6
INTERNATIONAL DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS
Many executives are choosing to internationalize operations to avail the corporation of larger and more fruitful markets, competition among labor forces, and economical location and distribution incentives. With internationalization comes geographical dispersion, increased industrial and market competition, and increased access to labor pools and natural resources. However, it also brings variations in the technical, legal, economic, and cultural forces affecting the operations and decision making of the enterprise, the impact of which is affected by the form of internationalization.
Transnational corporations can take on a variety of forms. For example, it is possible that offices in the various countries produce different products and are essentially separate. On the other hand, it is possible that the products are manufactured or created in one country and marketed in another. Or there can be some combination of the two, such as what Dyment (1987, p. 22) described:
The global corporation may have a product that was designed in a European country, with components manufactured in Taiwan and Korea. It may be assembled in Canada and sold as a standard model in Brazil, and as a model fully loaded with options, in the United States. Transfer pricing of the components and assembled product may be determined with an eye to minimizing tax legality. Freight and insurance may be contracted for relet through a Swiss subsidiary, which earns a profit subject only to cantonal taxes. The principal financing may be provided from the Eurodollar market based in London. Add the complexities of having the transactions in different countries, with foreign exchange hedges contract gains and losses that sometimes offset trading losses or gains, and one has a marvelously complex management control problem.
Decision Support Systems for Business Intelligence by Vicki L. Sauter Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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Another form of internationalization is described by Sankar and Prabhakar (1992, p. 251). This example involves not the production process but rather the sharing of data.
Consider the development of a Decision Support System that could support stock trans-actions for transnational brokerages with offices in New York, Rome and Frankfurt. Such a DSS must monitor the activity on multiple exchanges and in multiple markets to help the analyst determine what stocks to trade, when to trade them, and how to trade them. If the stock broker in New York wants to initiate a particular stock transaction, and if that company is listed on multiple exchanges, he or she needs to decide trading on which ex-change is most profitable. If for example, the decision is made to trade on the Rome Stock Exchange, the transaction is sent to a front end processor (FEP) in New York, which then transmits it to Rome using a private line. The Rome office sends a confirmation message to New York and sends a duplicate copy of the transaction to the head office. Further, the database used by brokers at all offices needs to be updated immediately so that models tracking trades and prices will be accurate. Clearly the coordination among these systems, while still providing decision support, is challenging.
Decision support systems have the potential for great assistance for multinational de-cision making because technical variability, legal innuendos, cultural differences, and eco-nomic pressures and their coordination exacerbate the turmoil associated with the poorly defined choice processes generally supported by DSS.1 However, if not implemented prop-erly, DSS can add to the problems of transnational decision making. In order to exploit the benefits, designers need to be sensitive to a wider variety of issues and problems than those considered in the design of domestic systems.
For example, there is reason to believe that there would be differences in preferences for user interface options for transnational systems. Understanding the preferences and their implications is crucial. Since the user interface is the only way one can interact with the computer, its acceptance by users limits the usefulness of the system as a whole.
The user interface can communicate the importance of information and modeling within a system. Different colors, size of representation (and relative size of representation), spatiality, and contrast provide the “nonverbal cues” for the user interface. Even the way in which one moves from screen to screen or accesses information carries some significance. That is, the user interface can convey what is important to the organization, how the “power” in the organization is controlled, or the corporate norms and expectations.
Consider the screen shown in Figure 6.1. In this screen, the financial implication of a proposed transnational corporate change to the United States is emphasized. The message is carried in two ways. First, the implications for the United States are the only ones that default as open to the screen. Users of the system are, in a sense, forced to at least see them (if not use them). However, the implication is that information regarding all other countries is “optional” to the decision because the user needs to take explicit action to cause those results to appear on the screen. The second way in which the United States is emphasized is through the size of the windows. Even after one has opened the windows for other countries, they are considerably smaller than the window containing the U.S.
1A team at the University of California at Irvine's Center for Research on Information Technology and Organizations studied the role of information technology in the economies of 11 Asia-Pacific nations. In countries where the investment in information technology exceeded other investments, such as plants and equipment, productivity was the highest. “This means IT investment is more productive than other investments,” says one researcher.
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Figure 6.1. User interface implications.
financial data, hence conveying that the non-U.S. data are less important. A similar effect could have been obtained by displaying financial data only in U.S. dollars and not in local currencies. The implication of these differences is, of course, only a problem if the message they convey is unintended.
A second problem also is illustrated in Figure 6.1. In this case, instead of emphasizing a specific country, the size and default open options suggest the relative importance of particular analyses. As in the previous example, this screen design suggests that financial implications are the most crucial, whereas all other analyses are clearly secondary. This suggestion of the importance of particular steps in a typical analysis is also conveyed in Figure 5.31. In that screen, the system provides explicit encouragement for the user to attempt to change values and rerun the simulation. The availability of the option is making a statement about the importance of sensitivity analyses; the subtle recommendation would not be apparent without those automatic rerun buttons. This apparent support for particular options can present a problem for a transnational DSS when there are clear cultural differences in the modeling preferences across the cultures. Such differences will be discussed in later sections of this chapter.
Better user interfaces would have given non-U.S. countries greater representation on the screen. Perhaps no analyses would be open as a default, but rather the world as a whole is shown, and users can click on the country—or countries—of interest. Similarly, it would send less of a message if users needed to actually request all options.
The relative sizing and location of objects on the screen are not the only aspects needing attention in a transnational DSS. Since the user interface may be the basis for interaction with other managers using the system, users become totally dependent on this interface for prompts that would otherwise come from “nonverbal cues” and other tempering cues in communication. Hence, words lose their intonation and the user becomes totally dependent upon symbols and icons to convey more information. These new ways of affecting patterns
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of communication are fine as long as everyone agrees to the meaning of the various cues. Problems occur, however, if there is a difference between the “codes” meant by the creators of the cues and the codes used by the consumers of the cues.
In addition, the user interface may have a variety of problems associated with the use of multiple languages. Many cultures, such as the French, are adamant about maintain-ing their language as an active part of their culture, not just some quaint aspect of the small towns in the country. Hence, if one of the nations involved with the system is a country such as France,2 providing a single-language transnational DSS may be impossi-ble; translation of files, commands, databases, and so on, may be necessary. Translations can be tricky. Not only do the words need to be translated, but also the meaning of the words as a whole. For example, the Japanese interpret the word “pragmatic” to mean “tool user.” Clearly, the meaning conveyed by referring to someone as “pragmatic” and that associated with “tool user” are quite different. Without an understanding of the lan-guage and the culture, the meaning of information used for decision making might be lost. As a result, translations can be time consuming and people consuming. While there are automated translators, they cannot be relied upon in such an unstructured setting; they rarely reflect the nuances associated with data. For example, consider the computer-generated translation shown in the box. Even without having the original Italian version, it is clear that the meaning of the communication has been lost through the translation of the words.3
2Even a system shared with Canada, a country quite similar to the United States, might require a DSS to employ multiple languages, depending upon its application. Since the French-speaking population in Canada is so numerous (especially in the Quebec province), Canadian law requires the use of both English and French in many circumstances. For example, even candy wrappers in Canada must provide all information, including the ingredients and nutritional information, in both English and French. 3Much work on language translation is in progress and some is much better than others. Even with the best of the software, though, one risks losing nuances in the meaning of words.
