping them made sense because the pattern of responses from those groups was similar enough to help give us a comparative view across groups. 5. European Commission, Report on Europeans and Their Languages, Special Eurobarometer 386 ( June 2012): 75, http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives /ebs/ebs_386_en.pdf. 6. Ronen et al., “Links That Speak.” 7. C. Hidalgo, “New Study Reveals Most Influential Languages,” IFL Science, December 16, 2014, http://www.iflscience.com/brain/new-study-reveals-most -influential-languages. 8. Ibid. 9. J. Cromdal, “Childhood Bilingualism and Metalinguistic Skills: Analysis and Control in Young Swedish-English Bilinguals,” Applied Psycholinguistics 20 (1999): 1–20. 10. S. Bernsten, “English in Political Discourse of Post-Suharto Indonesia” (paper presented at the 7th Annual Conference of the International Association for World Englishes, Portland, OR, ERIC [Education Resources Information Center], 2000), 22. 11. B. D. Smith, “English in Indonesia,” English Today 7, no. 2 (1991): 39–43. 12. “English as Lingua Franca,” Latin Trade, May 25, 2011, http://latintrade .com/2011/05/english-as-lingua-franca. 13. Harzing and Feely, “The Language Barrier and Its Implications for HQSubsidiary Relationships.” 14. Marschan, Welch, and Welch, “Language.” 15. Ashforth and Mael, “Social Identity Theory and the Organization”; Dutton, Dukerich, and Harquail, “Organizational Images and Member Identification.” 16. Comparisons between countries were conducted in order to determine if there were statistically significant differences between the presence and extent of cross-subsidiary interactions each country experienced. In order to compare proportions (percentages) between groupings, z-tests were employed, and to compare mean scores, t-tests were employed to look for significant differences. T- and z-tests allow us to identify significant differences between populations beyond the overall variance found within those populations. Countries were treated as independent samples. Significant differences have been noted where the p-values are less than or equal to .05. 17. W. Barner‐Rasmussen and I. Björkman, “Language Fluency, Socialization and Inter‐Unit Relationships in Chinese and Finnish Subsidiaries,” Management and Organization Review 3, no. 1 (2007): 105–28. 18. Marschan, Welch, and Welch, “Language.”

180 N OTE S TO C H A P TE R 6

6. Five Years Post-Mandate 1. See “Our History,” About Us, http://global.rakuten.com/corp/about/his tory.html. 2. Ibid. 3. Ibid. 4. Ibid. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid. 7. Ibid. 8. T. Bradshaw, “Rakuten Leads $100m Pinterest Investment,” Financial Times, May 17, 2012, http://on.ft.com/Jiwqku. 9. J. D’Onfro and M. Kosoff, “CEO Reveals Why the Japanese Giant Rakuten Invested in Lyft and Not Uber,” Business Insider, December 8, 2015. 10. D. K. Datta, “Organizational Fit and Acquisition Performance: Effects of Post-Acquisition Integration,” Strategic Management Journal 12, no. 4 (1991): 281–97. 11. P. Shrivastava, “Postmerger Integration,” Journal of Business Strategy 7, no. 1 (1986): 65–76. 12. H. Mikitani, The Answer Is in English, 2012, http://blogs.cfr.org/asia/2012 /12/11/hiroshi-mikitani-the-answer-is-in-english/. 13. Y. Kobayashi, “The Need for ‘Rebuilding Tokyo’ with the 2020 Tokyo Olympics as Impetus,” Nomura Research Institute Papers, No. 200, 2015, https:// www.nri.com/~/media/PDF/global/opinion/papers/2015/np2015200.pdf; H. Tabuchi, “Why Japan’s Cell Phones Haven’t Gone Global,” New York Times, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/20/technology/20cell.html?em. 14. J. Adelstein, “In Japan, People Are Flipping Out Over the Flip-Phone (Galapagos Phone): What’s Old Is New Again,” Forbes/Asia, 2015, http://www.forbes .com/sites/jadelstein/2015/03/05/in-japan-people-are-flipping-out-over-the-flip -phone-galapagos-phone-whats-old-is-new-again/. 15. C. Riley, “Japan’s Economy Slips into Recession,” CNN: Money, 2012, http://money.cnn.com/2012/12/10/news/economy/japan-gdp-recession/; H. Tabuchi, “Japan Tiptoes toward Recession,” New York Times: Global Business, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/13/business/global/japanese-economy-con tracts-suggesting-return-to-recession.html?_r=0. 16. J. McBride, “Abenomics and the Japanese Economy,” Council on Foreign Relations, 2015, http://www.cfr.org/japan/abenomics-japanese-economy/p30383. 17. Y. Oshika and M. Nagata, “Insight: Abe Cozies Up to New Type of Entrepreneur,” Asahi Shimbun, 2013, https://ajw.asahi.com/article/business/AJ201307 010067. 18. T. Fujioka, “Abe’s Resurgent Japan Hurt by Lack of Business Spending,” Bloomberg Business, 2013, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-05-20 /abe-s-resurgent-japan-hurt-by-lack-of-business-spending. 19. R. Yoshida, “To Communicate in English, TOEFL Is Vital: LDP Panel Focus Urged on Speaking Not the Written Word,” Japan Times, 2013, http://www

