Terry Mughan

Portland State University, School of Business Administration, Adjunct

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I have conducted a number of empirical studies of business internationalisation and intercultural competence in companies for a range of policy bodies. Current interests include the role of intercultural communication between companies, universities and government support bodies. My work explores the links between foreign language competence, intercultural competence and international management processes. I speak French and German fluently and endeavour to imbue my research with the insights and perspectives which stem from this. I am currently leading a 14 country, 22 partner research project looking at the international student experience (ISE). Our aim is to provide an understanding of this phenomenon which is not driven by national policy or institutional conceptions or ownership of the international student. If you are interested in participating in ISE, please write to me at terrymughan@me.com.
Phone: 9713477322

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Videos by Terry Mughan

02:19:37

Terry Mughan Keynote GSOM/GEM&L Symposium, St Petersburg, Russia, November 17 2020

This talk is based on a published chapter and explores the challenge of creating a language-gener... more This talk is based on a published chapter and explores the challenge of creating a language-general curriculum for international managers. It includes the literature review supporting this concept and an outline structure for a curriculum. My keynote commences at I hour 3 minutes into this recording.

Books by Terry Mughan

Terry Mughan Language Management in the Global Firm: Transforming Research into Education

Managing Multilingual Workplaces, eds Horn S., Lecomte P. and Tietze S. Routledge, 2020

This chapter contains a review of language-sensitive literature and evaluates its contribution to... more This chapter contains a review of language-sensitive literature and evaluates its contribution to the domain of international management education. It combines the fruits of this research with language-strategy literaure and proposes an outline for an language-general curriculum for international managers.

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MYB&TM 3.14.17 FINAL Language and Strategic Agility (1)

Agility X, 2018

Strategic Agility: The Critical Role of Language Sustaining competitive advantage requires a firm... more Strategic Agility: The Critical Role of Language Sustaining competitive advantage requires a firm's ability to sense, meld and thoughtfully leverage opportunities presented from throughout its global footprint in order to innovate and create value in light of ongoing market dynamism and industry change. Global strategy scholars tell us that being able to do this is the fundamental prerequisite to strategic agility. 1 What they sometimes overlook is that such activity entails frequent encounters with numerous partners and clients from all over the world, all of whom have their own native language and diverse foreign language proficiencies. Moreover, it is executed by individuals who are often displaced from their countries of origin, operating in complex cultural teams and tasked to share knowledge (which is often tacit) for the benefit of companies headquartered elsewhere, communicating in a lingua franca not their own. Then to complicate matters further, the decision-making processes needed to strategically make use of the appropriated knowledge are extensively framed, formulated, and articulated in yet another language-a firm-specific corporate language. Even with a shared lingua franca, there is never an exact fit between sending and receiving contexts and therefore there will be skidding of meaning as the transferred knowledge is recontextualized in the new context. 2 Simply put, language, in all of its forms and registers (national, functional, specialized, corporate, and so on) as the vehicle through which opportunities for growth and renewal, and valid and creative solutions to operational challenges are communicated, is a critical factor in realizing strategic agility.

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Becoming Interculturally Competent through Education and Training

My chapter in this book is entitled 'Exporting, the Multiple-market Experience and the SME Interc... more My chapter in this book is entitled 'Exporting, the Multiple-market Experience and the SME Intercultural paradigm'.

Small and medium-sized enterprises are the object of considerable investment in skills and knowledge development for exporting in the UK and elsewhere (OECD, 2006). It might be expected, in the global era, that increased and more diverse patterns of trading would lead to significant interest in the ability of SMEs to communicate effectively with an increasingly large range of international clients and partners simultaneously. There has however been little progress in modelling the intercultural experience of the SME as most investment in international skills analysis and development has continued to focus on the foreign language needs of the first-time exporter and largely ignores the intercultural dimension. Whilst interest in the intercultural strategies of large firms has blossomed our knowledge of SME behaviour and experience remains limited and is currently drawn from two separate schools: one focussing on foreign language acquisition (Hagen, 1999) and the other on international orientation (Manolova, T.S. and Manev, I.M (2004). This chapter will review the relevant literature and attempt to identify some key characteristics and determinates of intercultural competence in SMEs.