Design Insights The Toubon Law
In France the use of French is required by law in commercial and workplace communications. In 2006, GE Healthcare, a French subsidiary of a U.S. company, was fined €500,000 plus an ongoing fine of €20,000 per day for providing software and related technical documentation lo its employees in the English language only. The Toubon Law (the full name of which is Law 94-665 of August 4, 1994, relating to usage of the French language) requires French to be used in official government publications, in all advertisements, in all workplaces, in commercial contracts, in some other commercial communication contexts, in all government-financed schools, and some other contexts, including broadcasted programs. The Civil Court of Versailles followed a strict interpretation of the Labor Code and on January 11, 2005, ordered GE Healthcare to immediately provide its employees with (i) a French translation of its software and (ii) a French translation of documents relating to employee training, safety, and health instructions and training manuals. In addition, the court ordered the company to have documents relating to products already on the market translated into French by June 1, 2005, with a daily penalty for noncompliance of €20,000 per document.
The Toubon Law also allows for the fine of individuals caught adulterating the French language with commercial or official English, including computer terms.
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Even when the text is translated properly, its meaningfulness can be affected by the technology associated with data transmission if the language requires special characters. Often, if messages are not sent using an appropriate gateway, encodings become damaged or changed, and hence the message becomes garbled. Some transnetwork software strips off control characters, making the reading of text impossible. So, for example, rather than receiving Japanese characters, one might simply receive the following on the screen:
$NJ8>0$NNC$G!”$=$l$OEnglish$B$NJ8>0$91#J
The following was posted on an electronic discussion group dedicated to communication regarding historical issues, H-NET. It is included here to help the reader understand the problems associated with translation for transnational DSS.
Note from H-NET: Professor Andreucci, the moderator of H-ITALY, is fluent in Italian and English. H-NET asked him to review one of the new automatic language translation programs. His review appeared in Italian on H-ITALY. What follows is the automatic machine translation into English of his review. It gives a strikingly clear picture of the strengths and weaknesses of the program.
From: Franco Andreucci
This is the automatic translation—done by the Italian Assistant (MicroTac Software)—of the text I posted last week, I didn't intervenc in any word or phrase. Unfortunately, also the texts intentionally written in italian in order to be automatically translated as examples in my review are translated. For instance, if you don't control the original Italian text, you'll miss the meaning of the sentence where L< leader1' is translated with "leader". My criticism was that 'leader' is translated with "duce," Some words arc not translated because the accents are missing, In this case, the responsibility is totally mine.
“Babele, _ W | the Mr. confused the tongue of all the earth'' (Genesis, 11) |by] FRANCO ANDREUCCI
The old man dreams of returning to speak the universal tongue of the Genesis and of annul the chastisement of Babele, hard [e'] to die. In the XIX century he engages the character of the artful idiom and then, in our century, that of the automatic translator. Tied hope a time to the legends of the [positivismo], contradicted from the bankruptcy of the introduction of the [esperanto], she becomes alive anchor in a fascinating and modern way from the protection of the computer. Studied in the Soviet Union in the years '30 and then, after the Second world war, in the United States, the [possibilita*] of the automatic tied translation to the action of a computer has done in the last years of the footsteps from giant. If you/he/shc/it arc thought that the dimen-sion of an electronic dictionary in line [e*] passed from the 250 words of the 1954 to the actual [eentinaiaj of [migliaiaj, we one [puo' j make account that at least a problem |e'J having faced in acceptable way.
Borne from the numerous experiences scientific [svoltesi] in the linguistic field for the auto-matic translation, the idea has found a recent commercial realization in the programs ^Language Assistant Series'η of the MicroTac Software. The programs—that they arc called Italian Assistant, German Assistant, French Assistant, Spanish Assistant and they cost $99,95 each—they foresee the translation in the two senses between the English from a part and the Italian, the French, the German and the Spanish from the other. They represent an enormous footstep in ahead (respect to the by now “Old” dictionaries electronic [tascabili] or to the automatic translators of phrases) for their [elasticita'l and their [capacita'] of answer complex challenges. This critique concerns the Italian part of the program in his release for Windows entirely (MicroTac Software Assistant Windows [for], LverJ. 1.00a).
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To be able to salvage the message, the user needs to know how to replace the special characters either manually or with special software tools. Hence, the designers of the transnational DSS need to concern themselves with the way in which data are retrieved from corporate databases and transmitted to all users. In addition, designers need to be concerned about the way in which data from external databases, such as network news services, are retrieved and transmitted.
Translations can also affect the user interface in terms of its appearance. One primary problem is the orientation of the text. For example, in the United States, most users feel comfortable with menus that appear at the top of a screen that orient from left to right because that is the way we read. Most standard menuing systems in the United States use such an orientation, and it has been very popular. However, it is common to use a vertical orientation for text in Japan, causing difficulties for software companies trying to make their products more user friendly. It is necessary not only to translate the words in the menus and help screens but also to change the orientation of the entire screen to a vertical framework (associated with their reading and writing conventions).
In addition, many languages are considerably more verbose than English. Or, if the language requires special characters, they may assume more space than standard Roman characters. For example, since Chinese and Japanese characters assume twice the width of a standard Roman character, the standard screen holds only 40 Japanese characters (rather than the standard 80 Roman characters). Hence, translation of elementary aspects of the system design, including prompts and labels, may require an entire screen redesign in order to accommodate the translated terms. For example, consider Figure 6.2, which provides a screen design for a dashboard developed in English, Chinese, Japanese, and Arabic. Notice how the screen needed to be reengineered to accommodate the vertical orientation of the Japanese, the right-to-left orientation of the Arabic, and the range of special characters needed for all three.
Design Insights The Arabic Language
'■ Efforts to develop Arabic DSS have been plagued with problems of how to search for infor- ;
mation in a database. Standard Arabia which is used consistently in written language, has 29 letters, some of which can be adjusted with five different diacritics. In addition, the alphabet consists of several sets of homophones, a rich morphology, and standardized spelling of Arabic names is error prone> Finally, there are almost 20 encodings currently in use for Arabic. Thus, in order to create accurate queries of the database in a DSS, there needs to be some preprocess-ing of the input data. Some have experimented with eliminating the diacritics. Otair, Al-Sardi, and Al-Gialain (2008), however, have developed a more promising intermediary product that attempts to understand the request before transforming them into SQL queries. Their approach processes the words using a stem-based morphological analysis. The tool, called the Arabic Query Analyzer (which is DMBS and application independent), has been fully implemented and has shown tangible performance metrics. A related effort by El-Haj and Hammo (2008) built a query-oriented text summarization system to respond to natural language queries in Arabic* Such a system could help decision makers understand the range of documents, both internal and on the Internet, that might be of help in a choice context. This too has shown promising results.
