Title: Transnational identities in the European labour market: a multilingual perspective

Authors: Anne Kari Bjørge; Sanda Tomescu-Baciu; Sunniva Whittaker

Addresses: Department of Professional and Intercultural Communication, NHH Norwegian School of Economics, Bergen, Norway ' Department of Scandinavian Literature and Language, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania ' Norwegian School of Economics, University of Agder, Kristiansand & Grimstad, Norway

Abstract: EU policies encourage multilingualism as a factor to enable mobility within its labour market. One aspect of this is the offshoring of language-sensitive services from high-cost to lower-cost countries, which has been largely ignored in previous research. This calls for situated research of language issues contextualised with respect to different professional and geographical categories. The present paper addresses the situation of knowledge workers providing language-sensitive services for an off-shored MNC unit. The services in question require proficiency in the language of a high-cost country (Norway) and are offshored to a unit in a lower-cost country (Romania) for financial purposes. Norwegian proficiency in addition to English is a condition for employment at entry level. The article explores how a multilingual work situation impacts on knowledge workers' personal and professional identity, the concept of transnational identity and the issue of career pathing.

Keywords: transnationalism; identity; knowledge workers; service offshoring; multilingualism; hybrid language; European labour market; lingua franca; career pathing.

DOI: 10.1504/EJIM.2026.154251

European Journal of International Management, 2026 Vol.29 No.3, pp.449 - 467

Received: 30 Sep 2020
Accepted: 03 Jun 2021
Published online: 18 Jun 2026 *

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