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.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/04/05/national/to-communicate-in-english-toefl -is-vital-ldp-panel/#.VdyF6CxViko. 20. J. Hongo, “Abe Wants TOEFL to Be Key Exam,” Japan Times, 2013, http:// www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/03/25/national/abe-wants-toefl-to-be-key -exam/#.VdyDQyxViko. 21. Report on the Future Improvement and Enhancement of English Education (Outline): Five Recommendations on the English Education Reform Plan Responding to the Rapid Globalization, September 24, 2014, http://www.mext.go.jp/english /topics/1356541.htm. 22. Japanese Education Reforms to Further Prepare Students for Globalised World, February 4, 2014, http://monitor.icef.com/2014/02/japanese-education -reforms-to-further-prepare-students-for-globalised-world/. 23. S. Kakuchi, Reform of University Entrance Exam Sparks Debate, 2013, http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20130913114950164. 24. Hongo, “Abe Wants TOEFL to Be Key Exam.” 25. Japanese Education Reforms to Further Prepare Students for Globalised World. 26. A. Fukuyama, “Higher English Bar for New Bureaucrats from Fiscal Year 2015,” Asahi Shimbun, 2013, http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social _affairs/AJ201305070082.

7. Lessons for Top Leaders, Managers, and Employees 1. This chapter draws heavily from the following: Neeley, “Global Business Speaks English”; Tsedal B. Neeley, “Global Teams That Work,” Harvard Business Review 93, no. 10 (2015): 74–81; Tsedal B. Neeley and Robert S. Kaplan, “What’s Your Language Strategy? It Should Bind Your Company’s Global Talent Management and Vision,” Harvard Business Review 92, no. 9 (2014): 70–76. 2. E. Bernstein, R. Raffaelli, and J. Margolis, Leader-as-Architect: Alignment, HBS Case No. 9–415–039 (Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing, 2014). 3. M. E. Porter, “What Is Strategy?” Harvard Business Review 74, no. 6 (1996): 61–78. 4. A workforce will improve its language skills as a whole only if all parties are held accountable for progress over an appropriate period. Enforce high standards by requiring training for those who have not yet achieved the desired fluency. In most organizations, that’s about 3,500 words of English (if English is the language of choice)—not the 15,000 words that native speakers have mastered but certainly enough to understand and be understood in most contexts.

Appendix A. Research Design, Methodology Details, and Sample 1. Neeley and Dumas, “Unearned Status Gain”; Neeley and Kaplan, “What’s Your Language Strategy?”; Hinds, Neeley, and Cramton, “Language as a Lightning

