Foreign language is key to success

In most careers, fluency in another language is highly valued, not only for what such knowledge indicates about the employee but also for business ventures, creating a scenario where expanding into a global market becomes viable. A study published April 2006 in the "Journal of International Business Studies" concludes that introducing employees that speak another language into the workplace actually cuts transaction costs that involve international clients. Previously, if an employee was multilingual, they were utilized merely for the translation of bureaucratic documents (e.g. questionnaires). Language and the associated ethnic conventions were segregated from the skill itself. Language is now an integrated strategy within corporations. Commercial culture has shifted in its perception of multilingual people. Possessing knowledge of multiple languages is associated with many valued qualities, such as versatility, perceptivity and cooperation. In the pre-twenty-first century corporate milieu, multilingualism would brand an individual as an expatriate of another country, the child of an immigrant, or European - no outstanding traits would be attached.

http://media.www.thetriangle.org/media/storage/paper689/news/2009/07/17/EdOp/Foreign.Language.Is.Key.To.Success-3752127.shtml