As the demand and opportunity for international business ventures increase, the need for
interpreters also will increase. When an executive communicates through an interpreter,
however, he or she must realize that the interpreter is not a passive conduit of information and
may in fact have strategic impact on the conduct and scope of the cross-cultural encounter.
This paper explicates this thesis by presenting descriptive models of the interpreter's role, six
implications executives should consider before hiring an interpreter, and questions for future
research.
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