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Rod”; Neeley, “The Language of Global Management”; Neeley, “Language Matters”; Neeley, “Global Business Speaks English”; Neeley, Hinds, and Cramton, “The (Un)Hidden Turmoil of Language in Global Collaboration,” 236–44; T. B. Neeley, P. J. Hinds, and C. D. Cramton, “Walking through Jelly: Language Proficiency, Emotions, and Disrupted Collaboration in Global Work,” Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 09–138 (2009). 2. S. Kvale and S. Brinkmann, InterViews: Learning the Craft of Qualitative Research Interviewing, 3rd ed. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2015). 3. J. P. Spradley, The Ethnographic Interview (New York: Holt Rinehart and Winston, 1979). 4. Robert K. Yin, Case Study Research: Design and Methods, 5th ed. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2014). 5. Ibid. 6. A. Strauss and J. Corbin, Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory, 2nd ed. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1998). 7. Ibid. 8. Yin, Case Study Research; K. M. Eisenhardt, “Building Theories from Case Study Research,” Academy of Management Review no. 4 (1989): 532–50. 9. Upon consultation with Rakuten, I decided to restrict the translated surveys to Japanese and English because the expectation was that most employees who collaborated with distant workers required working knowledge of at least one of these two languages. Use of only two languages also minimized inaccuracies during translations that might have otherwise occurred if there had been extensive linguistic and cultural variations in participants’ responses. 10. R. W. Brislin, “Back-Translation for Cross-Cultural Research,” Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 1, no. 3 (1970): 185–216. 11. B. M. Bass and B. J. Avolio, Full Range Leadership Development: Manual for the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (Palo Alto, CA: Mind Garden, 1997). 12. B. M. Bass and B. J. Avolio, MLQ Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (Redwood City, CA: Mind Garden, 1995). 13. Bass and Avolio, Full Range Leadership Development. 14. A. A. Armenakis, J. B. Bernerth, J. P. Pitts, and H. J. Walker, “Organizational Change Recipients’ Beliefs Scale: Development of an Assessment Instrument,” Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 43, no. 4 (2007): 481–505. 15. C. E. Amiot, D. J. Terry, N. L. Jimmieson, and V. J. Callan, “A Longitudinal Investigation of Coping Processes during a Merger: Implications for Job Satisfaction and Organizational Identification,” Journal of Management 32, no. 4 (2006): 552; A. Bandura, “The Explanatory and Predictive Scope of Self-efficacy Theory,” Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 4, no. 3 (1986): 359–73; L. T. Eby, D. M. Adams, J. E. A. Russell, and S. H. Gaby, “Perceptions of Organizational Readiness for Change: Factors Related to Employees’ Reactions to the Implementation of Team-Based Selling,” Human Relations 53, no. 3 (2000): 419; K. J. Jansen, “From Persistence to Pursuit: A Longitudinal Examination of Momentum during the Early Stages of Strategic Change,” Organization Science 15, no. 3 (2004): 276–94; N. L. Jimmieson, D. J. Terry, and V. J. Callan, “A Longitudinal Study of Employee