I I
INTERNATIONAL DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS 285
Even when the users can select one language for the system, they may use it quite differently. Researchers in the area of communication long have known that cultures com-municate distinctively.4 Berger (1984, p. 43) notes that “even when they speak the same language, there are problems as a result of differences in education, class, level and cultural backgrounds.” Hence, even though the individuals themselves are providing the translations, they may miss the meaning of information, especially if it contains slang or colloquialisms. For example, the British use the term billion to mean what Americans call trillion. That is, the British use thousand million when referring to what Americans call a billion and thus a billion is not encountered until one increases another order of magnitude (hence, the American's trillion). If one were not careful when translating the American version of the English language into the British version of the English language, one might miss the significant implications of size difference.
4″The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—'tis the difference between the lightening bug and the lightening” (Mark Twain, U. S. author).
Design Insights The Japanese Language
Japanese text requires special attention in the design of DSS because of the complexity of the language. Some of the issues which contribute to the difficulty for a transnational DSS are highlighted below. In Japanese, one cannot assume that one byte is equivalent to one character, because Japanese characters generally require multiple bytes for representation. The Japanese character set contains over 10,000 characters. The Japanese writing system is a mixture of four different writing systems; Roman, Hiragana, Katakana, and KanjL
■ Roman characters correspond to the 52 characters (including both uppercase and lower-case) of the English language. In addition, there are Roman characters associated with the 10 numerials. Japanese use the Roman characters primarily in the construction of tables and in the creation of acronyms.
* Hiragana characters are ones that represent sounds, such as syllables. Generally, these characters are used to create suffixes for some words or to write native Japanese words. The Hiragana characters appear to have a calligraphic look. For example, the character Ϊ represents the sound made by the letters i(ma” whereas the character = represents the sound made by the combination of letters “mi.71
* Katakana characters represent a phonetic alphabet as well However, they are used to represent words of foreign origin, such as bread, – Prj (pronounced “pan1'), which was derived from the Portuguese word for bread, pdo (pronounced 4tpown1i). In addition, they are used for emphasis, similar to the way we use italics in English. The Katakana characters have a squared, rigid look in comparison to the Hiragana characters. For example, the character ? represents the sound made by the combination of “ma” while the character f represents the sound made by the combination of letters “ku.”
* Kanji characters were borrowed from the Chinese over 1500 years ago. There are tens of thousands of these characters in use by the Japanese. These characters represent spe-cific words or combinations of words. For example, * when used alone indicates a tree, while two of the character, **, indicates woods and three of the character, ***, means a forest,
There is no recognized character set for Japanese similar to ASCII for English. Nor is there a universally recognized encoding method for Japanese.
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(a)
Figure 6.2. Language effects on screen design. The same information is provided in (a) English,
(b) Chinese, (c) Arabic, and (d) Japanese.
Design Insigh nexpected Consequences of Technology Decisions
The move to computerization in cullures with complex alphabets can introduce unwanted impacts on society. Consider the Chinese language, which has roughly 55,000 characters, although only 3500 are in everyday use. When the Public Security Bureau modernized its operations, managers, not surprisi ngly, decided that it would be easier to track i ts citizens if information was computerized rather than handwritten. System designers compromised between the number of characters in ev-eryday use and the census of all characters by allowing the system to use 32,352 unique characters,
While this decision did not have much impact on the operation of the system, or most of the information stored in the system, it did have a major impact on the recording of people's names. Family names were not a problem since only 100 surnames cover 85% of China's 1.3 billion citizens. (By comparison, it takes 70,000 surnames to cover 90% of Americans.) As a result, many Chinese parents look to classical Chinese to find a first name for their children, in part to find a pleasing name and in part to help the child stand out in society. Clearly, these classical names cannot be spelled using the 32,352 characters in the Public Security Bureau's system,
Government officials have told individuals with these unique names that they musi change their name so they can be listed in the database. Further, they are working on a list of “approved1' characters from which future parents must select children's names.
INTERNATIONAL DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS 287
(b)
Figure 6.2. (Continued) Language effects on screen design. Translation into Chinese by Aihua Yan.
Translation also needs to be aware of how different cultures adopt the context informa-tion that surrounds the communication. Many cultures of Asia, Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East are high-context cultures. In those cultures, people are highly influenced by the context when interpreting the meaning of communication. So, what is meant depends on the environment in which something is said or written. By contrast, cultures of North America and Australia place more emphasis on what is said to determine meaning than the context in which it is said.
Similarly, different languages and cultures have different ways of representing dates, currency, and other units of measurement. For example, 3/1/10 means March 1, 2010, in the United States, but January 3, 2010, in most of Europe. Many companies in Japan continue to use the Japanese Era Name for years rather than the Common Era designation. So, rather than regarding the year as 2010, they would regard it as Heisei 22 (or 22 years of the reign of the current emperor). Further, some areas of Eastern Asia cling to the “Chinese calendar,” which is a blend of the lunar and solar calendars. Similarly, Iran, Afghanistan, and related societies use the Solar Hejri calendar, so the year 2010 would be 1388 or 1389 depending on the time of year (the calendar year begins about March 21 of the Gregorian calendar).
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(C)
Figure 6.2. (Continued) Language effects on screen design. Translation into Arabic by Michael Martinich-Sauter.
Languages have different rules for pronunciation and therefore meanings which need to be accommodated. For example, a character with an umlaut will have different impacts in Finnish than in German, even though they may look the same to an English audience.
Finally, different languages and different cultures treat the concept of uppercase and lowercase characters differently. For example, the Hebrew language uses lowercase letters only when the text is handwritten and uppercase letters only when the text is printed. In this case, the system designer using a combination of uppercase and lowercase characters in English to convey information would not be able to have the same message sent on the Arabic screen.
Icons can also be a source of confusion when used transnationally because they have quite different interpretations. Those shown in Figure 6.3 are common icons that might be used to give quick visual cues on a dashboard to help the decision maker know whether conditions are improving or not. Clearly, given the range of interpretations of those icons across the world, it would not be prudent to use them in a system that would be used transnationally. In fact, given the internationalization of the employees of most companies, even if they are solely located in a given country, such icons might not convey the intended purpose.
INFORMATION AVAILABILITY STANDARDS 289
(d)
Figure 6.2. (Continued) Language effects on screen design. Translation into Japanese by Mihiro Sasaki.
There is every reason to believe that other less obvious problems of user interface would be different among cultures as well. Unfortunately, if the user interface is unacceptable to users, they will not use the DSS. Hence, it has an important and direct influence on the ability of the user to realize the full potential of the system. The impact of culture upon the database management system and the model management system in transnational DSS is even less intuitive. The remainder of this chapter will highlight some of the legal, cultural, and economic issues that need to be addressed when defining DSS for transnational corporations.
INFORMATION AVAILABILITY STANDARDS
One of the assumptions regarding transnational DSS is that the company can, in fact, share the desired information in all relevant venues. This includes the ability to collect information on a microlevel and to assemble information selectively, to correlate information or in any way create new information from the original data, and to share that information across borders. This implies that the cultures and the laws of the countries are consistent on the view of information, its privacy, and its shareability. In addition, the goal implies that the manner in which those views of privacy and shareability are enforced is consistent among the venues. This often is related to how they approach the relative openness of their borders, investment, and business and commercial innovations—and hence can be quite different,
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Figure 6.3. Gestures and their interpretation cross culturally.
even between two cultures which appear to share a similar “social” culture, such as the United States and Canada.
