The effect of language use on the financial performance of microfinance banks: Evidence from cross-border activities in 74 countries

Sougand Golesorkhi; Roy Mersland; Rebecca Piekkari; Grigory Pishchulov; Trond Randøy

doi:10.1016/j.jwb.2019.03.002

The effect of language use on the financial performance of microfinance banks: Evidence from cross-border activities in 74 countries

Sougand Golesorkhi, Roy Mersland, Rebecca Piekkari, Grigory Pishchulov, Trond Randøy

MSM Marketing

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

172 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

This multi-year study examines the relationship between financial performance and language use, observing 405 partnerships between microfinance banks and their international financial partners in 74 countries. Drawing on language research in international business, we find that microfinance banks based in English-speaking, French-speaking, and Spanish-speaking countries have higher performance. Furthermore, the linguistic distance between the home country of a microfinance bank and the home country of its international partner(s) is negatively related to its financial performance. Our large-scale study confirms the effect of language use on organization-level financial performance and extends research on language in multinationals from intra-firm to inter-firm relationships.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	213-229
Number of pages	17
Journal	Journal of World Business
Volume	54
Issue number	3
Early online date	28 Mar 2019
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jwb.2019.03.002
Publication status	Published - 1 Apr 2019

Keywords

English
Firm performance
French
Inter-firm international partnership
Language in business
Microfinance
Spanish

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Access to Document

10.1016/j.jwb.2019.03.002

Golesorkhi et al 2019 - AAMAccepted author manuscript, 804 KBLicence: CC BY-NC-ND

https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1090951617309318

Cite this

@article{8c0b86e937004633a5de5ee5204aa3b6,

title = "The effect of language use on the financial performance of microfinance banks: Evidence from cross-border activities in 74 countries",

abstract = "This multi-year study examines the relationship between financial performance and language use, observing 405 partnerships between microfinance banks and their international financial partners in 74 countries. Drawing on language research in international business, we find that microfinance banks based in English-speaking, French-speaking, and Spanish-speaking countries have higher performance. Furthermore, the linguistic distance between the home country of a microfinance bank and the home country of its international partner(s) is negatively related to its financial performance. Our large-scale study confirms the effect of language use on organization-level financial performance and extends research on language in multinationals from intra-firm to inter-firm relationships.",

keywords = "English, Firm performance, French, Inter-firm international partnership, Language in business, Microfinance, Spanish",

author = "Sougand Golesorkhi and Roy Mersland and Rebecca Piekkari and Grigory Pishchulov and Trond Rand{\o}y",

year = "2019",

month = apr,

day = "1",

doi = "10.1016/j.jwb.2019.03.002",

language = "English",

volume = "54",

pages = "213--229",

journal = "Journal of World Business",

issn = "1090-9516",

publisher = "Elsevier BV",

number = "3",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - The effect of language use on the financial performance of microfinance banks: Evidence from cross-border activities in 74 countries

AU - Golesorkhi, Sougand

AU - Mersland, Roy

AU - Piekkari, Rebecca

AU - Pishchulov, Grigory

AU - Randøy, Trond

PY - 2019/4/1

Y1 - 2019/4/1

N2 - This multi-year study examines the relationship between financial performance and language use, observing 405 partnerships between microfinance banks and their international financial partners in 74 countries. Drawing on language research in international business, we find that microfinance banks based in English-speaking, French-speaking, and Spanish-speaking countries have higher performance. Furthermore, the linguistic distance between the home country of a microfinance bank and the home country of its international partner(s) is negatively related to its financial performance. Our large-scale study confirms the effect of language use on organization-level financial performance and extends research on language in multinationals from intra-firm to inter-firm relationships.

AB - This multi-year study examines the relationship between financial performance and language use, observing 405 partnerships between microfinance banks and their international financial partners in 74 countries. Drawing on language research in international business, we find that microfinance banks based in English-speaking, French-speaking, and Spanish-speaking countries have higher performance. Furthermore, the linguistic distance between the home country of a microfinance bank and the home country of its international partner(s) is negatively related to its financial performance. Our large-scale study confirms the effect of language use on organization-level financial performance and extends research on language in multinationals from intra-firm to inter-firm relationships.

KW - English

KW - Firm performance

KW - French

KW - Inter-firm international partnership

KW - Language in business

KW - Microfinance

KW - Spanish

U2 - 10.1016/j.jwb.2019.03.002

DO - 10.1016/j.jwb.2019.03.002

M3 - Article

SN - 1090-9516

VL - 54

SP - 213

EP - 229

JO - Journal of World Business

JF - Journal of World Business

IS - 3

ER -

The effect of language use on the financial performance of microfinance banks: Evidence from cross-border activities in 74 countries

Abstract

Keywords

UN SDGs

Access to Document

Fingerprint

Cite this