One of the most interesting studies in recent years is the study of Business English as a Lingua Franca (BELF) in the Scandinavian context (Louhiala-Salminen et al.2005). The study focuses on two cross-border mergers dating from the late 1990s, involving Finnish and Swedish partners and their corporate language policies. The central aim of the study was to identify the cultural and linguistic challenges that were faced by Finnish- and Swedish-speaking employees at paper Giant and PankkiBanken/Scandi Bank. As a result of the decision to use English as a Business English Lingua Franca (BELF) (2005:403). Louhiala-Salminen et al. looked at the communicative practices in both organizations. The perceptions held by Finnish and Swedish employees about each other, and the discourse produced in spoken and written BELF interactions within the corporations in meeting and in emails. The study used a questionnaire survey and a series of interviews. Conversational analysis (CA) was used to analyse the meetings, and genre analysis was used to analyse the emails. The findings revealed that for both organizations and both nationalities, IBE was used about 20 per cent of the time , with many of those interviewed reporting difficulties on the telephone and in meetings where they needed to respond in English quickly. The other findings in the study suggest that BELF was not associated by those who used it with the culture of any of the inner circle countries, ‘Rather, it can be seen to be a conduit of its speaker’s communication culture’ (2005 : 417). In other words, a Finnish or Swedish cultural identify and associated discourse strategies characterized the Finnish-BELF and Swedish-BELF.