EXPORT AND LANGUAGE BARRIERS IN THE WELSH SME SECTOR

In response to recent evidence which indicates that UK companies are losing trading opportunities due to relatively poor linguistic skills, an increasing interest has been expressed by government agencies, training bodies and the business and academic community in the foreign language requirements of UK firms. Currently, however, little research has examined the importance of language barriers relative to other factors which are perceived to inhibit export performance. In addition, previous research has not focused on how these factors differ in respect of SMEs and their larger counterparts. Based on a survey of 939 Welsh manufacturing firms, from which a 22% response rate was obtained, the purpose of this paper is to present some new empirical evidence relating to language barriers, and other perceived inhibitors, to improving the export performance of domestic manufacturing firms located in Wales. A comparative analysis of small, medium and large companies was undertaken and indicates that there are significant differences in perceived export and language barriers which are related to firm size. A further key finding of the study is that a number of export impediments are considered to be significantly more problematic than language barriers. However, 21% of respondents considered that communication barriers currently presented a problematic/very problematic factor inhibiting export performance; with a larger proportion (29%) of respondents indicating that they considered that their future trading performance would improve significantly if language skills were improved within their firms.