Deborah Knowles

Foreign language use among decision‐makers of successfully internationalised SMEs: Questioning the language‐training paradigm

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to assess the place of language skills in the international orientation of decision‐makers of successfully internationalised SMEs. The position of language skills in this area of literature and policy is problematic and a new paradigm is proposed.Design/methodology/approach – This paper considers findings from an empirical project using both quantitative and qualitative methods, first, a 1,200 company telephone survey and second, an 80 company batch of face‐to‐face interviews.Findings – Strong international orientation seems indeed to be a determinant of success in international trade. The decision‐makers of the successful companies were notably more likely to have foreign language skills than those in the other groups and were also the only group to include self‐reported skills at the highest level. However, comparison of the countries in which the firms were dealing with the languages in which decision‐makers claimed skills shows very clearly that the decision‐m...