Data Privacy
Data privacy addresses the question of what information can be accumulated about individ-uals, corporations, or enterprises and how that information can be processed and shared. In the United States, we have high expectations for privacy and citizens believe their privacy is quite protected. After all, the Fourth Amendment to the U. S. Constitution states:
The right of people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unrea-sonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the person or things to be seized.
Further, the 1965 landmark Supreme Court case Griswold v. Connecticut upheld an indi-vidual's right to privacy, citing the Ninth Amendment:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
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In 1967, a Panel on Privacy and Behavioral Research reporting to the Office of Science and Technology stated (Privacy and Behavioral Research, 1967, p. 8):
The right to privacy is the right of the individual to decide for himself how much he will share with others his thoughts, his feelings and the facts of his personal life… Actually what is private varies from day to day and setting to setting.
In other words, we generally believe in the protection of the right to privacy of individual, personal information. Not all countries share this perception of privacy. For example, totalitarian governments are known for neglecting the rights of citizens' privacy.
However, even in America, where citizens believe their privacy is protected, enforce-ment of privacy regulations is not extensive. Very few states provide any strength or enforcement to that right. In 1977, the Federal Privacy Protection Study Commission found an imbalance between the rights of individuals and those of record keeping or-ganizations. Specifically it suggested a variance between the need for information and the requests for disclosure. In particular, it suggests that many recordkeeping organiza-tions are intrusive to the individual and that the extent and nature of recordkeeping need better delineation, and enforceable expectations of confidentiality by law or statute need establishment.
As a result, Congress passed The Computer Security Act of 1987, which attempts to define that information in need of protection. It defines “sensitive information” as that which, if lost, misused, accessed, or modified without authorization, could adversely affect the privacy of individuals and be a violation of the Privacy Act. However, each citizen differs with regard to precisely what it considers sensitive under that definition. Further, while mandated to require “informed consent” prior to data collection, disclosure is permitted without consent to those within an agency who have a “need for the record in the performance of their duties” or to agencies in connection with “routine uses” for purposes “compatible with the purposes for which it was collected.”
While this sounds as if no one can get access to data without individuals knowing about it, the reality is far different. First, these statements only apply to data collected by governmental agencies and some specified private agencies such as banks. Second, few individuals read or understand the “informed consent” clause provided on most application forms. Even fewer individuals would understand how far the consent actually applies. In reality, except in specific instances such as health records, in the United States, whoever collects and digitalizes data has the right to store and use it—regardless of whether the individual knows the data were collected or gave permission for them to be collected. If the data are incorrectly attributed or keyed or are “out of context,” it is the responsibility of the individual to correct his or her personal data. The introduction of the Patriot Act in 2001 gave increasing rights to the government to use whatever information they could collect. Further, Internet Sites, such as Facebook, and Internet-based tools, such as those provided by Google have made access to one's data even less Secure.
In a recent Harris-Equifax Poll:
• Seventy-six percent of Americans believe they have lost all control over how personal information about them is circulated.
• Eighty-nine percent believe that computers have made it easier for someone to improperly obtain personal and confidential information on them.
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• Sixty-eight percent believe that computers represent a threat to their personal privacy. • Sixty-six percent believe there are not adequate safeguards to protect the privacy of
personal information stored in computers. • Sixty-seven percent believe that if privacy is to be preserved, the use of computers
must be restricted.
“Informed consent” also implies the individual enters into the agreement freely and openly. However, the reality is that the failure to provide this consent results in not getting licenses, credit, or other privileges in society. In other words, you must provide it or you will not have full rights. And if the data are collected by most private enterprises, it can be released or sold to other organizations unless specific statements prohibiting it are signed.
Once collected, the data may be kept in a database forever. This is particularly prob-lematic if an error is originally entered and if the customer has no way of knowing that the error was entered. Furthermore, the statutes in the United States put the responsibility for examining the data to ensure its accuracy on the consumer, not on the group collecting the data. A small percentage of individuals understand the number of ways errors occur in the transcription of data, the possibility for erroneously merging data, or the wide possibility of errors in the data processing capabilities. Hence, few individuals check those records to which they have access, and so errors can multiply.
Other cultures take a much stronger stance on the protection of citizens' rights to privacy. For example, in Canada, data collection companies must publish their policies, such as those shown regarding Equifax. Further, the 2001 Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) gives individuals the right to:
• Understand the reasons organizations collect, use, or disclose personal information • Expect organizations to collect, use, or disclose personal information in a reasonable
and appropriate way • Understand who in the organization is responsible for protecting individuals' per-
sonal information • Expect organizations to protect the personal information in a reasonable and security
way • Expect the personal information held by the organizations to be accurate, complete,
and up to date • Have access to their personal information and ask for any corrections or have the
right to complain to the organizations
The PIPEDA requires organizations to:
• Obtain consent before they collect, use, and disclose any personal information • Collect personal information in a reasonable, appropriate, and lawful way • Establish personal information policies that are clear, reasonable, and ready to protect
individuals * person information
INFORMATION AVAILABILITY STANDARDS 293
Equifax prides itself on being a trusted steward of personal information and is committed to protecting the privary of all personal information under its control. We arc publishing this Privacy Policy to provide a comprehensive overview of our practices and procedures relating to the protection of personal information as well as its use, collection and disclosure.
Many provinces have laws that specifically protect consumer credit information. The laws vary from one jurisdiction to the next, but most are similar in their intent. The federal government has also enacted the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, which governs the protection of personal information and electronic data, Some provinces have also adopted local privacy legislation, To ensure consistent service to consumers across Canada, Equifax has based this Privacy Policy on the federal law.
Equifax Statement of Consumer Rights Equifax believes that Canadians have the following fundamental rights:
* The right to know what information has been collected, stored and reported about them. * The right to be able to review the information reported about them in a reasonable time,
in a format that is understandable» and with an ability to challenge and correct inaccurate information.
• The right to expect that the information about them that is collected or stored will not be used for any purposes other than those permitted by law,
• The right to have information about them safeguarded using secure storage, confidential handling within the organization, and secure transmittal to authorized and legitimate users.
• The right to be treated with respect and fairness when information about them is beign used.
* The right to privacy consistent with the requests they make of business. • The right to expect levels of accuracy considtent with the industry's best practices of
record keeping and information systems management, * The right to have their applications for benefits or opportunities evaluated on the basis of
relevant and accurate information,
Principle No* 5- Limiting Use, Disclosure and Retention Credit Information Equifax limits the use, disclosure and retention of your credit information in accordance with applicable credit reproting and privacy laws. An Equifax customer must have your consent and a purpose permitted by law to access Equifax consumer credit reports. All Equifax customers are required to go through the Equifax application screening process and access is not granted to all applicants. The customers that are accepted by Equifax are carefully screened and contractually obliged to respect and abide by all applicable credit reporting and privacy laws, Equifax conducts periodic audits to ensure that Equifax customers are acting in compliance with their contractual and legal obligations.
