The IFAZ Website is Now Available in English

Simone Lackerbauer


Although machine-based translation has evolved quite a bit over the past few years, the translation or localization of texts is still too complex for the current algorithms at work: literature and specialized texts require creativity and thus cannot be converted into automated scripts or processes – yet? Having taken a look at the Google translation of the IFAZ website, we at least decided it would be better to translate it ourselves: please click here to access the English version of the IFAZ website.

In our globalized world of multinational companies, international firms, and transnational enterprises, the skills required for interpreting, translating, and localizing are becoming ever more important. By speaking or writing we do not only convey messages, but also cultural codes that need to be ‘translated’: business etiquette, intercultural competence or cross-cultural communication, and an increased sensitivity for the different codes of conduct are soft skills we can hardly ignore.


InterNations.org, an international online community for people who live and work abroad, writes about the basic defintion of intercultural communication: ‘Inter- (…) comes from the Latin word for “between”, and the dictionary defines “communication” as “exchanging information”. (…) Intercultural communication refers to exchanging information between people from different cultures. Sounds very easy, doesn’t it? It’s the “cultures” part of this simple definition where things start getting a tad complicated.’


Since the 1950s, Cultural Studies have been established in research as a field of cultural analysis; and in 2014, Gilbert B. Rodman published a book named “Why Cultural Studies?” – ‘a rallying call for a reinvigoration of the project of cultural studies that provides a critical analysis of its meteoric rise to the academic fore and makes a convincing argument for the pressing need for a renewed investment in, and re-evaluation of, its core ideals.’


With the English translation of our website and with the new, extended list of (inter)national events on the future of work in 2014 / 2015, we want to support the idea that the future of work (especially the working culture) needs to incorporate awareness for ‘culture’. By culture, we mean both the cultural background of an organization’s workers – and the culture within the organization. For inspiration on the latter, you may want to take a look at IBM’s recent social business slideshows: The Future of Work – Culture and Future of Work: Culture.