Berlitz Luxembourg announces the publication of a paper entitled “Multilingualism: Driver of Competitiveness?”. It addresses the issue of multilingualism in Luxembourg, specifically in the business world, and examines its role in making Luxembourg a competitive player in international economics.
It focuses on two separate, yet intricately linked, components of a long-term project to determine the effect of multilingualism on business competition in Luxembourg, initiated by Mr Artur Sosna of Berlitz Luxembourg and undertaken in collaboration with Quest Market Research and Luxembourg for Business. The support came from “American Chamber of Commerce” in Luxembourg.

Firstly, this document presents the results of an online survey carried out in May 2011 on multilingualism within business; secondly, it reports on a symposium held in September 2011 entitled “Multilingualism: Driver of competitiveness?”

Survey & Symposium

The project is based on an online survey made in May 2011 throughout the business community of Luxembourg, where 265 business leaders gave their opinion about multilingualism within business and also more generally about the multilingual environment in Luxembourg.
The results of the study were then presented at a symposium held at the Chamber of Commerce of Luxembourg on 27 September 2011; this event involved a number of guest speakers and panelists coming from different business and academic backgrounds who gave their opinion about the topic.
The paper merges the results of the survey with the discussion and analysis which took place during the symposium.

Conclusion

Luxembourg is an extremely attractive and interesting country for new business opportunities due in part to its multilingual and multicultural environment and which gives the country excellent access to foreign markets. Living in a world of globalisation, multilingualism plays an important role and facilitates the communication on both a national and international level.
Even though there have been some aspects which are considered as disadvantages, when talking about multilingualism, the overall opinion about multilingualism within the working environment and within many other environments in Luxembourg remains extremely positive.

The Authors

The document was compiled thanks to Mr. Artur Sosna conceptual and scientific support by two students who are studying in this specific domain: Nicole Gotling-Dudding and Sarah Moser are students at the University of Luxembourg on a Masters degree course in Learning and Development in Multilingual and Multicultural Contexts. They specialise in researching and analysing contexts in which people of different cultural and language backgrounds interact. Some of these contexts include the fields of: education, business, society, communication, etc. Writing this brochure gave them the opportunity to extend their knowledge in terms of the national and international business community and how it is perceived in Luxembourg.