As a Canadian consumer, you have the right to know the full and complete content of your Equifax consumer credit file. Equifax will disclose your credit information to you free of charge by mail or telephone, Equifax will respond to any questions or concerns that yo may have regarding your Equifax consumer credit file* For information about how to obtain your personal information, please refer to the FAQ section at the end of this policy.
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INTERNATIONAL DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS
It has been suggested that European countries and others occupied during World War II and/or repressed by Communist governments have a strong recollection of the problems that can accrue if data are made available too freely. Hence, the right to data privacy is heavily regulated and rigidly enforced in Europe. Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) provides a right to respect for one's “private and family life, his home and his correspondence,” subject to certain restrictions, and the European Court of Human Rights has given this article a very broad interpretation in its jurisprudence.
Member states of the European Union (EU) are also signatories of the European Convention on Human Rights and the Convention for the Protection of Individuals with Regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data. The European Commission decided to harmonize data protection regulation and proposed the directive on the protection of personal data by adopting a number of key principles with which individual country's legislation must comply. These eight principles, then, have been adopted in one form or another by all countries in the EU and require data to be:
• Fairly and lawfully processed • Processed for limited purposes • Adequate, relevant, and not excessive • Accurate • Not kept longer than necessary • Processed in accordance with the data subject's rights • Secure • Not transferred to countries without adequate protection
In operation, the European Community (EC) provides the following fair-use policy (di Talamo, 1991):
• Data use is prohibited without authorization of the subject. • Data subjects must be personally notified of to whom information has been passed
and for what purpose. • Data subject can claim compensation if data are misused and caused damage. • EC data can only be transferred out of the EC if the receiving country can guarantee
the same level of protection.
In these cases, the burden of ensuring that the data are really relevant and accurate is kept on the organization collecting the data. In fact, in Sweden, organizations wanting to collect data on individuals must apply to the Data Inspection Board and be granted a license to do so. In France, organizations are required to destroy data after the specific application for which they were collected is completed. Further, in Italy, most labor unions have agreements with organizations that give them the right to approve any data maintained about individuals in corporate databases.
In early 1995, The Council of Ministers of the European Community adopted a common position on the European data protection directive. The directive is significant for European privacy because it will necessitate the adoption of privacy safeguards in the remaining European countries that do not yet have legislation. In addition, it will require changes in countries with existing privacy laws because the directive takes a stronger position on data protection than existing national laws. It is also believed that the directive will result
INFORMATION AVAILABILITY STANDARDS 295
in greater scrutiny of countries without a data protection commission and/or adequate legislative protections.
So, how do these laws and customs affect the use of transnational DSS? Many uses of DSS technology in the United States could be crippled by these regulations.5 In general, businesses which depend on the manipulation of computer data lists, such as direct-mail companies, credit reference agencies, or marketing researchers, would be hampered by these EC directives. First, no data about an individual could be processed or transmitted without that person's informed consent. This means a database could not include a person's name unless they specifically authorized it. Many individuals would not return an authorization form; still others would reject the corporate's need to keep information about them, fearing effects of computer tracking.6 Second, the rules limit “profiling” people who share particular characteristics. Finally, since the European position results in greater scrutiny of countries without a data protection commission and/or adequate legislative protections such as the United States, it may even affect the basic information sharing among companies, or even among divisions of the same company.
Data Availability
Clearly not all information that is of interest in a DSS is about individuals in society. Some of the information is about governments, corporations, competitors, statutes and legal precedents, and so on. In order for the technology to be used to its fullest, there is a need for the various cultures to share views on how such “public” information should be shared. In the United States, the culture has taken its right to public information from the First Amendment. However, not all countries share this right. Even a country as similar in culture as Canada does not protect this right. This can present a problem if all parties using a DSS cannot have access to the same information. Further it presents questions as to how the statutes and customs apply. For example, if a DSS user is physically in country A but accessing a computer and database in country B, do the laws and precedents of country A hold or do those of country B hold? In other words, is it the individual's physical location or logical location which dictates which statutes apply? International courts continue to debate these issues.
5Big credit card companies, banks, airlines, and insurers use massively parallel processing in an effort to divine which consumers are likely to buy what products and when. Marketing managers believe this is a great contribution to their efforts. However, one business professor warns the fallout could be that nasty ID companies begin abusing their newfound information: “The companies doing this have a big responsibility. Otherwise there will be an information Chernobyl.” (Wall Street Journal, August 16,1994, p. Bl.) In addition, as these efforts spread to international marketing, other cultures will affect what is defined as responsible behavior. 6George Orwell's book 1984 summarizes his prediction (which was shared by many others) of the impact computers and technology as a whole would have upon daily life. Many citizens were outraged at the thought they could be “tracked” as Orwell suggested. Orwell was correct in his prediction of the ability of computers to track our activities. Of course, Orwell was generally wrong in his other predictions regarding the impact of computers. Instead of enforcing uniformity as he had expected, they promote heterogeneity and autonomy. Many believe that, because computers provide flexibility and adaptability to our activities, we have become more human, not less so, when we use them (Kelly, “Embrace It,” Harper's, May 1994).
INTERNATIONAL DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS
Data Flow
Even if there is agreement among all cultures affected by a particular transnational DSS regarding the privacy or protection of data and the availability of data, there can still be problems. There may be restrictions about where data can reside, where they can be processed, and how access can be maintained. Some countries, such as Canada, maintain that allowing data to be processed outside their borders would reduce their control over disruptions in service, reduce their ability to ensure protection against personal privacy violations and computer crime, jeopardize their jurisdiction over companies operating in their borders, undermine the telecommunications system, and emphasize foreign values, goods, and services. In addition, Canadian officials recognize the potential for both release of information that is vital to Canada and the loss of independence and autonomy to other countries (Telecommunications and Canada, 1979). Similarly, in Britain, it is believed that only its government can assess the national interest of information and the U.K.'s vulnerability to disruptions in the availability of that information (Making a Business of Information, 1983).
Reports in both Latin America and Africa (Collier, 1988) recommend that:
• Data affecting national sovereignty, cultural identity, and technological progress should be protected against processing in other countries.
• Data should remain in the country of origin. • External information should be screened.
The three messages that guide all of these concerns about transborder data flow are the following.
• It is imperative that the data processing industry of the country is preserved. If transborder processing of data is allowed, the data processing industry would be threatened and potentially eliminated. Since much of the hope for long-term eco-nomic survival for most countries depends on their ability to participate in the “information technology race” successfully, it is imperative that the data process-ing industry be maintained and bolstered. For example, the Brazilian government is concerned that if data are taken from Brazil for processing, both the software and hardware markets will suffer. Hence, they only allow “processed” data to leave its borders. Furthermore, data flow across borders potentially affects the transfer of payments. For example, information sales (i.e., “fees and royalties) was about $5.8 billion in 1980—doubled since 1970.
• National security can be jeopardized if a country becomes too dependent upon other countries for vital data and services. This can provide a bargaining chip for political hostage behavior.
• Cultural integrity is threatened as we allow greater amounts of the information we view and the format in which we view it to be from another culture.
