DEMOGRAPHICS

A total of 47 respondents comprise the initial useable survey data.  The average respondent was a 36 year old, English-speaking male or female.  The age of respondents came from a symmetric distribution.  94% of the time, business was usually conducted in the native language of the sender.  The receiver's usual company business was conducted in a language different from that of the receiver in 43% of the cases.  There is a strong opportunity for intercultural communication difficulties when one considers those cases in which the companies conduct business in different language.  Almost 1/3 of the time the sender and receiver's companies conducted business in different languages.

Sender's native language:

The sample provided no Japanese speakers, and single instances of French, German and other native tongues.  The single instances worked out to 2% of the sample size, and are omitted in the following breakdown:

English:          57%

Spanish          11%

Chinese         6%

Other:             21%

Sender's Native Language - Other: 

Single instances of the following languages for a total of 21% of the sample:  Amharic, Arabic, Bahasa Malaysia, Croatian, Kamba, Portuguese, Swahili, Telugu, Turkish and Vietnamese.

Receiver's native language: 

The receivers' native language was distributed as:

English:          31%

French           11%

Spanish          9%

German          2%

Chinese         7%

Japanese       9%

Other:             31%

Receiver's Native Language - Other: 

Afrikaans, Arabic, Czech, Dutch, Yugoslavia, Hindi (2), Italian, Luo/kamba, Malay, Russian, Swedish and Turkish