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Adaptation to Organizational Change: The Role of Change-Related Information and Change-Related Self-Efficacy,” Journal of Occupational Health Psychology 9, no. 1 (2004): 11–27. 16. S. M. Gully, K. A. Incalcaterra, A. Joshi, and J. M. Beaubien, “A Metaanalysis of Team-Efficacy, Potency, and Performance: Interdependence and Level of Analysis as Moderators of Observed Relationships,” Journal of Applied Psychology 87, no. 5 (2002): 819–32. 17. E. K. Kelloway, B. H. Gottlieb, and L. Barham, “The Source, Nature, and Direction of Work and Family Conflict: A Longitudinal Investigation,” Journal of Occupational Health Psychology 4, no. 4 (1999): 337–46; T. W. Dougherty, A. C. Bluedorn, and T. L. Keon, “Precursors of Employee Turnover: A Multiple-Sample Causal Analysis,” Journal of Organizational Behavior 6, no. 4 (1985): 259–71. 18. K. A. Noels, G. Pon, and R. Clément, “Language, Identity, and Adjustment: The Role of Linguistic Self-Confidence in the Acculturation Process,” Journal of Language and Social Psychology 15, no. 3 (1996): 246–64. 19. Due to the confidentiality of the survey information, as expected, there were 411 employees who acknowledged at time period 2 that they took the survey in both rounds. While we were unable to link their round 1 and round 2 responses, we were able to examine the data to assess whether this particular group of individuals had differing perspectives on Englishnization and whether this might have had some influence on the data. In order to assess for any differences among those participating in the survey twice and the overall employee population, we looked at summary statistics from the round 2 data relating to the independent variables, dependent variables, and demographic characteristics of the survey respondents. The analysis demonstrated that there was no significant difference between participants who took the survey twice and those who completed it once, with the exception of self-reported confidence in English. The 411 round 2 survey respondents who indicated that they had taken the survey before reported, on average, less confidence in English than their round 2 counterparts who did not indicate they had taken the survey before. Given that confidence in English was treated as a control variable in the model development, any impact to the findings is minimal. 20. J. C. Nunnally, Psychometric Theory (New York: McGraw Hill, 1978). 21. MPLUS (Version 7.2) (Los Angeles: Muthén and Muthén). 22. L. K. Muthén and B. O. Muthén, Mplus User’s Guide, 6th ed. (Los Angeles: Muthén and Muthén, 1998–2011). 23. P. M. Podsakoff, S. B. MacKenzie, J. Y. Lee, and N. P. Podsakoff, “Common Method Biases in Behavioral Research: A Critical Review of the Literature and Recommended Remedies,” Journal of Applied Psychology 88, no. 5 (2003): 879. 24. Yin, Case Study Research. 25. M. Q. Patton, Qualitative Research & Evaluation Methods, 3rd ed. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2002). 26. Mikitani, Marketplace 3.0. 27. I shared with Hiroshi Mikitani the level of anxiety that the linguistic expats experienced early on; however, I am unable to make cause-and-effect statements

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about confidential conversations and changes he made in his Englishnization policy over the years. Any elaborations about a connection between my findings and Mikitani’s specific responses and initiatives would be speculative in ways that do not contribute to the book’s main ideas.

Appendix B. Quantitative Analysis of CEO Leadership and Employee Confidence 1. B. M. Bass and R. E. Riggio, Transformational Leadership (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2006). 2. L. T. Hu and P. M. Bentler, “Cutoff Criteria for Fit Indexes in Covariance Structure Analysis: Conventional Criteria versus New Alternatives,” Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal 1 (1999): 1–55. 3. J. H. Steiger and J. C. Lind, “Statistically Based Tests for the Number of Factors” (paper presented at the annual spring meeting of the Psychometric Society, Iowa City, 1980). 4. R. C. MacCallum and M. W. Browne, “The Use of Causal Indicators in Covariance Structure Models: Some Practical Issues,” Psychological Bulletin 114, no. 3 (1993): 533. 5. As is common to any large-scale survey, there are some missing data for each of the variables examined, leading to differing degrees of freedom across the analysis. 6. Robustness check: To ensure that the final models presented were the most representative of the relationships between the leadership, beliefs, and attitudes constructs, I examined other theoretically driven alternative models. For example, I looked at an alternative model that suggested affective commitment as a moderating influence on the relationship among CEO leadership, individual efficacy, and the outcomes of interest. Although many of the pathways (relationships) were indeed significant, the model fit was inferior to the final model we used.

INDEX

Abe, Shinzo, 125–28; Abenomics, 125 accountability, 37, 181n4 Amazon.com, 4, 14, 60 anxiety, 58, 69. See also productivity: anxiety regarding artifacts, organizational, 153 Asakai (company-wide meetings): Mikitani and, 30–33, 103–4; Rakuten and, 13, 17, 30, 69, 99, 103–4, 151, 153 belonging, sense of, 16, 102–3, 135–36 bilingualism, 8, 46, 62, 91, 93, 122–24, 139 bounded fluency, 55–56; as a global phenomenon, 56–57; as interminable state, 55 branding. See multinational organizations: branding as global Brazil: collectivist culture of, 23, 109; English usage in, 7, 9, 47, 57, 83, 88, 94; Rakuten and, 23, 31, 85, 87, 89–90, 95, 99– 100, 104, 106, 108, 111, 121 Buddhism, shugi and, 100 business unit leadership, 36–39, 77, 157, 160, 165, 169, 171 career: and anticipation of advancement, 7, 65–67; collectivistic versus individualistic views of, 50; global, aspiring to, 96, 104–5, 114, 155 CEO leadership, 156–57, 160, 166–67, 169– 70; effects of on collective efficacy, individual efficacy, and turnover intentions, 166 change efficacy, 157 Chatman, Jennifer A., 5 China, 14, 46, 47, 57, 112, 116, 125 collective efficacy, 36, 157–58, 165, 166–71 collectivistic culture, 23; and career expectations, 50; versus individualistic culture, 23–24, 79–80, 108–9 common language. See lingua franca communication, improvements in, 61–65