While these issues are not threatened by any individual use of data in a transnational DSS, they can be threatened by significant use in DSS as well as other data processing jobs. Since the regulations tend to be written in terms of data flows, not the purpose of those flows, we as designers of DSS need to be aware of the prevailing laws, customs, and expectations surrounding transborder data flows and build our systems to accommodate them efficiently.
CROSS-CULTURAL MODELING
CROSS-CULTURAL MODELING
The model management component of a DSS, as defined in an earlier chapter, consists of analytical tools, such as statistical models, financial models, artificial intelligence heuristics, and operations research models, as well as a function for managing those tools. Some of the tools consist of prepackaged analyses, while others provide the users the opportunity to build their own models. The value of this component results from providing easily implemented access to a wide variety of tools and assistance in using the tools, so the users can and will investigate relevant patterns and issues in their data. Hence, the goal is to enable users to select the models they perceive as most appropriate to assist with the particular question under consideration. This goal is only achieved, however, if DSS are designed appropriately for the individuals or groups who will be using them.
Clearly this is not a problem if all questions and all data have a unique modeling opportunity associated with them. That is, if one believes there is only one way to analyze data correctly, then the transnational nature of a DSS should not affect the design of the model management system. However, that assumption is rarely correct. Even if one simply acknowledges that different divisions will have different perspectives that will affect their approach to decision making, it becomes obvious that they will need to consider different data in different ways to address those differences in perspectives. Hence, the various divisions will require different (and perhaps vastly different) models to support those decisions. In addition, since management style is at least partially a function of the state of development and technology, the variations in these factors will increase the heterogeneity of models required of a successful system.
In addition, there is some evidence that cultural differences exacerbate the problem. There is an international management literature that addresses “management practices” and cross-cultural differences, including the use of analytical tools, the use of measurements, planning, and control (Kobayshi, 1982). For example, some researchers have found that the use of models is influenced by the culture and its norms of the decision maker (Evans et al., 1989; Hofstede, 1980). Different traditions and different values alter the variables which are reasonable to consider, the need to optimize, and the methods by which to evaluate alternatives. The parameters of the problem to consider in turn will influence the choice of relevant models.
Some researchers have found that formalized approaches to decision making may not differ as a function of culture [see, e.g., Al-Jafaray and Höflings worth (1983) or Negandhi (1979)]. However, few would deny that the formal mechanisms of decision making, such as the reports, forms, and other formal communications regarding the choice process, are quite different from the actual process one used to get to the decision, such as the searches necessary in a DSS. Furthermore, few researchers would deny that effective ways of leading individuals and organizations can differ as a function of the environment in which they work. Consider, for example, Figure 6.4, which illustrates the cultural assumptions of work ethics in the United States and in Asian countries. These differences affect how people work, how incentives can be established, and what will guide their management. Clearly, the process by which one could encourage or convince individuals or groups is also affected by those assumptions.7 As such, it is clear that the decision support provided to individuals or groups in those different cultures will also differ. In fact, Hofstede (1994) notes that any
7The phrase, “There are truths in one country which are falsehoods in another,” has been attributed to Blaise Pascal circa 1700. Such differences affect criteria and other decision processes.
298 INTERNATIONAL DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS
. Work is a necessity, but not a goal in # W o r k is 9 o o d for PeoPle-
itself· · People's capacities should be utilized
• People should find their rightful place, maximally.
in peace and harmony with their · There are “organizational objectives”
environment. t h a t e x i s t a p a r t f r o m pe0ple.
• Absolute objectives exist only with . P e o p l e in organizations behave as
God. In the world, persons in authority unattached individuals.
positions represent God, so their
objectives should be followed.
• People behave as members of a
family and/or group. Those who do not
are rejected by society.
Figure 6.4. Comparison of cultural assumptions. Source: Adapted with permission from G. Hofstede, “Management Scientists Are Human,” Man-agement Science, 40(1), January 1994, pp. 4-13. Copyright 1994. The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences, Hanover, MD.
system of leading and coordinating the work of employed persons should be geared to their “collective mental programs . . . that is their culture.” These collective mental programs cannot be identified as superior or inferior to one another. Rather, the culture it is a response to the environment from which it evolved.
From this perspective, it is not useful to debate whether or not culture will affect the model management needs, but rather the debate should be on how culture will affect the model management needs. To answer this, first it is necessary to define what is meant by the term culture. While there is not universal agreement upon how to define a culture, we can rely upon the cultural anthropological literature to find a variety of measures for defining and evaluating culture. A culture cannot be defined solely in terms of the nation in which it exists. Many national boundaries are historically artificial: some nations contain multiple distinct cultures, while other nations share a culture with geographically adjacent nations. Examination of only cross-national differences misses a wide range of characteristics that distinguish among cultures. Hence, herein, we will attempt to discuss culture in terms of the dimensions which define it, not generalizations about specific countries. While we will discuss what some of these issues mean in terms of the choice process and DSS for specific countries, in general, we need to look at the individual dimensions to help guide the DSS
CROSS-CULTURAL MODELING 299
development process. Table 6.1 provides a summary of dimensions noted in the cultural anthropology literature.
Several researchers have identified uncertainty avoidance as a measure of culture. For example, Hofstede (1983) noted that cultures differ in their patterns of coping with ambiguity and uncertainty. Cultures that accept uncertainty will take risks easily. As a result, they are also more able to accept differences in others, such as in their opinions or behaviors. These cultures accept “relative truths” and evaluate options in terms of the current environment, not compared to a rigid standard. Cultures in which uncertainty is less well accepted try to shield individuals from the unknown. Such cultures tend to adopt laws and procedures which facilitate similarity of thought and behavior. As a result, the cultures are aggressively intolerant for deviant behaviors and opinions as well as for any action or individual which threatens their view of the world.
District planning in India operates on a five-year cycle. Each ministry of the central government and each state government prepare a plan which is then compiled into the national five-year plan, Bhatnagar and Jajoo (1987) developed a DSS intended to assist with the development of these plans.
The focaJ point of the planning is a district, which has a population of about 1 million. District-level plans for each sector are passed upward to the state level where they are consolidated for all districts. Prior to the development of the DSS, the exercise of communications between and among state headquarters and the district to finalize a plan may have taken seven to eight months.
In addition, two key decisions in these five-year plans are made arbitrarily due to the unavailability of the necessary information: (a) a district wise allocation of the total available budget for the department and (b) selecting a specific location choice for a particular facility.
An earlier version of th DSS was developed. Overall, it was considered a success. Almost everyone who saw it recognized its potential to serve as an aid to planning within a district. However, it was recognized that such applications could be developed only if computers supporting graphic facilities were available within the state and district At that time such graphic facilities were not accessible,
Since today's microcomputers offer reasonable graphic facilities, a second version was created with vastly improved interaction capabilities. This second system provided more general data structures and improved command language structure to simplify interaction. The commands allowed selection of villages from a table on the basis of their attributes, like the existence of a particular type of facility or the distance from it Other sets of commands display a set of villages on a map, allow interaction with the displayed map, and produce a printed report on the selected villages. The software wa.s table driven, offering the flexibility of carrying out various types of analysis by using the commands in an appropriate sequence.
