- Email: [email protected]
A group decision support system for multicultural and multilingual communication
Decision Support Systems 12 (1994) 93-96 North-Holland
93
A Group Decision Support System for multicultural and multilingual communication J Milam Aiken, Jeanette Martin, Ashraf Shirani and Tom Singleton Universit3 of Mississippi, University, MS 38677, USA A Group Decision Support System (GDSS) can be used to lower or break barriers to group communication that are caused by differences in language and culture among meeting participants. This paper describes typical examples of communication barriers among group members with different cultural and lingual backgrounds and how a GDSS can help with these problems. The paper also describes a prototype GDSS developed at the University of Mississippi that translates among English, German, and Spanish.
Keywords: Group decision support systems; Natural language translation MUam Aiken received the B.S. degree
in Engineering and the M.B.A. degree from the University of Oklahoma, the B.A. degree in Computer Science and the B.S. degree in Business from the State University of New York, and the Ph.D. degree in Management from the University of Arizona. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Management Information Systems in the Department of Management and Marketing at the University of Mississippi. He is the developer of the group decision support system described in this article. Jeanette Martin received the B.A. degree from Michigan State University, the M.B.A. from the University of Chicago, and the Ed.D. from Memphis State University. She is an Assistant Professor of Business Communication in the Department of Management and Marketing. Her research interests include multicultural and multilingual business communication.
1. Introduction Group Decision Support Systems (GDSSs) have been noted for their ability to increase the productivity of group meetings [3,7,8]. These computer-based systems support a variety of group tasks including communication, idea generation, issue discussion, negotiation, conflict resolution, systems analysis and design, and document preparation. In addition, these systems typically allow meeting participants to exchange comments anonymously and simultaneously, resulting in decreased meeting times, increased group decision quality, and increased participant satisfaction with the meeting process. It is clear that GDSSs provide benefits to specific groups performing certain tasks, and GDSSs are continually being developed and modified in order to address a wider variety of tasks performed by groups with different characteristics. For example, several research projects are
Correspondence to: Milam /Liken, Department of Management and Marketing, School of Business Administration, University of Mississippi, University, MS, 38677, USA. Tel.: (601) 232-5777, E-mail: BITNET: MKAIKEN@UMSVM. This research has been supported by the University of Mississippi's School of Business Administration Summer Research Grant Program. 0167-9236/94/$07.00 © 1994 - Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved SSD1 01 6 7 - 9 2 3 6 ( 9 3 ) E 0 0 0 2 - U
Ashraf Shirani received the B.S. de-
gree in Urban Planning from the University of Engineering and Technology in Lahore, Pakistan, the M.P.S. degree in Regional Planning from Cornell University, and the M.B.A. degree from the University of Arkansas. He is currently a Ph.D. student with a major in Management Information Systems in the Department of Management and Marketing. His research interests include Group Decision Support Systems and Expert Systems. Tom Singleton received the B.S. degree in Accounting and the M.B.A. degree from the University of North Alabama. He is currently a Ph.D. student in the School of Accountancy at the University of Mississippi. He is the associate editor of The Accounting Historians Journal, and his research interests include EDP auditing, ethics in computer environments, and Group Decision Support Systems.
94
M. Aiken et al. / A GDSS for communication
under way to allow groups distributed geographically and temporally to meet electronically. However, no GDSS has addressed the problems of supporting multilingual and multicultural groups. (For the purposes of this paper, a multilingual or multicultural group is defined as a group of humans who do not share a common language or culture. An example is a group of five Germans, four Americans, and three Spaniards, each of whom know only their native language and culture.) This problem is of increasing importance because of global competitiveness and the need to communicate with a wider variety of people across national boundaries [5]. This paper discusses barriers to multilingual and multicultural groups and describes how a GDSS can be used to overcome some of these barriers. In addition, the paper presents a prototype GDSS developed at the University of Mississippi that supports multilingual/multicultural groups through an electronic brainstorming program, an idea consolidation program, a ranking program, and perhaps most importantly, automated language translation programs.
