Language

An example where language barriers may come into play would be an organisation with its head quarters based in the UK but with subsidiaries based in Germany.

So, do you standardise on the use of one native language used by all employees for the whole Intranet or do you provide translated versions for all documentation on servers in both countries? Would this policy merely cover static documentation, such as reports, or would it extend to database records?

Imagine the thousands of documents and communications that may need to be constantly translated and maintained, even if a policy was adopted that was of limited scope in terms of the kinds of information which were to be covered. Even if sophisticated and detailed systems were successfully implemented, human intervention for translations is extremely time-consuming and costly.

Software solutions are available, but on the whole they are still not yet sophisticated enough to be left to their own devices. Those considering adopting such software systems may wish also to consider the following. In the extreme, confusion may lie in a scenario where a statement or transcript within a communication contains a colloquialism such as ‘the project adopted a belt and braces approach…’. How would this be translated in an automated process?

Policies and guidelines to encourage the use of native languages in reports and on-line discussions in an international-friendly manner may help alleviate some of these problems as cited in the scenario. Even then however, documents perceived to be grammatically correct by the author may be totally misrepresented or confused by an automated process. If you are in any doubt of the problems that may be associated with translation software, try the facilities commonly available with the bigger search engines on the Internet.

An even more complex area relating to language, regardless of the policies presented to authors, would be the management of conversational transcripts held in active or archived collaborative Groupware or electronic conferencing repositories. Would the policy be applied to these areas of the Intranet or would official interim summaries or conclusions be required, that would allow different nationality users to search these resources?

One company that appears to have been successful in adopting a bilingual approach is Rohde & Schwarz, the German producer of radio communication products (Holzhammer, 2000). With 3,000 employees located at the headquarters in Munich and 1,500 employees located worldwide, the company Intranet sites publish all information in both English and German.

Less obvious barriers to communication but still related to language are variations on the original native form. Examples may include:

• United States Vs United Kingdom
• Spain Vs Mexico

It is not uncommon in both examples for differences to arise in both spelling and meaning of words.

For example, take an international manufacturing organisation that has on-site Open Learning Centres at all their major plants both in the UK and USA. Various scenarios may arise where an individual in one country (i.e. a customer, supplier or employee) wishes to contact the relevant manager of this centre in another country. In this scenario, let us assume that the enquirer is UK-based. A situation may very well arise that a search on the organisation Intranet telephone directory or knowledge-base for the keywords ‘Open Learning Centre Manager’ reveals that the user has been unsuccessful in their search. There may be at least two reasons for the failure of the system to return a ‘result’ or ‘hit’.

• i] because the US spelling may be ‘center’
• ii] and/or the US occupational title for the UK-counterpart may be Educational Liaison Officer or a similar US derivative

From an information management perspective the solution to this scenario would be a relatively simple one. A database with a thesaurus (controlled or uncontrolled) would allow cross-referencing to alternative but related entries. In this particular instance there may even be a policy in place to prevent this confusion by standardising on occupational titles across the organisation.

This is of course only an example to prove a point. The extent to which these inconsistencies exist in practice will depend wholly on the size of an organisation, the scope of an Intranet’s transnational connectivity and the extent to which publishing guidelines and policies were put in place at the time the Intranet was first conceived.

These language barriers have so far only covered issues relating to policy and procedures, whether written or as technological solutions. However, cultural implications should also be taken into account when developing and implementing policy. Resistance to change has always been a barrier to some extent in the introduction of new technology and processes -how will a workforce react when it is requested (instructed?) as to which language should be used in published documents and possibly even in electronic conversation-based transcripts?

When countries have two official languages or more, such as bi-lingual countries like Canada, then both practical and cultural implications need to be taken into consideration.

These cultural issues may not just be confined to feelings of national identity but may even arise at regional levels. For instance, in Spain alone, there are four officially recognised languages, namely: Spanish (Castilian), Catalan, Galician, and Basque.

Whichever policy is adopted, with reference to such sensitive issues as language, it is plain to see that diplomacy and tact on behalf of Senior Management Teams will be key to their successful implementation. Educating a workforce, by providing the rationale behind these decisions, can only further help employees better understand why these policies have been implemented.

Legal matters - encryption

It is more than likely that your organisation will wish to stop unauthorised third parties prying into data sent back and forth from one locality to another. So you might encrypt such communications to protect their integrity during transit. Unfortunately encryption is either illegal in some countries, China for instance, or the level of sophistication used in the process is restricted, i.e. the USA.