communication strategies, 12; of employees, 135–36 confidence in English, 54, 158, 165–71. See also employees: confidence and attitudes of context-seeking, 44, 46 Corbin, Juliet M., 152 cross-border communication, 19, 87–88, 92, 117–18, 122; and work collaboration, 76, 85, 95, 109 cross-border leadership, 57, 140 cross-border work, 2, 35, 62 cross-cultural competence, 136–37 Crystal, David, 16 cultural expats, 7, 9, 11, 58–81, 135, 138–39, 152–53; increased workload of, postEnglishnization mandate, 73–75 cultural infusion, 80–81, 98, 99, 153 cultural integration levels, 77–78 cultural literacy, 89 culture: collectivistic versus individualistic, 23–24, 79–80, 108–9; cultural adaptations, 76–79; language and, 11, 34–35, 76– 77; as a language barrier, 48–50; and resistance to cultural change, 79–81, 108–9; and search for commonality among different cultures, 100–102. See also collectivistic culture; individualistic culture; national culture: language and; organizational culture culture shock, 45, 50, 70, 177n3 decoupling of language and culture, 6 deliberate practice, 29 detachment, 80 Dougherty, Thomas W., et al., 158 dual (linguistic-cultural) expats, 7–9, 11, 82–109, 135, 138, 152, 154–55 eBay, 14, 60 e-commerce, 3 185

186 I N D E X

employees: bilingual, 8, 122–24, 139; communication strategies of, 135–36; confidence and attitudes of, 39–40, 60, 131, 133, 157–58, 165–71; geographically dispersed, 2, 16, 130; managers’ support for and evaluation of, 134–35; motivation and engagement of, 35–36, 38–39; training and development of, 132–34, 137 English: becoming a lingua franca as a result of American and British political, economic, and technological power, 2, 17; as the fastest-spreading lingua franca in human history, 17; flexible grammar of, 16; global customers as a force in propagating, 94; global importance of, 2, 16–17, 86–96, 104–5; Japanese education reform and, 126–27; learning of as a pragmatic tool, 33; market demands for, 94–96; as the number one written language worldwide, 17; as second language, 27, 92 Englishnization, 4, 6–7, 10–11, 13–33, 35– 40, 53–54, 132, 140; initial employee responses to, 17–19, 87; as means of attracting global talent, 115; and perception of productivity, 39; and post-mandate euphoria, 59, 81, 91, 153; public responses to, 19–20; and work practices and work values, 68, 84, 88, 97, 102 euphoria, and anticipation of career advancement, 65–67. See also Englishnization: and post-mandate euphoria expatriate perspective, 5, 8–9, 11, 34, 37, 45, 163; expatriates in their own countries, 5, 6, 7, 10, 43; identification with an expat community, 135–36. See also cultural expats; dual (linguistic-cultural) expats; linguistic expats Fan, Si, 45 Festinger, Leon, 47 foreign competition, 22 French labor laws, 92 French language, 92 Galapagos Syndrome, 125, 126 global career. See career: global, aspiring to global expansion, 17, 22, 110, 111–12; adoption of a lingua franca to promote, 49 global identity, 132 global integration, 112–15 globalization, 5, 12, 56, 92, 129, 131, 138, 140; education and, 127; English as language of, 92, 93, 126; Rakuten’s efforts at, 12, 29, 30–31, 103–5, 110, 128