2. Cultural and lingual barriers to communication
Culture is a system of beliefs and values shared by a particular group of people, and behavior is the principal manifestation and most significant consequence of culture [12]. In particular, behavior in the form of verbal and nonverbal communication patterns is important in intercultural communication [9]. Groups exhibit many verbal and nonverbal communication patterns, and each varies with the group's culture. Various forms of nonverbal communication include written expression, chronemics, proxemics, kinesics, oculesics, olfactics, haptics, paralanguage, metacommunication, and gender [5,6,10,11]. A GDSS helps reduce problems of intercultural communication primarily by masking or eliminating many verbal and nonverbal behaviors that might offend members of other cultures. Because the vast majority of communication using a GDSS is written and no one participant is talking directly to another participant, body language cannot be misinterpreted. When touching, eye contact, and other forms of commu-
nication are needed, however, this communication can occur before, after, or during breaks in the GDSS session. Thus, a GDSS can be used to supplement verbal and non-verbal communication rather than replace it. In addition to cultural barriers to communication, groups may have lingual barriers to communication. Groups of people who share little or no common language have great difficulty communicating. Multilingual groups historically have relied on human interpreters who are expensive, may be unavailable, can translate for only one group participant at a time, and sometimes make errors (especially when translating verbal communication). Yet, the increasing number of international meetings involving multiple languages will necessitate a growing reliance on translation and interpretation. For example, the unification of the European Common Market economies and the increase in trade with Eastern European countries have already expanded the number of multilingual meetings. Two recent developments in microcomputer technology may greatly increase the productivity of multilingual groups. The first development, Group Decision Support Systems (GDSSs) using microcomputers in local area networks, occurred in the mid-1980s. The second development, microcomputer software for automatic language translation, is a relatively new phenomenon. Several microcomputer applications have been developed for transliteration (translating individual words only) and a few other applications have been developed to translate sentences, paragraphs, and stories. These two developments combined (a GDSS which provides automatic translations of all comments generated) may yield an order of magnitude increase in productivity in multilingual groups [2]. Because automatic translation programs in the near future will continue to lack 100 percent accuracy, the integration of these programs with GDSSs may be the most promising area of implementation. For example, in GDSS sessions, participants may not require punctiliously correct grammar or exact word translations as long as the gist of a comment is ascertainable. That is, a translation can be "fuzzy" and still be used [4]. Also, a multilingual GDSS which provides simultaneous translation of multiple comments, parallel communication, anonymity, and automated
M. Aiken et al. / A GDSS for communication
record keeping is likely to yield the same benefits to multilingual groups as traditional GDSSs have provided to monolingual groups [8]. Gray and Olfman [4] have proposed a similar multilingual GDSS with the exception that bilingual or multilingual facilitators would take an active role in the translation by either manually translating each comment or editing the output from automatic translators. They state that "delays from human intervention in creating or checking the translation should be acceptable since only a few lines are being added at a time". However, they go on to state that "the facilitator [translator] would have to be discreet in maintaining anonymity during the process" and "several facilitators may be required for large groups to keep pace with the rate of information generation". The multilingual GDSS described in section three eliminates the concern about circumventing anonymity because there is no human intervention in translation. Also, each participant has a dedicated automatic translator and so a single translator is not overburdened by comments from multiple group members.
3. The multilingual GDSS prototype The multilingual GDSS allows Spanish, German, and English speakers to exchange comments among themselves while translations of their comments are provided to the speakers of other languages in the group. The multilingual group can also aggregate the comments into topic categories and rank the importance of choices in a list. The prototype consists of three software tools:
i. W h a t 2.
95
do you think
I believe
we
3. M a y b e w e 4. T r a d e
of t h e E u r o p e a n
should
should
barriers
have
language
6. G e r m a n y
should
take
7.
will
8. W h a t
about
France?
name
lowered
for t h i s c o n ~ o n
role
a leading
It s h o u l d
I t h i n k t h a t an i n t e r n a t i o n a l to d i s c u s s t h i s p r o b l e m .
