Firm Performance: Does Mastering a Foreign Language Matter?

7 pages•Published: January 6, 2018

Remedios Hernández Linares, María José Naranjo, Héctor Sánchez Santamaría, Mercedes Rico García, Laura Fielden Burns and J. Enrique Agudo Garzón

Abstract

Over the last twenty years the impact of language in international and multinational companies has attracted significant scholarly attention, which is reflected in the growing literature. However, and despite the fact that small and medium enterprises (SMEs) constitute the engine of numerous economies worldwide, the impact of foreign languages on SMEs’ performance remains understudied. This is especially intricate because, considering that SMEs often have fewer resources, the commitment of such resources to language acquisition and foreign language education can only be justified in the case of improved performance. To address this gap, the objective of our research aims to get insights whether and how the domain of a foreign language (mainly English) affects SMEs’ performance. For this purpose, we perform an exploratory empirical study based on data collected through a telephone questionnaire during the first semester of 2017. A group of private Spanish SMEs constitutes our sample. Our work presents the results of the statistical analysis of these primary data, and contributes to a more nuanced perspective on language utility for organizational performance.

Keyphrases: firm performance, foreign language, success

In: Alejandro Curado (editor). LSP in Multi-disciplinary contexts of Teaching and Research. Papers from the 16th International AELFE Conference, vol 3, pages 117-123.

Links:	https://easychair.org/publications/paper/v8WZ
	https://doi.org/10.29007/dkzg

BibTeX entry

@inproceedings{AELFE2017:Firm_Performance_Does_Mastering,
  author    = {Remedios Hernández Linares and María José Naranjo and Héctor Sánchez Santamaría and Mercedes Rico García and Laura Fielden Burns and J. Enrique Agudo Garzón},
  title     = {Firm Performance: Does Mastering a Foreign Language Matter?},
  booktitle = {LSP in Multi-disciplinary contexts of Teaching and Research. Papers from the 16th International AELFE Conference},
  editor    = {Alejandro Curado},
  series    = {EPiC Series in Language and Linguistics},
  volume    = {3},
  publisher = {EasyChair},
  bibsource = {EasyChair, https://easychair.org},
  issn      = {2398-5283},
  url       = {/publications/paper/v8WZ},
  doi       = {10.29007/dkzg},
  pages     = {117-123},
  year      = {2018}}

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