دانلود رایگان ترجمه مقاله افزایش قابلیت درک ارتباطات کسب و کار جهانی با نمودارها – IEEE 2017

استفاده از نمودارها در قراردادها: افزایش قابلیت درک ارتباطات (مکاتبات) کسب و کار جهانی

Diagrams in Contracts: Fostering Understanding in Global
Business Communication

چکیده 

 مسئله تحقیق: قراردادهای بنگاه به بنگاه، ابزارهای ارتباطی پیچیده‌ای هستند که اغلب به صورت مسائل حقوقی و قلمرو انحصاری وکلا محسوب می‌شوند. با این حال بسیاری از ذی نفعان دیگر بدون پیشینه و زمینه حقوقی درگیر مذاکره، تنظم، تصویب و پیاده سازی قرار دادها بوده و مشارکت و کمک آنها برای ایجاد روابط کسب و کار موفق بسیار ضروری است. ما چگونه می‌توانیم اطمینان حاصل کنیم که همه ذی نفعان در زمینه کسب و کار جهانی- صرف نظر از این که زبان مادری یا تخصص آن‌ها چیست- به آسانی و به طور صحیح قادر به درک اسناد قرار داد می‌باشند؟ این مطالعه پیشنهاد می‌کند که گنجاندن نمودارها در قرار دادها می‌تواند منجر به درک سریع‌تر و صحیح‌تر هر دوی گویشوران (متکلمان) بومی و غیر بومی زبان انگلیسی شود.
مرور منابع: ما بر موضوعات پژوهشی زیر تمرکز کردیم:1- شیوه‌های تلفیق متن و تصاویر برای ارائه راهنمایی‌ها و دستور العمل های مؤثرتر، زیرا ما قرار دادها را به صورت یک نوعی دستور العمل کسب و کار در نظر می‌گیریم 2- تئوری بار شناختی، زیرا به توجیه این مسئله که چرا درک قراردادها سخت است و چرا تلفیق متن و تصاویر موجب بهبود قابلیت فهم و درک پذیری آن‌ها می‌شود کمک می‌کند.3- سبک‌های شناختی، زیرا تفاوت‌های فردی می‌توانند بر شیوه پردازش اطلاعات کلامی و بصری افراد تأثیر گذاشته و به ما امکان کشف و بررسی محدودیت‌های رویکرد پیشنهادی ما را می‌دهند.4- زبان بین المللی و گویش‌های مختلط انگلیسی مورد استفاده توسط متخصصان کسب و کار در محیط‌های بین المللی، نیازها و چالش‌های آن‌ها و این واقعیت که رویکردهای عملی برای اطمینان از برقراری موفق ارتباط نیاز است.
روش شناسی: ما یک آزمایشی را با 122 کارشناس قرار داد از 24 کشور انجام دادیم. از شرکت کنندگان تحقیق خواسته شد تا یک سری از تکالیف درک مطلب مربوط به یک قرار داد را کامل کنند، این تکالیف در یک نسخه متنی و سنتی و یک نسخه شامل نمودارها ودیاگرام های گنجانده شده در متن به آن‌ها ارائه شدند. علاوه بر اندازه گیری سرعت و صحت پاسخگویی، ما از شرکت کننده‌ها خواستیم تا اطلاعاتی را در مورد سابقه تحصیلی و آموزشی خود، زبان مادری و تلاش ذهنی ادراک شده در تکمیل تکالیف ارائه کنند ونیز از آن‌ها خواسته شد تا یک پرسش نامه کلامی و تصویرسازی اشیای فضایی را برای ارزیابی سبک شناختی آن‌ها پر کنند.
نتیجه گیری: نتایج نشان داد که گنجاندن نمودارها در قرار دادها موجب درک سریع‌تر و صحیح‌تر می‌شود. بر خلاف انتظار، پیشینه (سابقه) حقوقی و سبک‌های شناختی مختلف اثر متقابلی با این اثر اصلی (درک سریع‌تر وصحیح تر قرار داد) ندارند. ما پی بردیم که هر دو گویشوران بومی و غیر بومی زبان انگلیسی (گویشورانی با زبان مادری و غیر مادری زبان انگلیسی) از وجود نمودارها (به دلیل افزایش دقت درک قرار داد) سود می‌برند با این حال این اثر به طور ویژه‌ای در خصوص گویشوران غیر بومی قوی‌تر است. اهمیت مطالعه حاضر در این است که افزودن نمودارها به قرار دادها به افراد کمک می‌کند تا این اسناد را سریع‌تر و به طور دقیق‌تری درک کنند. نیاز به قرار دادهای با تنظیم و طراحی خوب، می‌تواند فرصت‌های جدیدی را برای نویسندگان و طراحان اطلاعات حرفه‌ای فراهم کند. حوزه تحقیقات آینده می‌تواند فراتر از ارزیابی‌های آزمایشی باشد: با مشاهده این نوع جدید از قراردادها در محیط واقعی، امکان شفاف سازی این موضوع که چگونه دیداری سازی (استفاده از نمودارها و ابعاد گرافیکی) در قرار داد را بایستی در محیط ارتباطات جهانی ادراک و تفسیر کرد فراهم می‌کند.
لغات کلیدی: دیداری سازی قرارداد، طراحی قرار داد، بار شناختی، نمودارها، توانش ارتباطی جهانی (GCC)، ارتباطات کسب و کار بین المللی (IBC)