Fl0-Save
market?
immediately!
of b u s i n e s s .
a leading
also want
Therefore,
in the
everyone
new E u r o p e a n
role.
not be n e g l e c t e d .
conference
comment
should
be h e l d
~ - - ~
14:24:55
~]]
J
Fig. 1. English speaker's GDSS screen.
Each edition has instructions and a help facility already translated to the appropriate language and the applicable character set is mapped to the keyboard. For example, German speakers will need umlauts and Spanish speakers will need tildes. In addition to automatically translating the comments, the system records the comments as "minutes of the meeting" for later distribution among the group members. All participants may write comments simultaneously and anonymously, thus allowing them to state their true opinions without the possibility of recrimination from others in the group. For example, the comment about Germany taking a leading role might anger group members from England and Spain. 2. Idea Consolidator: The output from the brainstorming phase is more readable and cogent if all ideas relating to a certain topic are grouped
i.
£Qu~ piensa
2. C r e o
del
Europeo
que tenemos
4.
~Barreras
5. I n g l ~ s tiene que
mercado
que tener
3. 6 T i e n e q u e q u i z ~ s mercado comdn?
1. Brainstorm: The Brainstorm program allows meeting participants to electronically exchange messages anonymously and simultaneously while all comments are translated to the different languages and recorded on disk. For example, twenty meeting participants may discuss the European Common Market in English, German, and Spanish. Figure 1 shows how an English speaker adds a comment to the discussion; Figure 2 shows how a Spanish speaker gets help on the system. Spanish speakers use the Spanish edition of the software, German speakers use the German edition, and English speakers used the English edition.
another
s h o u l d be
5. E n g l i s h is t h e learn English.
England
comJmon m a r k e t ?
have one currency.
nosotros
de c o m e r c i o
comun?
circulacion. tenet
otto
tienen que bajar
es la l e n g u a de n e g e c i o s . a p r e n d e r Ingles.
6. A l e m a n i a t i e n e que comunidad Europea. 7.
Inglaterra
8.
6Que
de
tambi~n
Francia?
conduciendo
querr~
un p a p e l
conduciendo.
apretar
que
este
inmediatamente! Io tanto,
un p a p e l
Tiene
F5 PgUp PgDn ? I
Pot
para
llevar
;Bienvenido Debe
hombre
cada
en
uno
la n u e v a
no d e s c u l d a r .
a Brainstorm! las t e c l a s
del
segui:=:
Lea comento. S u b a una p a n t a l l a . B a j e una p a n t a l l a . Suba u n o rengldn. B a j e u n o rengl~n. ESC
- Salida
Fig. 2. Spanish speaker's GDSS screen.
14:24:55-~
96
M. Aiken et al. / A GDSS for communication
together. For example, all comments dealing with a European Common Market currency could be put in the "Currency" category. Most GDSSs have no facility for consolidating these ideas, while other GDSSs force the groups to manually categorize the comments. The multilingual GDSS relies on an automatic categorization program called Idea Consolidator, however; this reduces the time spent on organizing ideas by up to 99 percent [1]. Groups may accept the automatic categorization or they may manually adjust the comment groupings. 3. Rank: The final tool in the prototype allows group participants to individually rank alternatives (already translated) based upon some criteria. These alternatives may be defined prior to the meeting and can consequently have more accurate translations.
tural groups. The GDSS supports these groups through the provision of anonymity, automated record keeping, parallel communication among group participants, and finally, translation of comments from one language to another. Restricting communication to written comments eliminates or reduces miscommunication resulting from verbal and nonverbal barriers. The development of a GDSS for supporting multilingual groups represents another step in the direction of developing an "intelligent" GDSS [2].
The multilingual GDSS is implemented on a Novell network of twenty 80386 IBM-compatible microcomputers. The dictionaries contain approximately 35,000 words each at present and are continually increasing. The time necessary to translate a comment of three lines and 29 words from English to Spanish, for example, is approximately 6 seconds. Although the accuracy of the translations is considered to be very good, occasional errors will occur because of misspellings or poor grammar in the source comment and the use of slang, euphemisms, and idioms which are difficult to translate. The translation programs interpret words and phrases, conjugate verbs, provide gender and number agreement, and take into consideration word order. Words which cannot be translated are enclosed in brackets in the translation. Future versions of the system will scan the source comment before translation and will notify the originator of any misspellings or unknown words, allowing the originator a chance to correct mistakes or reword the text.