global knowledge sharing, 117–22 global literacy, 86 global organizations. See multinational organizations global talent, 115–16 global work orientation, 3, 33, 59, 96, 104–9, 154 Gully, Stanley M., et al., 157 Harman’s single factor test, 161 Hidalgo, Cesar, 90–91 Hofstede, Gerard Hendrik, 23, 108–9 Honda Motors, 20 House, Juliane, 86–87 “hovering” management style, 70 Humboldt, Wilhelm von, 34 identity, 8, 43, 48, 75, 80–81, 88, 89, 94, 97, 102–4, 109; developing a global, 132; linguistic, 81; superordinate, 89, 103, 109 identity struggles, 88 identity threat, 48, 68, 88, 97, 99–100 immersion, 27–29; deliberate, 28, 35 individual efficacy, 166–70 individualistic culture, 23; and career expectations, 50; versus collectivistic culture, 23–24, 79–80, 108–9 Industrial Competiveness Council, 12, 126 international business, 2 international markets, 22 interpreters, 16 intranet, 120 isolation, 2–3, 118, 125 Ito, Takanobu, 20 Japan: aging population of, 22; collectivistic culture of, 23, 36, 50, 70, 79, 108; cultural identity in, 48–50, 67; economy of, 22; education reform in, 126–27; English language instruction in, 126–28; English language proficiency in, 126; and Englishnization as a means of empowerment, 124–25; and hierarchical structure in business, 25, 140; and influence of national culture, 23–24; insular mentality in, 22, 27, 29, 80, 125, 126; language of, 24–25, 33, 34–35; Mikitani on, 115, 124–25; national identity of, 7, 50; and need for global expansion, 125; and pressure on the social security system, 22; Rakuten and, 12, 25, 32, 70, 124–25, 153; status and hierarchy in, 24, 30, 50–51, 76–77; traditional hierarchical system of, 24, 27, 29, 33, 35, 76–77

I N D E X 187

job attitudes, and turnover intentions, 39, 158 job evaluations, 92 job insecurity, 39, 51–53, 158

linguistic perfectionism, 83 linguistic relativity theory, 34 linguistic universalism, 34

kaizen, 72–73, 84, 102 Kelloway, E. Kevin, et al., 158 key performance indicators (KPI), 69–70, 73–74 Kobo acquisition, 113–14

McWhorter, John, 17 Mikitani, Hiroshi, 4, 10–12, 75; Abe and, 125–28; background, 13, 20–22, 27–28, 40–41; company-wide meetings strategies, 30–33, 103–4; Englishnization announcement, 13–15, 17–18, 20, 24–25, 33, 45–46, 58–59, 132; Englishnization rationale and implementation, 28–32, 35–41, 53, 110, 117, 124–25, 171; Englishnization results evaluation, 112–16, 158; leadership style of, 40–41, 165–66; Marketplace 3.0 (book), 162; Only English (book), 33; and Rakuten as conduit for societal-level changes, 12; on Rakuten’s shugi, 72 morphology of language, as separate from culture, 33 multilingual society, 93 multinational organizations: branding as global, 130, 131, 132; English usage in, 2, 6, 17, 56–57; language and, 16–17; lingua franca adoption by, 16

language: appropriation of, 6; centrality of, 91; as conduit of a foreign culture, 61; as conduit for global agenda, 31; as conduit to spread a native culture, 6; and interplay with culture, 11; morphology of, 33 language acquisition, 28–29, 134; and brain plasticity, 28; embedded with cultural training, 136–37; need for training in, 129 language change, 12, 44, 46, 47, 83, 133 language differences, drawbacks to, 1–3, 14, 16, 18 language of diplomacy, 92 language fluency versus cultural fluency, 136–37 language network, 91 language shock, 44–48 language strategy, 130–34; choosing a, 130–31 language of trade, 92 language use in organizations, 56; company speak, 56; everyday language, 56; industry language, 56; standardizing internal, 132; technical language, 56 lingua franca: adoption considerations of, 129–32; benefits of, 2, 6, 8, 16, 64–66, 85, 89, 102, 138, 140–41, 147; and demotions, 10, 52–53, 111, 128; and effects on post-merger integration, 112–13; factors in successful adoption of and adaptation to, 27, 30, 40, 129, 133, 135, 136–37, 154; English as, in international business, 2, 9; English established as, as a result of American and British political, economic, and technological power, 2, 17; and expatriate perspective, 5; implementation strategies for, 131–37, 181n7; Japan and, 22, 124–25; and productivity loss, 39; unintended consequences of, 111, 122–24. See also English linguistically advantaged versus disadvantaged subgroups, 131 linguistic ethnocentricity, 59–60, 65, 68, 91 linguistic expats, 9–11, 42–57, 80, 83, 108, 135, 139, 140, 152, 183n27; as language expatriates in their own country, 6–7, 43 linguistic identity, 81

