Purpose – Globalization enhances traditional managerial models with numerous challenging features. So far isolated companies, focused mainly on local customers, must shortly become valuable units of large multicultural clusters. Beyond the evident business positives, there are also strong appeals, arising especially from unavoidable structural merging. Presented research concentrates on language aspects of globalization, when business units must communicate efficiently both internally (with own employees or internal customers) and externally (market stakeholders). Our goal was to identify and analyse the scope and degree of influence of systematically institutionalized components of organizational language on its performance.
Design/methodology/approach – Balanced scorecard is widely used tool for strategic performance planning and management. According to this approach, enterprise is considered from four perspectives, contributing together to stakeholders’ value maximization. In the analytic phase of our research, we selectively identified and quantified the major language sensitive activities, enhancing companies’ learning and growth, customer relations, operations and financial processes. Resultant findings were transferred into system dynamics implementation of BSC in a form of independent but cooperating capacity and human resources development related modules.
Originality/value – There are interesting research results concerning the language management in the sense of its internal production and reception. Other authors study language in organizations from cultural, administrative or technical viewpoints. Consequently, our market oriented approach, projecting language aspects into strategic planning and performance platform is rather new and promising direction in competitiveness research.
Practical implications – Development of soft skills and proper establishment of related processes belong among the key business success factors. Current managers, however, emphasize direct vocational knowledge over general abilities of their staff. This is understandable, because focused professional training influences productivity faster than, e.g., personal behavioural improvements. On the other hand, right systemization and full utilization of official spoken and written language has also evident, although delayed, productive potential. To minimize problem of its quantification, we analyse different ways of language institutionalization by means of interactive management flight simulator. Such tool can be easily adopted and immediately utilized in practical planning and group decision making tasks.
Keywords – Organizational language, strategic planning, performance driver, balanced scorecard, dynamic modelling