[1] M. Aiken and J. Carlisle, An Automated Idea Consolidation Tool for Computer Supported Cooperative Work, Information and Management, 22, 1992, 1-10. [2] M. Aiken, O. Liu Sheng, and D. Vogel, Integrating Expert Systems with Group Decision Support Systems, ACM Transactions on Information Systems, 9, No. 1, (January 1991). [3l A. Dennis, J. George, L. Jessup, J. Nunamaker and D. Vogel, Information Technology to Support Electronic Meetings, MIS Quarterly, 12, No. 4, (December 1988). [4] P. Gray and L, Olfman, The User Interface in Group Decision Support Systems, Decision Support Systems, 5, No. 2 (June 1989). [5] P.R. Harris and R.T. Moran, Managing Cultural Differences, (Gulf Publishing Company, Houston, 1991). [6] G. Hofstede, Culture's Consequences, (Sage Publications, Beverly Hills, 1980). [7] K. Kraemer and J. King, Computer-Based Systems for Cooperative Work and Group Decision Making, ACM Computing Surveys, 20, No. 2 (June 1988), [8] J. Nunamaker, A. Dennis, J. Valacich, D. Vogel and J. George, Electronic Meeting Systems to Support Group Work: Theory and Practice at Arizona, Communications of the ACM, 34, No. 7, (July 1991). [9l L.A. Samovar and R.E. Porter, Intercultural Communication: A Reader (Wadsworth, Belmont, 1991). [10] H.N. Seelye, Teaching Culture: Strategies for Intercultural Communication (National, Lincolnwood, 1984). [11] K.S. Sitaram and R.T. Cogdell, Foundations of Intercultural Communication (Charles E. Merrill Publishing Company, Columbus, 1976). [12] C. Storti, The Art of Crossing Cultures (Intercultural Press, Inc., Yarmouth, 1989).
4. Conclusion This paper describes a group decision support system that supports multilingual and multicul-
References
93
A Group Decision Support System for multicultural and multilingual communication J Milam Aiken, Jeanette Martin, Ashraf Shirani and Tom Singleton Universit3 of Mississippi, University, MS 38677, USA A Group Decision Support System (GDSS) can be used to lower or break barriers to group communication that are caused by differences in language and culture among meeting participants. This paper describes typical examples of communication barriers among group members with different cultural and lingual backgrounds and how a GDSS can help with these problems. The paper also describes a prototype GDSS developed at the University of Mississippi that translates among English, German, and Spanish.
Keywords: Group decision support systems; Natural language translation MUam Aiken received the B.S. degree
in Engineering and the M.B.A. degree from the University of Oklahoma, the B.A. degree in Computer Science and the B.S. degree in Business from the State University of New York, and the Ph.D. degree in Management from the University of Arizona. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Management Information Systems in the Department of Management and Marketing at the University of Mississippi. He is the developer of the group decision support system described in this article. Jeanette Martin received the B.A. degree from Michigan State University, the M.B.A. from the University of Chicago, and the Ed.D. from Memphis State University. She is an Assistant Professor of Business Communication in the Department of Management and Marketing. Her research interests include multicultural and multilingual business communication.
