Abstract

This chapter investigates written workplace genres manifested in English as corporate language (ECL). It adopts an ethnographic approach and focuses on a business manager’s engagement with written genres when working in a multinational company (MNC). The data, collected at various points over the professional’s management career, include both authentic data such as audio- and video-recordings of work practices and email communication as well as interviews and ethnographic fieldnotes. We investigate, applying genre analysis, what different written genres emerge when the manager handles his daily jobs on the grass-roots level of the multilingual organisational context. With authentic examples we showcase how professionals engage with genres in dynamic ways and how English as corporate language manifests across a continuum between frontstage and backstage. Moreover, we illustrate how organisational practices are manifested in actual genre use and thus advocate for a holistic approach to language-sensitive management research. Our study has implications for both research and practice.