CBS boosts language

A new department will move closer to the corporate sector and solve communication and culture challenges in export markets and in Denmark

How does internal communication include employees with different cultural backgrounds? What can go wrong when a Danish company communicates with a Chinese company in English - a foreign language for both parties? These are some of the challenges that the new department at CBS, International Business Communication (IBC), will examine, says Alex Klinge, Head of Department.

- We will establish a dialogue with the companies and learn more about their challenges, so that we are able to focus more on problem-driven research. The new department will attend to both intercultural and interlingual communication, he says.

Two become one

IBC opens in May and integrates competences from at least two departments at CBS; the Department of International Culture and Communication Studies, and the Department of International Language Studies and Computational Linguistics. According to Alex Klinge, the establishment of IBC is a result of a decrease in the applications for the classic programmes in translation and interpretation and new needs in the business community in line with an increased globalisation.

- It is a mutual exchange. There is no reason to divide the two areas between two departments. This department will bring us synergy, visibility and impact and will cover linguistic and cultural challenges in both inward and outward globalisation, he says.

Research is to help SMEs 

One of the most important purposes of the department is the development of the language and culture programmes in terms of international business communication. This will take place through a closer cooperation with the other departments at CBS, who will focus on solving complex problems on behalf of companies. 

According to Alex Klinge, one of the focus areas is small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) who support themselves via export to the neighbouring markets, while the global economic growth takes place in remote markets. The SMEs must reach further to strengthen their own financial position and the Danish economy, but they do not rely on the same resources as large Danish companies to operate across cultural borders, and the growth conditions are impeded by cultural and language barriers.

The department will have approximately 50 academic staff members who primarily will be delivering research and teaching to at least three BA programmes and a new MA programme, which begins in the autumn of 2012; the MA in Multicultural Communication in Organizations.