Title: The changing nature of international business relationships and foreign language competence

Authors: Jonathan Swift, Yuelu Huang

Addresses: School of Management, Maxwell Building, The Crescent, University of Salford, Manchester M5 4WT, UK. ' Staffordshire University Business School, Brindley Building, Leek Road, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire ST4 2DF, UK

Abstract: This paper examines the role of Foreign Language Competence (FLC) in international business, at a time when business activity, in general, is becoming increasingly international, and when the focus of business relationships is changing from that of a short-term, task-orientated approach, to one of a longer-term relationship orientation. As a consequence of these changes, the authors suggest that FLC should become increasingly focused on the development/maintenance of long-term business relationships, rather than the traditional short-term ||sales-orientation|| which has been the case so far. The paper is a conceptual contribution, which will be empirically tested at a later date.

Keywords: foreign language competence; cross-cultural business relationship development; joint ventures; international business; culture; internationalisation; market entry; communications; business relationships.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMP.2004.004868

International Journal of Management Practice, 2004 Vol.1 No.1, pp.21 - 40

Published online: 07 Jul 2004 *

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