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Papers by Terry Mughan

 The Internationalisation of Business: Educational Paradigms and Challenges, 2010, Terry Mughan & Oyvin Kyvik, Journal of International Business Education, No. 5, 179-200

There has been much criticism of business education in the last decade, much of it focusing on th... more There has been much criticism of business education in the last decade, much of it focusing on the theory-practice divide. This article argues that this tension is particularly pronounced in the area of internationalization where practitioners are exposed to many operational challenges and cultural phenomena which were unheard of at the time the dominant theories were first formulated. It then discusses the impact classical economic thinking has had on business decision-making and international business education in particular. Relevant literature is reviewed before relating the findings to cognitive and intercultural aspects of international business. The case is made for an increased cognitive approach to international business education, including more innovative and integrated approaches to intercultural competences and languages contact. Recommendations are made as to how education may be improved, with key consideration of what type of knowledge and competences are most relevant to enable students to function effectively in complex scenarios where context-rooted problems require imaginative solutions. It is argued that this competence may be attained by means of curriculum reform based on increased collaboration between faculties, universities and businesses.

Cultural novelty and international students’ experience: a five-country study

Higher Education

Research has linked cultural differences between a sojourner’s home and host country with their c... more Research has linked cultural differences between a sojourner’s home and host country with their cultural transformation. Nonetheless, the results of empirical studies are inconclusive due to different operationalizations of cultural differences and testing among different groups of sojourners. We extend previous investigations by examining the effects of cultural novelty (i.e., the subjective perception of cultural differences) on the experience of international students (N = 1114) in Denmark, Germany, Italy, Poland, and the USA. Drawing on acculturation and social learning theories, we conceptualized a model of students’ adjustment and satisfaction taking into account cultural novelty. We tested the model through multi-group structural equation modeling (SEM) and examined the various relationships across subsamples from all five countries. We determined the significant effects of cultural novelty and a range of factors impacting students’ intercultural experience, such as their cul...

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A Cross-national Study of International Students' experiences

Academy of Management Proceedings, 2021

Chronic renal failure or late-stage renal disease is a progressive and irreversible disorder of r... more Chronic renal failure or late-stage renal disease is a progressive and irreversible disorder of renal function (the body fails in maintaining metabolism and balance of fluids and electrolytes), thereby causing uremia (retention of urea and other nitrogen waste in the blood). Treatment of kidney failure disease can be done by pharmacological and nonpharmacological means. Non-pharmacological treatment can be in the form of the provision of instrumental music. This study aims to find out the influence of instrumental music on quality of life in chronic kidney failure patients undergoing hemodialysis at the Royal Prima Hospital Medan. This type of research is pre-experimental research with a one-group pre-post-test design with the provision of instrumental music for 20 minutes. The population is 66 people and sampled as many as 20 people with accidental sampling techniques. The analysis used in using Wilcoxon test. Based on the calculation of the Wilcoxon signed-rank test, obtained Z=-3,938 with (p=0.000) < 0.05, so it can be concluded that there is an instrumental music influence on the quality of life in chronic renal failure patients undergoing hemodialysis at Royal Prima Medan Hospital in 2018. It is recommended that instrumental music can be applied as an alternative therapy to improve the quality of life.

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Strategic ethnography and reinvigorating Tesco Plc: Leveraging inside/ out bicultural bridging in multicultural teams

Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference Proceedings, 2013

ABSTRACT This paper focuses on a study of Tesco Plc conducted in 2011, in which we trained a mult... more ABSTRACT This paper focuses on a study of Tesco Plc conducted in 2011, in which we trained a multicultural team of nine Asian managers to become in-house ethnographers of Tesco UK for a 3-month period studying 52 stores in the UK with dual objectives of helping Tesco (1) to understand and evaluate the core practices that comprised the essence of Tesco&#39;s home country advantage, and (2) to identify sources of learning from Tesco&#39;s foreign subsidiaries to aid in reinvigorating its core in light of increasing competition in its home market. We believe that the strategic and training dimensions of this project constitute a new contribution to the field of organisational ethnography, particularly with regard to the use of a multinational ethnographic team of non-native speakers of English.

Chapter 6. Intercultural Interaction: A Sense-making Approach

1992 – is ?Languages for Export? Enough?