Abstract

Research problem: Business-to-business contracts are complex communication artifacts, often considered “legal stuff” and the exclusive domain of lawyers. However, many other stakeholders without a legal background are involved in the negotiation, drafting, approval, and implementation of contracts, and their contributions are essential for successful business relationships. How can we ensure that all stakeholders in the global business context—whatever their native language or professional background—easily and accurately understand contract documents? This study suggests that integrating diagrams in contracts can result in faster and more accurate comprehension, for both native and non-native speakers of English. Literature review: We focused on the following research topics: (1) ways to integrate text and visuals to create more effective instructions, since we conceptualize contracts as a type of business instructions; (2) cognitive load theory, as it may help explain why contracts are so hard to understand and why text-visuals integration may ameliorate their understandability; (3) cognitive styles, as individual differences may affect how individuals process verbal and visual information, thus allowing us to explore the limitations of our suggested approach; (4) the English lingua franca spoken by business professionals in international settings, their needs and challenges, and the fact that pragmatic approaches are needed to ensure successful communication. Methodology: We conducted an experiment with 122 contract experts from 24 countries. The research participants were asked to complete a series of comprehension tasks regarding a contract, which was provided in either a traditional, text-only version or in a version that included diagrams as complements to the text. In addition to measuring answering speed and accuracy, we asked the participants to provide information about their educational background, mother tongue, and perceived mental effort in task completion, and to complete an object–spatial imagery and verbal questionnaire to assess their cognitive style. Conclusions: We found that integrating diagrams into contracts supports faster and more accurate comprehension; unexpectedly, legal background and different cognitive styles do not interact with this main effect. We also discovered that both native and non-native speakers of English benefit from the presence of diagrams in terms of accuracy, but that this effect is particularly strong for non-native speakers. The implication of this study is that adding diagrams to contracts can help global communicators to understand such documents more quickly and accurately. The need for well-designed contracts may open new opportunities for professional writers and information designers. Future research may also go beyond experimental evaluations: by observing this new genre of contracts in vivo, it would be possible to shed light on how contract visualizations would be perceived and interpreted in a global communication environment.