This DSS was accepted because five key benefits were provided by the system; (a) the graphics and maps created a level of understanding which went above and beyond the level which could be achieved without a DSS; (b) the illustrative graphics helped to create integration across governmental departments; (c) the quality of decisions were enhanced and the time taken to create the plans was reduced greatly; (d) the integrated data offered an easy tool to determine relative allocations among departments based on existing facilities rather than on the basis of the national norm, thereby creating a better balance of distribution!; and (e) it provided an accurate assessment of a district's ς'backwardness indicator” which is often used for allocating funds. Overall, it was determined that the extensive graphical interface was the biggest selling feature for the users.
The district planning DSS example provided insight into the user interface issues when designing a DSS for India. In particular, it suggested that the graphical images help to cross cultural and communication barriers in India to make the system more usable,
INTERNATIONAL DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS
Table 6.1. Possible Dimensions of Culture
Long-term orientation Attitude about uncertainty Person-nature relation Activity index Human-nature attitudes Power distance Individualism Masculinity index
This attitude toward uncertainty affects decision-making needs. For example, indi-viduals in cultures with high uncertainty avoidance will be more likely to conduct highly structured analyses and less ad hoc analyses. Since they will want to be prepared for all possible contingencies, they will be likely to evaluate greater numbers of alternatives and more facets of those alternatives. Further, if they have employed optimization, they will be likely to seek postoptimality analyses prior to selecting an alternative for implemen-tation.
The person-nature orientation is the second dimension of culture. This measures the individual or group's view of their relative dominance over fate. The dimension varies from, at the one end, individuals believing they have no effect on the future. These individuals perceive they must accept the inevitable, and hence there is no planning for contingencies. In the middle of the dimension are individuals who believe that there is a balance between people and nature. At the other end of the dimension are those who believe in mastery of their fates if they have enough ability to overcome obstacles.
This dimension is likely to affect an individual's basic likelihood of accepting technol-ogy as a decision-making tool. Those who feel in control of their fate encourage the use of technology as a way of meeting their goals, while those who perceive they have no control are unlikely to adopt technology readily.
In addition, one's perception of one's ability to dominate fate will affect an attitude toward planning. Populations in cultures that do not accept one's ability to influence the future do not participate in long-range planning activities. Evan (1975) associates this with their belief in “luck” as the major influencing factor. Since luck cannot, in their view of the world, be planned, they do not practice much long-range or strategic planning. Rather, it is better to wait and respond as best one can. Hence, these decision makers emphasize reactive decision making. On the other hand, individuals who believe they can master their fates, are more likely to conduct strategic and contingency planning. Their goal is to improve their relative position (either individually or as a group) to influence destiny.
Many of the cultures in the middle area of this dimension focus on maintaining a “har-mony” with nature. For example, they believe that the more harmonious a social structure and/or organizational structure, the more likely they are to attract “luck” for the organiza-tion. In these cultures, the top executives are likely to attempt to create harmony through meetings, gatherings, and so on. This implies, in turn, that more of their responsibilities are delegated to lower levels in the organization. Hence, broader informational needs and greater authority are likely to be of less importance to those organizations.
Evan (1975) and Negandhi (1983) hypothesize that this orientation affects the formality within an organization, the direction of communication, and the output of the organiza-tion. In particular, they note that cultures with strong mastery-of-destiny attitudes tend to have quite formal methods of socialization, multidirectional communication, and high
CROSS-CULTURAL MODELING
levels of output. With these factors come well-established and structured conventions for decision-making procedures, criteria, and models. In addition, these cultures will require decision-making analyses and review of analyses at various levels in an organization.
Societies with a lower confidence of their ability to master fate would be more likely to have informal methods of socialization, unidirectional communication, and low levels of output. Hence, they tend to have strong control over the types of information available at each level of the organization and the kinds of analyses that might be constructed.
The third dimension, the power distance, is a related concept. Like uncertainty avoid-ance, power distance refers to the manner in which people are organized. Power distance refers to those aspects of how differences or questions are resolved. In particular, it refers to the question of who is empowered to make those decisions. In a high-power-distance culture, few people are empowered to decide differences of opinion or to make decisions on the best path to follow when experiencing uncertainty. These few are the “bosses,” whose choice is adopted and not questioned. On the other hand, in a low-power-distance culture, individuals are empowered to make decisions under uncertainty and to work things out for themselves. This aspect of decision making is operationalized in terms of the level of centralization of decision making in a department or organization as well as in terms of the freedom with which information flows in an organization.
The fourth dimension, activity orientation, represents the manner in which people eval-uate activity and accomplishments. In particular, it is a description of the mode of expression and hence the mechanism by which activity should be evaluated (see, e.g., Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck, 1961). At one end of the spectrum is a culture that adopts a spontaneous activity and expression of attitudes. They do not accept planning or development of activities and hence believe it is inappropriate to evaluate activities against some planned agenda. Instead, they evaluate the worth of an alternative by what it “is,” not what it can do. At the other end of the spectrum is a culture which emphasizes “getting the job done.” These individuals prefer activities with measurable outcomes that can be judged against objective standards.
This orientation significantly affects one's goal orientation and one's willingness to adopt standards. Clearly those cultures which regard getting a task completed are more likely to adopt standards for evaluation and therefore submit alternatives to a more uniform evaluation. Associated with this is a stronger tendency to depend upon optimization tech-niques of analysis. Cultures which emphasize the other end of the spectrum are more likely to rely upon descriptive measures of analysis to provide evidence of the relative worth of the alternative. These individuals are more likely to be interested in current, static measures of worth, while individuals requiring standardized evaluations are more likely to prefer historical data rating the development of the alternative.
Evans, Hau, and Sculli (1989) believe this orientation is associated with a culture's relative levels of aggressiveness in management and decision making. At one end, the decision makers are seen as more aggressive. Since they adopt standards for evaluation and want to select the “best” alternative, they tend to adopt efficiency as an important criterion. Decision makers at the other end are more passive and defensive. They tend to adopt “social harmony”—and the absence of public disagreement—as an important factor to consider in decision making. Therefore, they are likely to allow greater flexibility in the alternative generation and evaluation, especially at the early stages of decision making.
The fifth dimension is the human-nature orientation, as proposed by Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck (1961). This dimension measures the likelihood of finding innate “goodness” in human nature and hence identifies what motivates people in their actions. If one adopts an attitude that people are intrinsically bad, then one needs to adopt planning and management mechanisms that constantly control and discipline workers and departments in order to
INTERNATIONAL DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS
obtain good results from the organization. Decision makers need to be able to observe people and projects carefully and frequently so as to detect problems as soon as possible. The more strongly held the philosophy, the tighter such monitoring would be.
On the other hand, if one adopts a view of society that is basically good, then the goal of monitoring systems changes dramatically. Instead of designing such systems to identify problems, monitoring systems are created to detect opportunities for development, growth, and/or strategic advantage.
Evans, Hau, and Sculli (1989) claim that the human-nature orientation also influences the flexibility exhibited toward managerial communication. The more a culture adopts an “evil” view of society, the less likely superiors would want alternative opinions, especially from subordinates. Cultures that adopt a “good” view of society are more likely to tolerate conflict situations associated with debates of the relative merits of alternatives and methods for evaluating alternatives. In this latter case, through more levels of the organization deci-sion makers need support from greater use of analytical tools, more alternative generation capabilities, and greater information retrieval.