European Business Review, 1990

CURA-B SELF-EVALUATION REPORT 2014

Interreg IVB, 2014

This is a healthcare project in which I led the strategic evaluation role for the network of Euro... more

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Strategic ethnography and reinvigorating Tesco Plc: Leveraging inside/ out bicultural bridging in multicultural teams

This paper focuses on a study of Tesco Plc conducted in 2011, in which we trained a multicultural... more This paper focuses on a study of Tesco Plc conducted in 2011, in which we trained a multicultural team of nine Asian managers to become in-house ethnographers of Tesco UK for a 3-month period studying 52 stores in the UK with dual objectives of helping Tesco (1) to understand and evaluate the core practices that comprised the essence of Tesco's home country advantage, and (2) to identify sources of learning from Tesco's foreign subsidiaries to aid in reinvigorating its core in light of increasing competition in its home market. We believe that the strategic and training dimensions of this project constitute a new contribution to the field of organisational ethnography, particularly with regard to the use of a multinational ethnographic team of non-native speakers of English.

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Towards a 'Language-general' framework for IB

This paper presents the results of an experiment in teaching IB students about language as a gene... more

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The market for innovation in healthcare in Europe: Can open innovation help overcome embedded inefficiencies?

Open innovation developed as a way of understanding new methods of sourcing innovation by large c... more Open innovation developed as a way of understanding new methods of sourcing innovation by large companies. Its relevance as a tool for informing small firm growth and regional economic development is not yet developed in the literature. This paper describes the background research to European Interreg project, CURA-B, which sought to link small firms with large companies and government purchasers in the assistive technologies sector.

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Integration of foreign culture awareness into business language teaching materials and methods

The Language Learning Journal, Aug 6, 2007

The place of culture in language learning is current-ly a subject of interest to foreign language... more

Foreign language use among decision-makers of successfully internationalised SMEs : Questioning the language-training paradigm

Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, Sep 30, 2006

Purpose -The purpose of this research is to assess the place of language skills in the internatio... more Purpose -The purpose of this research is to assess the place of language skills in the international orientation of decision-makers of successfully internationalised SMEs. The position of language skills in this area of literature and policy is problematic and a new paradigm is proposed. Design/methodology/approach -This paper considers findings from an empirical project using both quantitative and qualitative methods, first, a 1,200 company telephone survey and second, an 80 company batch of face-to-face interviews. Findings -Strong international orientation seems indeed to be a determinant of success in international trade. The decision-makers of the successful companies were notably more likely to have foreign language skills than those in the other groups and were also the only group to include self-reported skills at the highest level. However, comparison of the countries in which the firms were dealing with the languages in which decision-makers claimed skills shows very clearly that the decision-makers of the "successful" international companies were often not using their foreign language skills in business. In addition, these decision-makers also possessed better attitudes towards foreign experience and other elements of international orientation. Practical implications -The paper discusses the implications of the findings for policy-makers responsible for training and trainers themselves. The evidence supports the view that government subsidies focusing on language training might be better directed at a more varied range of activities to develop international orientation. Originality/value -The article contributes to the development of qualitative research in this area in examining the foreign language use of decision-makers in successful international SMEs and locating this within their broader international orientation. It posits that language skills make an indirect contribution to overall international business success which is more valuable than their direct contribution to improved communication with specific foreign clients and markets.

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Aider les PME Exportatrices

Intercultural interaction: a sense-making approach

Removing Barriers to Sme Access to International Markets: Oecd-Apec Global Study

United States Association For Small Business and Entrepreneurship Conference Proceedings, 2008

This paper is based on a 45 country survey undertaken by the OECD/APEC economies titled 'Rem... more

SMEs IN THE GLOBAL MARKET PLACE: THE IMPORTANCE OF SKILLS, KNOWLEDGE AND ORGANISATIONAL LEARNING

This paper draws on the key findings and issues to emerge from an 18-month research project funde... more This paper draws on the key findings and issues to emerge from an 18-month research project funded by the East of England Development Agency and carried out by Anglia Polytechnic University1. It involved a study of need and support for small and medium sized enterprises in the Eastern region in the internationalisation of their business operations. The aim of the project was to identify successful aspects of international business planning, resource management, international networking, market intelligence gathering and global skills and knowledge development that can be made transferable across business sectors via training, educational, development and recruitment programmes. A number of studies into related areas have recently been completed both within the region and nationally, and we have drawn upon these reports to help inform our findings. These studies have either been quantitative or qualitative whereas this study is rather rare in that it is both quantitative and qualitat...

Identifying Need, Sharing Best Practice and Adding Value to the Eastern Region through Skills and Knowledge Transfer

Terry Mughan

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