Legal matters - EU Data Protection

Of further legal relevance to the transfer of information across transnational Intranets, is the instigation of the EU Data Protection directives to establish common European Union rules for protecting the privacy of individual personal data and its movement across the EU.

Personal data is any information that is recognised as identifying any living person from any information held or processed. The directives that are part of the Data Protection Act 1998, include eight data protection principles with which to comply. Of interest here is the eighth principle that states that personal data must not be transferred abroad without adequate protection.

No formal decisions of how ‘adequacy’ should be defined have been made yet (European Commission, 2000). The Directive does however establish rules to ensure that data is only transferred outside the EU when its continued protection is guaranteed or when specific exemptions apply.

With this in mind, an organisation must be extremely cautious and ensure that safeguards are put in place to protect against such eventualities in contravening the Act. The EU recommends that in cases where ‘sensitive’ data are involved, such as ‘medical data, and data revealing racial or ethnic origin, religious or philosophical beliefs’, an additional safeguard should be sought, in the form of gaining the concerned individual’s consent to the processing of the information.

Intranet publishers will not only have to be wary of ensuring that storage of such data remains secure in obvious resources, such as databases. Organisations will also need to ensure that fairly innocuous corporate newsletter items do not contain personal information regarding an employee’s personal background, unless their express permission has been sought beforehand or the information is restricted for access only within EU boundaries. Search engines will need to be tried and tested to ensure they do not retrieve such information when used by employees or third parties outside the EU. Employees should also be educated as to the range of information formats to which these Directives apply. These ultimately, may include the contents of emails or attached documents forwarded to countries that do not conform to the standards described by the Directives.

As there is still a fair amount of ambiguity surrounding the enforcement and definitions of how these Directives should be interpreted, the above should only be read from an awareness-raising perspective.

General information and more specific information relating to transborder dataflows can be found on the Government’s Data Protection site at: http://www.dataprotection.gov.uk/

Standardising client interfaces

Despite the original concept of Internet technologies being based upon open standards, commercial interests have encouraged proprietary standards steadily to slip back into the arena. The most obvious example of inconsistent standardisation is amongst the two main web browser vendors, Microsoft and Netscape.

It is for this reason that administrators and content providers of transnational Intranets need to ensure that their content can be accessed by all, if not the most popular, web browsers such as MS Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator. This may even extend to the need to provide two separate sets of pages where needed.

To some readers the simple solution may appear to suggest that a trans-global policy is all that is needed where standardisation of such software is insisted upon and policed throughout the organisation. Unfortunately, the frequent merger of businesses, assembly of other commercial players for joint ventures and constantly fluid relations with new suppliers and customers can never guarantee that each party will be using the same browser or justify the resources needed to implement the policy.

The potential problem of software compatibility is not just confined to browser and email clients. File format conflicts can often arise. Even if dispersed users have the same client software they may still possess different release versions of the product. For instance, an Intranet site may hold Microsoft Word documents created in the latest release of the software but small and remote sales offices or suppliers may have a dated version and be unable to read the contents. Do you then standardise all documentation, to be made only available as HTML pages, move to other easily accessible formats like.pdf (Portable Document Format) or do you adopt a blanket approach and provide a version for each?

A case study: Arthur Andersen

An organisation that has implemented its transnational Intranet using a comprehensive and systematic approach is Arthur Andersen. Arthur Andersen (Swantek, 2000), one of the top global names in management consultancy, went about planning their transglobal Intranet in the folowing manner.

To develop Arthur Andersen’s non-US virtual communities three Intranet Task Forces’ were established and named as:

• Best Practices / Solutions Team
• User Requirements Team
• Taxonomy Team

The membership of these task teams consisted of several representatives from other countries in which the company is based, with special emphasis on those countries where English was not the native language. It was also ensured that each included at least one team member with technical competencies in systems design and ontology.

The primary objectives of the Best Practices/Solutions Team were cited as:

• Benchmarking current process in global companies
• Identifying and evaluating translation products
• Developing a framework for the multilingual approach
• Researching and recommending technology tools
• Implementing a plan for language solutions

The User Requirements Team was charged with the following remits:

• Collecting community feedback on translation requirements
• Discussing content, culture, and community
• Identifying and studying non-English language content sources

The Taxonomy Team on the other hand was tasked with the following:

• To develop a standard for language, including spelling i.e. US English Vs UK English, French (native to France) Vs Swiss French etc.
• Address other language issues - global content, multilingual searching, thinking/writing globally
• Assess taxonomy products
• Build a taxonomy structured to fit the organisation’s Service Lines, Industries and Geographies