1. Introduction Group Decision Support Systems (GDSSs) have been noted for their ability to increase the productivity of group meetings [3,7,8]. These computer-based systems support a variety of group tasks including communication, idea generation, issue discussion, negotiation, conflict resolution, systems analysis and design, and document preparation. In addition, these systems typically allow meeting participants to exchange comments anonymously and simultaneously, resulting in decreased meeting times, increased group decision quality, and increased participant satisfaction with the meeting process. It is clear that GDSSs provide benefits to specific groups performing certain tasks, and GDSSs are continually being developed and modified in order to address a wider variety of tasks performed by groups with different characteristics. For example, several research projects are
Correspondence to: Milam /Liken, Department of Management and Marketing, School of Business Administration, University of Mississippi, University, MS, 38677, USA. Tel.: (601) 232-5777, E-mail: BITNET: MKAIKEN@UMSVM. This research has been supported by the University of Mississippi's School of Business Administration Summer Research Grant Program. 0167-9236/94/$07.00 © 1994 - Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved SSD1 01 6 7 - 9 2 3 6 ( 9 3 ) E 0 0 0 2 - U
Ashraf Shirani received the B.S. de-
gree in Urban Planning from the University of Engineering and Technology in Lahore, Pakistan, the M.P.S. degree in Regional Planning from Cornell University, and the M.B.A. degree from the University of Arkansas. He is currently a Ph.D. student with a major in Management Information Systems in the Department of Management and Marketing. His research interests include Group Decision Support Systems and Expert Systems. Tom Singleton received the B.S. degree in Accounting and the M.B.A. degree from the University of North Alabama. He is currently a Ph.D. student in the School of Accountancy at the University of Mississippi. He is the associate editor of The Accounting Historians Journal, and his research interests include EDP auditing, ethics in computer environments, and Group Decision Support Systems.
94
M. Aiken et al. / A GDSS for communication
under way to allow groups distributed geographically and temporally to meet electronically. However, no GDSS has addressed the problems of supporting multilingual and multicultural groups. (For the purposes of this paper, a multilingual or multicultural group is defined as a group of humans who do not share a common language or culture. An example is a group of five Germans, four Americans, and three Spaniards, each of whom know only their native language and culture.) This problem is of increasing importance because of global competitiveness and the need to communicate with a wider variety of people across national boundaries [5]. This paper discusses barriers to multilingual and multicultural groups and describes how a GDSS can be used to overcome some of these barriers. In addition, the paper presents a prototype GDSS developed at the University of Mississippi that supports multilingual/multicultural groups through an electronic brainstorming program, an idea consolidation program, a ranking program, and perhaps most importantly, automated language translation programs.
2. Cultural and lingual barriers to communication
Culture is a system of beliefs and values shared by a particular group of people, and behavior is the principal manifestation and most significant consequence of culture [12]. In particular, behavior in the form of verbal and nonverbal communication patterns is important in intercultural communication [9]. Groups exhibit many verbal and nonverbal communication patterns, and each varies with the group's culture. Various forms of nonverbal communication include written expression, chronemics, proxemics, kinesics, oculesics, olfactics, haptics, paralanguage, metacommunication, and gender [5,6,10,11]. A GDSS helps reduce problems of intercultural communication primarily by masking or eliminating many verbal and nonverbal behaviors that might offend members of other cultures. Because the vast majority of communication using a GDSS is written and no one participant is talking directly to another participant, body language cannot be misinterpreted. When touching, eye contact, and other forms of commu-
nication are needed, however, this communication can occur before, after, or during breaks in the GDSS session. Thus, a GDSS can be used to supplement verbal and non-verbal communication rather than replace it. In addition to cultural barriers to communication, groups may have lingual barriers to communication. Groups of people who share little or no common language have great difficulty communicating. Multilingual groups historically have relied on human interpreters who are expensive, may be unavailable, can translate for only one group participant at a time, and sometimes make errors (especially when translating verbal communication). Yet, the increasing number of international meetings involving multiple languages will necessitate a growing reliance on translation and interpretation. For example, the unification of the European Common Market economies and the increase in trade with Eastern European countries have already expanded the number of multilingual meetings. Two recent developments in microcomputer technology may greatly increase the productivity of multilingual groups. The first development, Group Decision Support Systems (GDSSs) using microcomputers in local area networks, occurred in the mid-1980s. The second development, microcomputer software for automatic language translation, is a relatively new phenomenon. Several microcomputer applications have been developed for transliteration (translating individual words only) and a few other applications have been developed to translate sentences, paragraphs, and stories. These two developments combined (a GDSS which provides automatic translations of all comments generated) may yield an order of magnitude increase in productivity in multilingual groups [2]. Because automatic translation programs in the near future will continue to lack 100 percent accuracy, the integration of these programs with GDSSs may be the most promising area of implementation. For example, in GDSS sessions, participants may not require punctiliously correct grammar or exact word translations as long as the gist of a comment is ascertainable. That is, a translation can be "fuzzy" and still be used [4]. Also, a multilingual GDSS which provides simultaneous translation of multiple comments, parallel communication, anonymity, and automated
M. Aiken et al. / A GDSS for communication
record keeping is likely to yield the same benefits to multilingual groups as traditional GDSSs have provided to monolingual groups [8]. Gray and Olfman [4] have proposed a similar multilingual GDSS with the exception that bilingual or multilingual facilitators would take an active role in the translation by either manually translating each comment or editing the output from automatic translators. They state that "delays from human intervention in creating or checking the translation should be acceptable since only a few lines are being added at a time". However, they go on to state that "the facilitator [translator] would have to be discreet in maintaining anonymity during the process" and "several facilitators may be required for large groups to keep pace with the rate of information generation". The multilingual GDSS described in section three eliminates the concern about circumventing anonymity because there is no human intervention in translation. Also, each participant has a dedicated automatic translator and so a single translator is not overburdened by comments from multiple group members.
