Abstract
With increasing globalization, managing a diverse multilingual workforce, including one with Non-Native English Speaking (NNEs) employees, is becoming increasingly challenging for management. This symposium aims to contribute to our understanding of workplace experiences of NNEs and their individual and team outcomes across various organizational contexts. The collection of papers in the proposed symposium explores several critical areas, such as (a) how language diversity affects the development of the transactive memory system in multilingual teams with NNEs, (b) how the English-only mandated policies in MNCs impact the employment outcomes of Chinese, Italian, German, or Russian accented NNEs (c) under what conditions, and why, the intersection of race/ethnicity and language diversity (Native English Speaker and NNE status) impacts the hireability and advancement of Latinx employees, (d) how linguistic identity helps or impedes Chinese expatriates working with their Arab counterparts and other NNEs in United Arab Emirates, and (e) how NNEs with marginalized identities navigate stereotypes about their competence in high-status jobs. Further, by employing various theoretical frameworks and methodologies, the symposium enhances our understanding of how a relatively underexamined facet of diversity impacts team processes and individual employment outcomes. Ultimately, our goal with this symposium is two-fold. First, is to advance the scholarship on language diversity within the DEI arena, and second, to foster greater collaborations among researchers with diverse disciplinary training (e.g., in HR, OB, Careers, and IM) to broaden our understanding of language diversity to mitigate language-based biases and improve the work, team, and career experiences of NNEs.