INTRODUCTION

Think about contracts: long, complex, demanding documents written in “legalese,” not really an archetype of effective, clear, and easy professional communication. Misunderstandings may lead to litigation, which damages businesses in terms of wasted resources and reputation. For instance, BellAliant and Rogers Telecom, two Canadian firms, went through a bitter 18-month dispute, worth $1 million CDN, on whether BellAliant was allowed to terminate a contract by simply giving notice or whether the agreement was iron-clad until the end of the contract period. The source of confusion boiled down to a single comma in the English version of the agreement, which suggested that the first interpretation was the correct one, while the French version of the agreement (Canada is a bilingual country) supported the latter interpretation [1]. Plain language scholars have been addressing the shortcomings of traditional legal writing for years. Even attorneys and legal scholars have repeatedly warned that legalese is a waste of money for businesses and governments in the form of claims, administrative and compliance costs, and time lost in writing, reading, and managing confusing documents [2]–[4]. It is also erroneous to think of contracts as merely “legal stuff,” the exclusive, specialized domain of lawyers [5]. In today’s global, networked economy, contracts represent key business instruments for companies to synchronize, collaborate and undertake new ventures. They are used in all spheres of business, from narrow aspects such as the working conditions of a certain employee, to large corporate-wide issues such as mergers and acquisitions. Moreover, after signature, contracts need to be implemented by responsible teams, who need to carefully follow contracts as instructions and translate them into concrete actions. Thus, we see contracts as a business communication genre. Managers and executives, in addition to lawyers, are the key stakeholders of contracts, and should be able to understand what contracts say and how they impact day-to-day business. The challenge is even greater in international business, as parties do not share the same language and may lack common interpretive frames. The highly formal register of English “legalese,” which is modeled on the English used by its legally trained native speakers (NS), is the standard language of international contracts. However, this is not the real-life English used in international business, which is better characterized as a lingua franca, typically used by non-native speakers (NNS) of English, to get work done. As shown in the BellAliant versus Rogers case, the long and syntactically complex sentences typical of legalese may be ambiguous even for NS managers. In light of the concept of global communicative competence (GCC) [6], [7]—which, drawing on the lingua franca aspect of English, stresses pragmatic communication skills rather than flawless native proficiency—we propose that the threat of ambiguity to international contracts must be addressed by going beyond the use of textual language. After all, the legal principle of freedom of contract does not limit in any way contract formats, style, and aspect (even a verbal contract is valid, although it may be hard to enforce). In this study, we show how the comprehension of agreements among international contract professionals can be enhanced by presenting information in a more visual fashion: contracts complemented with explanatory diagrams and presented in clearly structured layouts. The argument in favor of visualizations as a way to clarify the meaning of complex textual information is based on these areas of earlier research: (1) The benefits of integrating texts and visuals in instructional texts (and how contracts can be intended as a particular type of instructions) (2) Cognitive load theory (CLT) and the effects of individual cognitive styles on learning (3) The specific needs of professional NNSs of English for pragmatic solutions and practices that can improve their overall communicative competence The overall problem of this study can be formulated as follows: can a visually enhanced style of communication help professionals to understand complex contractual information? This leads to our first two research questions: RQ1. To what extent can professionals’ understanding of contracts be enhanced by employing diagrams in these documents? RQ2. To what extent can diagrams in contracts reduce the time taken to understand these documents? If we find that diagrams indeed support contract comprehension, we want to investigate whether their presence equally benefits individuals with different cognitive styles, language abilities, and knowledge of specific jargon. For instance, could a visual approach increase the communicative competence of NNSs dealing with English legalese and reduce the gap with NSs? This leads to two further research questions: RQ3. Which individual characteristics (e.g., cognitive style, educational background, age, language . . . ) may affect the extent to which a professional benefits from diagrams in contract documents? RQ4. In light of the possible effects of individual characteristics, what are the implications of using diagrams in contracts in an international business setting? The remainder of the paper is structured as follows. In the literature review, we describe our theoretical orientation and the selection process for the literature, and then present the identified key topics. At the end of that section, we suggest eight hypotheses. Then, we introduce the methodology of this study, after which the results are presented and discussed. Finally, we address limitations and suggestions for future research.