Weak in Ability but Still Follow What the Headquarter Asks: A Legitimacy-Based View of MNC Employees’ Adoption of English

This paper advances a legitimacy-based view on what factors determine multinational corporation (MNC) employees’ adoption of English at work. We posit that legitimacy judgment represents an alternative mechanism, other than language ability, for explaining MNC employees’ response to HQ’s corporate language policy. The hypotheses were confirmed in two studies with mixed-methods (experiments; semi-structured interviews), involving MNC employees in China. Our findings verified that corporate language policy increases positive legitimacy judgment, which in turn enhances employees’ adoption of English at work. Further analysis showed that language ability moderates the mediating effect of legitimacy judgment, such that this effect is stronger for employees with lower language ability. Semi-structured interviews confirmed the experimental findings and brought more insight into why and how Chinese employees adopt English in a daily work. This paper contributes to the research on corporate language policy, legitimacy judgment, and cross-border management in Asia Pacific.