Using English as a lingua franca to engage with investors: An analysis of Italian and Japanese companies’ investor relations communication policies

Companies around the world now routinely provide financial information in English for the global investment community. In the interest of greater transparency, companies may also publish a policy that articulates how they intend to communicate with investors in terms of content, timing, and channels. This aim of this paper is to explore the language of investor relations communication policies of Japanese and Italian companies, representing two different national and business cultures. Ad-hoc datasets were compiled from English-language textual materials relating to investor relations communication practices on the websites of companies listed on the Italian FTSE MIB 40 and the Japanese Nikkei 225. The datasets were comparatively analysed with corpus software to extract keywords used when communicating with investors that could reflect distinctive cultural approaches. Results showed that keywords emphasizing social relations characterized the Italian dataset, while those in the Japanese dataset highlighted the normative aspects of financial communication. Follow-up qualitative analysis indicated that the Italian and Japanese companies’ approaches were both aligned and unaligned with their presumed cultural orientations. From a pedagogical perspective, the findings can inform ESP courses dealing with financial communication to raise L2 learners’ awareness of trends and culturally diverse perspectives in relation to investor relations communication practices.