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Language Agency | When to Decline A Translation Project

September 19, 2012

Occasionally we decline to accept projects. It pains us to do it, but sometimes it’s the right thing. While we’re an active and growing translation company-agency in pursuit of as much business as we can secure, if a project doesn’t have a high probability of success we’d rather decline. It’s taken several years to develop […]

Why Translation Client Reviewers Make Unnecessary Edits

August 26, 2012

Language Agency | When to Decline A Translation Project

September 19, 2012

Why Translation Client Reviewers Make Unnecessary Edits

August 26, 2012

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Language Agency | When to Decline A Translation Project

September 19, 2012

Occasionally we decline to accept projects. It pains us to do it, but sometimes it’s the right thing.

While we’re an active and growing translation company-agency in pursuit of as much business as we can secure, if a project doesn’t have a high probability of success we’d rather decline. It’s taken several years to develop the sense for which projects are right for our capabilities and which ones are better to pass on.

On the rare occasions when we defer on a prospective project it tends to be for one or more of the following reasons:

The client has an unrealistic expectation concerning the time requirement for processing the translation project.
The client is so concerned about the price of the project that they’re completely unconcerned about the implications of making compromises in the translation process (e.g., omitting post-translation proofing).
The project involves a language where we don’t have adequately vetted translators (e.g., Bengali-to-English).

As a general rule we’d rather pass on a project rather than accept work that presents red flags at the very beginning. For one thing I sleep better at night knowing that our ongoing projects are in good hands with translators we trust. For another thing we build our company’s client base best by performing one successful project after another, after another, after another.

So even if a translation project is lucrative we’ll pass on it if we’re not confident of a high quality outcome. Our current and future clients might take comfort in knowing this.

Why Translation Client Reviewers Make Unnecessary Edits

August 26, 2012

Translation clients may be reticent to agree, but client-side reviewers of professionally prepared translations may have an unconscious (or even conscious) incentive to make edits and changes in professionally prepared translations and incorrectly label their changes as “corrections” to translator errors. In many cases such questionably designated reviewers (who possess some but not a high level of language skills) do a disservice to the organizations whose interests they supposedly support. In the process they can also adversely affect the client/vendor relationship between translation customers and translation vendors.

Why do internal client-side translation reviewers do this? What is the unspoken incentive?

Social psychologists John French and Bertram Raven in 1959 identified five bases of power and in so doing shed light on one possible rationale. The five bases of power mentioned in connection with organizational behavior are:

Legitimate – This comes from the belief that a person has the right to make demands, and expect compliance and obedience from others.
Reward – This results from one person’s ability to compensate another for compliance.
Expert – This is based on a person’s superior skill and knowledge.
Referent – This is the result of a person’s perceived attractiveness, worthiness, and right to respect from others.
Coercive – This comes from the belief that a person can punish others for noncompliance.

Acquiring “expert” power may be a motivation for reviewers to make preferential and other unnecessary changes to already high quality, acceptable translations prepared by native speaking professional translators. When internal company reviewers make changes to delivered translation and/or otherwise call out what they label as errors, they in effect place themselves as experts in a language, and in the process elevate their importance and position in an organization. The reviewer may be the only person in their organization with some skill in a particular language. Employers and organization managers, who lack the ability to properly evaluate internal reviewer modifications, are thus mislead. The choice becomes do they accept the comments of an internal reviewer, a person they may need to work with on a continuing day-to-day basis, or stick with the recommendations of an external translation vendor? Even the most skilled business manager may find such a choice to be challenging.

Half Sized Blog Element (Single Author Style)

Half Sized Blog Element (Multi Author Style)

Language Agency | When to Decline A Translation Project

Why Translation Client Reviewers Make Unnecessary Edits

Language Agency | When to Decline A Translation Project

Why Translation Client Reviewers Make Unnecessary Edits

Full Sized Blog Element (Big Preview Pic)

Language Agency | When to Decline A Translation Project

Why Translation Client Reviewers Make Unnecessary Edits

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