Managing multilinguality in organizations

Abstract

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to show how multilinguality is permanently present in organizations in this global world, and how they should take into account the multilingual phenomenon specifically from the perspective of knowledge management in order to gain presence in markets. Design/methodology/approach – The approach followed by the authors consists of a review of the published literature addressing this issue during the last years, followed by a proposal of applicable technologies in each step of the information processing. Findings – The clearest finding is that if technology is not used for solving the problems that arise when dealing with multilingual contents, efficient information managing turns out a rather difficult task. Research limitations/implications – The paper points out a number of different states in the information flows, which make it possible to study and analyse the most appropriate technologies for their orderly treatment. A unified treatment of the information flows is recommended, especially if there are multilingual components. Originality/value – The issue of multilinguality in organizations, a possible cause of a weak penetration in the global world, has been scarcely studied and hardly tackled from a methodological perspective. This paper suggests technologies adequate for different situations when managing organizational information.