L’entreprise multinationale à la croisée de la mondialisation et du management interculturel: comment relever le défi posé par la distance linguistique?

In this paper we propose a framework to analyze the linguistic distance
between the home country of a multinational corporation (MNC) and its
host country, and a tool to measure it. Our approach to linguistic distance is
grounded in the taxonomy of multinational corporations (MNCs) developed
by Perlmutter (1969) and then improved by Bartlett et al. (2005). We used
the Expected Utility Method (Von Neumann and Morgenstern, 1947) and
the Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) method (Roy, 1985) to define a
composite index aimed at measuring the linguistic distance. Its components
build upon the foundations laid by the findings of several previous studies.
We then used this index to assess the linguistic distance between Canada
and four Asian countries and we present our findings.