Harnessing a hidden power : international corporate communications, translators and translatorial agency

Reviewed and adapted presentation of revised paper submitted for cancelled 2020 GEM&L Conference (https://digitalcollection.zhaw.ch/handle/11475/20413).Organizations that operate internationally are challenged to manage communication strategically across different cultures and languages. Key competences that help develop and transmit strategic corporate messages aligned with senders’ intentions and receivers’ cultural embeddedness are not systematically utilized. Translators traditionally possess many of these, but the current mechanistic view of communication management and translation service provision place translators too far downstream in the communication design and production chain.. Recent research from Organization Studies and Translation Studies indicates that translators can be a valuable asset, but they are insufficiently integrated in planning and design. In particular, professional translators’ agency is constrained by self-concept issues and linear, top-down corporate communciation and translation service provision models that inhibit their much-needed iterative, interactive involvement in developing and conveying identities and strategic messages within and for the organizations using theirn services