3. The multilingual GDSS prototype The multilingual GDSS allows Spanish, German, and English speakers to exchange comments among themselves while translations of their comments are provided to the speakers of other languages in the group. The multilingual group can also aggregate the comments into topic categories and rank the importance of choices in a list. The prototype consists of three software tools:
i. W h a t 2.
95
do you think
I believe
we
3. M a y b e w e 4. T r a d e
of t h e E u r o p e a n
should
should
barriers
have
language
6. G e r m a n y
should
take
7.
will
8. W h a t
about
France?
name
lowered
for t h i s c o n ~ o n
role
a leading
It s h o u l d
I t h i n k t h a t an i n t e r n a t i o n a l to d i s c u s s t h i s p r o b l e m .
Fl0-Save
market?
immediately!
of b u s i n e s s .
a leading
also want
Therefore,
in the
everyone
new E u r o p e a n
role.
not be n e g l e c t e d .
conference
comment
should
be h e l d
~ - - ~
14:24:55
~]]
J
Fig. 1. English speaker's GDSS screen.
Each edition has instructions and a help facility already translated to the appropriate language and the applicable character set is mapped to the keyboard. For example, German speakers will need umlauts and Spanish speakers will need tildes. In addition to automatically translating the comments, the system records the comments as "minutes of the meeting" for later distribution among the group members. All participants may write comments simultaneously and anonymously, thus allowing them to state their true opinions without the possibility of recrimination from others in the group. For example, the comment about Germany taking a leading role might anger group members from England and Spain. 2. Idea Consolidator: The output from the brainstorming phase is more readable and cogent if all ideas relating to a certain topic are grouped
i.
£Qu~ piensa
2. C r e o
del
Europeo
que tenemos
4.
~Barreras
5. I n g l ~ s tiene que
mercado
que tener
3. 6 T i e n e q u e q u i z ~ s mercado comdn?
1. Brainstorm: The Brainstorm program allows meeting participants to electronically exchange messages anonymously and simultaneously while all comments are translated to the different languages and recorded on disk. For example, twenty meeting participants may discuss the European Common Market in English, German, and Spanish. Figure 1 shows how an English speaker adds a comment to the discussion; Figure 2 shows how a Spanish speaker gets help on the system. Spanish speakers use the Spanish edition of the software, German speakers use the German edition, and English speakers used the English edition.
another
s h o u l d be
5. E n g l i s h is t h e learn English.
England
comJmon m a r k e t ?
have one currency.
nosotros
de c o m e r c i o
comun?
circulacion. tenet
otto
tienen que bajar
es la l e n g u a de n e g e c i o s . a p r e n d e r Ingles.
6. A l e m a n i a t i e n e que comunidad Europea. 7.
Inglaterra
8.