national culture: influence of, 23–24; language and, 6, 23–24, 77 native speakers, 65, 81; and global language, 16–17; and linguistic ethnocentricity, 59; versus non-native speakers, 84, 136. See also linguistic ethnocentricity non-native speakers, 139, 147; as cultural and linguistic expats, 152; versus native speakers, 84, 136; and post-Englishnization mandate at Rakuten, 50, 55–57. See also cultural expats; dual (linguistic-cultural) expats; linguistic expats omotenashi (hospitality), 31, 32–33, 61, 100, 132 oneness. See organizational identification O’Reilly, Charles A., 5 organizational culture, 5, 7, 9, 35, 59, 62, 67–81, 84, 99–102 organizational identification, 75, 102–4 ostracism, 2, 136 Pentecost, 1–2, 56 Petriglieri, Jennifer, 48 Pinterest, 31, 112 positive indifference, 96–100, 154 post-merger integration, 112–13 power dynamics, 25

188 I N D E X

productivity: anxiety regarding, 51–53; perceptions of change in, 39, 158 promotions, 52, 92 Rakuten: badges at, 7, 67, 71–72, 75, 80, 86, 97–99; company-wide meetings (Asakai) at, 13, 17, 30, 69, 99, 103–4; employee categories at, 6–8, 122 (see also expatriate perspective); English language proficiency at, 53–54; five principles (shugi) of, 15, 71–72, 84, 100–101; history of, 3–4, 13, 21–22, 25–26; “hovering” style of, 70; immersion at, 35, 133; improvements in communication at, 61–65; intranet at, 120, 132; and investments in external social media, 31, 112; Japanese society and, 12, 25, 70, 124–25, 153, 154; policy handbook of, 67, 69, 75–76, 99; post-mandate results at, 110–28; post-merger integration and, 112–13; work values and work practices at, 7, 69–76, 84, 97, 102 receptiveness to change, 8, 50, 84–85, 94, 98, 100 research methodology, 147–63, 165–71

status loss, 50–51. See also status diminution Strauss, Anselm L., 152 superordinate identity. See identity: superordinate tacit knowledge, 16, 106 task-based process changes, 69–71 Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC), 15, 32, 35, 50, 52–54, 93, 173n1 Thailand, 4, 7, 23, 50, 84, 87, 93, 106–7, 108, 109, 111, 118, 124–25 TOEIC. See Test of English for International Communication tongues of fire, 1, 12 Tower of Babel myth, 1–2, 55 Toyota Motors, 73 translators, 8, 16, 18, 46, 63–65, 122–23; back translations, 151, 156 Triandis, Harry, 23 Trojan Horse of Language, 67–68 trust, among international coworkers, 106 turnover intentions, 39, 165–70 Uniqlo, 20

Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. See linguistic relativity theory shugi. See Rakuten: five principles of social media, 120, 122, 132 status diminution, 124. See also status loss status gains, 66 status and hierarchy, 24, 30, 50–51, 76–77, 124

workload, increases in, 73–75 work practices and work values, 153; and Englishnization, 68, 97, 102; at Rakuten, 7, 69–76, 84, 97, 102 Yin, Robert K., 150

A NOTE ON THE T YPE

This book has been composed in Adobe Text and Gotham. Adobe Text, designed by Robert Slimbach for Adobe, bridges the gap between fifteenth- and sixteenthcentury calligraphic and eighteenth-century Modern styles. Gotham, inspired by New York street signs, was designed by Tobias Frere-Jones for Hoefler & Co.