Reversing the Translation Flow: Moving Organizational Practices from Japan to the U.S.

Abstract

Building on the neo‐institutional organizational translation approach and on interlingual translation studies, we undertake an historical case study of the movement of Japanese organizational practices to the USA from the 1970s through the mid‐1990s. Both American and Japanese translators struggled to bring Japanese management models into the USA, reversing the dominant translation flow and bridging wide differences between the sending and receiving contexts. We use the translation ecology approach to look at the interactions over time between translators, translations, and translation processes studied separately in much translation research. Our paper makes two contributions to research on organizational translation. First, it develops more precise and theoretically‐based categorizations of the elements of translation ecology – translators, translations, and translation processes. Second, it challenges the generalizability of the decontextualization/disembedding and recontextualization/re‐embedding processes that are widely accepted as a necessary process in moving management models and practices across contexts.

Metaphorical and Interlingual Translation in Moving Organizational Practices Across Languages

“…In these examples, the incorporation of interlingual translation deepened the insights gained about adoption, change or rejection of incoming organizational practices. Future investigations into the borrowing of foreign terms and labels may explore the multifaceted reasons for why a foreignization, domestication or a mixed approach was chosen, and the (un)intended consequences of these interlingual translation decisions (see also Westney & Piekkari, 2019).…”

“…The Japanese example is a case in point due to its radically different and unfamiliar culture, language, and social structure. Yet, translators have to engage in considerable metaphorical translation to make the Japanese practices accessible and legitimate for receiving audiences (Westney & Piekkari, 2019). In translation studies such borrowing of foreign terms is called 'foreignization' and contrasted with 'domestication' which refers to local adaptation (Paloposki, 2011;Venuti, 1995).…”

“…Sometimes practices that undergo metaphorical translation into a new locale resist interlingual translation, leading to borrowing of foreign terms, expressions and labels in their original form (Westney & Piekkari, 2019). This is related to an attitude of respecting or even flaunting the foreignness of the foreign terms, texts and practices such as the Japanese ‘kaizen’ (continuous improvement) and ‘gebba-kai’ processes (quality circles adopted by engineers; Saka, 2004, p. 218).…”

“Trust But Verify”: How middle managers in a multinational use proverbs to translate an imported management concept

“…However, translation research in organisation studies has tended to distance itself from the interlingual meaning of translation (e.g, Czarniawska & Sevón, 1996), although language boundaries are often crossed as ideas and practices travel on a global scale. Thus, we join recent efforts to broaden the definition of translation to encompass the interlingual translation work commonly undertaken in multilingual organisations (Ciuk et al, 2019;Piekkari, Tietze, & Koskinen, 2019;Westney & Piekkari, 2020).…”

The Impact of Japanese Labels on the Perceived Relevance of Lean Production Practices in a Russian Bank

“…One of the most serious concerns that organizations have when transferring these practices is whether their employees will find them relevant and, as such, adopt them in their work. To better capture the multiple challenges related to the transnational movement and adoption of management practices, researchers have increasingly used the concept of translation, defined as the modification that a practice undergoes when transferred into a new context (Boxenbaum & Pedersen, 2009), with a particular emphasis on the various transformations and adaptations aimed at improving the fit with local socio-cultural and linguistic contexts (Brannen, 2004;Piekkari, Tietze, & Koskinen, 2019;Welch & Welch, 2008;Westney & Piekkari, 2019).…”