6Que
de
tambi~n
Francia?
conduciendo
querr~
un p a p e l
conduciendo.
apretar
que
este
inmediatamente! Io tanto,
un p a p e l
Tiene
F5 PgUp PgDn ? I
Pot
para
llevar
;Bienvenido Debe
hombre
cada
en
uno
la n u e v a
no d e s c u l d a r .
a Brainstorm! las t e c l a s
del
segui:=:
Lea comento. S u b a una p a n t a l l a . B a j e una p a n t a l l a . Suba u n o rengldn. B a j e u n o rengl~n. ESC
- Salida
Fig. 2. Spanish speaker's GDSS screen.
14:24:55-~
96
M. Aiken et al. / A GDSS for communication
together. For example, all comments dealing with a European Common Market currency could be put in the "Currency" category. Most GDSSs have no facility for consolidating these ideas, while other GDSSs force the groups to manually categorize the comments. The multilingual GDSS relies on an automatic categorization program called Idea Consolidator, however; this reduces the time spent on organizing ideas by up to 99 percent [1]. Groups may accept the automatic categorization or they may manually adjust the comment groupings. 3. Rank: The final tool in the prototype allows group participants to individually rank alternatives (already translated) based upon some criteria. These alternatives may be defined prior to the meeting and can consequently have more accurate translations.
tural groups. The GDSS supports these groups through the provision of anonymity, automated record keeping, parallel communication among group participants, and finally, translation of comments from one language to another. Restricting communication to written comments eliminates or reduces miscommunication resulting from verbal and nonverbal barriers. The development of a GDSS for supporting multilingual groups represents another step in the direction of developing an "intelligent" GDSS [2].
The multilingual GDSS is implemented on a Novell network of twenty 80386 IBM-compatible microcomputers. The dictionaries contain approximately 35,000 words each at present and are continually increasing. The time necessary to translate a comment of three lines and 29 words from English to Spanish, for example, is approximately 6 seconds. Although the accuracy of the translations is considered to be very good, occasional errors will occur because of misspellings or poor grammar in the source comment and the use of slang, euphemisms, and idioms which are difficult to translate. The translation programs interpret words and phrases, conjugate verbs, provide gender and number agreement, and take into consideration word order. Words which cannot be translated are enclosed in brackets in the translation. Future versions of the system will scan the source comment before translation and will notify the originator of any misspellings or unknown words, allowing the originator a chance to correct mistakes or reword the text.
[1] M. Aiken and J. Carlisle, An Automated Idea Consolidation Tool for Computer Supported Cooperative Work, Information and Management, 22, 1992, 1-10. [2] M. Aiken, O. Liu Sheng, and D. Vogel, Integrating Expert Systems with Group Decision Support Systems, ACM Transactions on Information Systems, 9, No. 1, (January 1991). [3l A. Dennis, J. George, L. Jessup, J. Nunamaker and D. Vogel, Information Technology to Support Electronic Meetings, MIS Quarterly, 12, No. 4, (December 1988). [4] P. Gray and L, Olfman, The User Interface in Group Decision Support Systems, Decision Support Systems, 5, No. 2 (June 1989). [5] P.R. Harris and R.T. Moran, Managing Cultural Differences, (Gulf Publishing Company, Houston, 1991). [6] G. Hofstede, Culture's Consequences, (Sage Publications, Beverly Hills, 1980). [7] K. Kraemer and J. King, Computer-Based Systems for Cooperative Work and Group Decision Making, ACM Computing Surveys, 20, No. 2 (June 1988), [8] J. Nunamaker, A. Dennis, J. Valacich, D. Vogel and J. George, Electronic Meeting Systems to Support Group Work: Theory and Practice at Arizona, Communications of the ACM, 34, No. 7, (July 1991). [9l L.A. Samovar and R.E. Porter, Intercultural Communication: A Reader (Wadsworth, Belmont, 1991). [10] H.N. Seelye, Teaching Culture: Strategies for Intercultural Communication (National, Lincolnwood, 1984). [11] K.S. Sitaram and R.T. Cogdell, Foundations of Intercultural Communication (Charles E. Merrill Publishing Company, Columbus, 1976). [12] C. Storti, The Art of Crossing Cultures (Intercultural Press, Inc., Yarmouth, 1989).
4. Conclusion This paper describes a group decision support system that supports multilingual and multicul-
References