The sixth dimension is individualism. At one end of the spectrum are cultures that emphasize the continuity of the group and hence the group goals are paramount in the decision-making efforts. These groups are generally homogenous in some fashion and want to stay that way. On the other hand, at the other end of the spectrum are cultures in which the value of autonomy of the members of the group is seen as the only important criterion for decision making. Obviously, there are many points between these two on the spectrum.
Cultures that hold the individualistic view emphasize achieving the goals of the indi-vidual above all others. These people may accept and pursue group goals, but only if they do not conflict with their own. Collateral societies, on the other hand, emphasize the goals and welfare of the extended group, such as an organization. Those cultures at the extreme point of this dimension stress the importance of continuity of the group through time and ordered progression of individuals within the group.
Clearly, then, the level of individualism associated with a culture will affect the goals adopted and pursued in decision making as well as decision makers' general compliance with authority in considering alternatives. Evan (1975) and Negandhi (1983) postulate that this orientation will affect the formalization of the socialization function and the direction of communication within an organization. They suggest that cultures that emphasize the individualistic component will have formal means of socialization within the organization and strong multidirectional communication among decision makers. Cultures that empha-size the group component, on the other hand, will have informal means of socialization within the organization and unidirectional communication. As stated previously, this will in turn affect the types of analyses and standards of alternatives considered, the need for controls on information within the organization, and the need for sharing analyses among levels within the organization.
The last dimension is the masculinity index of a culture. This dimension reflects the as-sociation of specific attributes such as assertiveness, performance, competition, and success with the role of men in society. In addition, it reflects the association of more commonly ac-cepted feminine attributes, such as quality of life, strong personal relationships, and care for the weak, with the role of men in society. In total, the dimension relates to how much differ-ence exists in the culture between “men's roles in societies” and “women's roles in society,” or, said differently, how much gender equality exists in a culture. This in turn results in the culture's calibration of the worth of “masculine” values and “feminine” values in society.
Consider Table 6.2, in which Hofstede summarizes his measurement of several coun-tries with regard to each of these dimensions. It is difficult to discuss such differences without resulting to stereotypes. What is most important to note at this point is that there
EFFECTS OF CULTURE ON DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM 303
Table 6.2. Cultural Scores for 12 Countries
Country
Arab countries France Germany Great Britain Netherlands Hong Kong Indonesia Japan Brazil Mexico United States West Africa
Power Distance
80 68 35 35 38 68 78 54 69 81 40 77
Uncertainty Avoidance
68 86 65 35 53 29 48 92 76 82 46 54
Individualism
38 71 67 89 80 25 14 46 38 30 91 20
Masculinity Index
53 43 66 66 14 57 46 95 49 69 65 46
Long-Term Orientation
31 25 44 96
80 65
29 16
Source: Adapted from G. Hofstede, “Management Scientists are Human,” Management Science 40(1), January, 1994, pp. 4-13. Reprinted with permission from The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences Hanover, MD, and the author.
are definite differences in culture that can be paired with differences in how people adopting those cultures will feel comfortable making decisions. Where there are differences in how people make decisions, there must be differences in the kind of support provided by DSS for those people. Hence, there must be transnational factors considered in the design of DSS.
EFFECTS OF CULTURE ON DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM
Based on the anthropological definitions of cultures described in the previous section, one would expect observable differences in the preferences for design of DSS across cultures. There are five general aspects of the system on which one would expect differences, as listed in Table 6.3. Table 6.4 summarizes the discussion of the previous section, thereby illustrating the effects of the various cultural factors on DSS design.
Table 6.3. Cultural Differences and Their Effects on DSS Design
Choice of model Descriptive vs. optimization Need for strategic planning Use of standards Variables used Need for monitoring Variety needs for models
Premodeling need: alternative generation Postmodeling need: sensitivity analyses Temporal aspects
Orientation of data Static vs. dynamic
Desired access Scope of access Individual vs. joint use
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EFFECTS OF CULTURE ON DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM
First, there are differences in preferences for descriptive models versus optimization models associated with the activity orientation and uncertainty avoidance of the culture. Related to this is the differential need for contingency and planning models depending upon the person-nature orientation, the uncertainty avoidance, and the activity orienta-tion. For example, cultures which believe they can master their destiny are more likely to emphasize strategic and contingency planning than are other cultures. Furthermore, these attributes affect the decision to adopt standards; the more the culture adopts a “doing” value, the more likely it is to adopt standards for evaluation of actions. Finally, these dimensions affect the flexibility of the decision makers to select from a menu of appro-priate analyses to support their choice process. The need for flexibility is associated with cultures that perceive mastery of their destinies, with low uncertainty avoidance tenden-cies, a positive human-nature orientation, and a highly individualistic orientation of the culture.
From Table 6.4, it is clear that the literature regarding the impact of culture on decision making suggests that culture will affect the kinds of models required, the premodeling and postmodeling support, the temporal aspects of the model, and the level of access desired. Hence, if one is building a transnational DSS, one must pay special attention to differences in needs and preferences among decision makers in these areas. Such special attention might mean providing more flexibility than one would otherwise provide. Or the special attention might mean providing greater training in the use, more online support, or greater emphasis of the capabilities in those areas.
Of course, being able to determine which of these attributes is important hinges on the ability to identify where the culture of interest falls on each of the dimensions. Some authors have already provided some of this information, such as the ratings represented in Table 6.2 (see, e.g., Hofstede, 1994). These ratings help provide clues to how various cultures fall on the various dimensions and hence can provide guidance on how to balance the needs of multiple cultures.
As long as the DSS is isolated to a given culture, these differences in the preferences in decision-making behavior are of little consequence. However, if the DSS is designed to support decision makers who represent two or more of these cultures, then it must be sufficiently flexible to accommodate the wide range of needs. Knowing these decision-making preferences, the designer must balance those preferences in the DSS capabilities. For example, suppose the DSS is designed to support both a culture that values identification of the best alternative (optimization models) as well as one that values the identification of a wide range of information about the phenomenon, so as to make a good but not necessarily the best decision (descriptive models). Clearly the best answer is to develop a DSS which can accommodate both types of modeling. This may mean more than simply providing both kinds of models to the decision makers. It may also mean providing automated intelligent assistance, which helps the decision makers use models better and which helps them understand the reasoning behind the use of the model better.
Consider the examples of such intelligent assistance shown in Figures 6.5 and 6.6. In Figure 6.5, the system examines the solution elected by the decision maker and helps to identify problems with it. In this example, the production policy is evaluated to determine if it will meet the needs of their customers. The system determines that the user has not elected to examine forecasts of availability of raw materials. In addition, the system scans available databases to determine if any of the raw materials have had significant shortages in the recent past. When one is found, the system brings this information to the attention of the user, thus prompting the user to modify the prepared analysis.
306 INTERNATIONAL DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS
Figure 6.5. Intelligent assistance.
Figure 6.6. Intelligent assistance encouraging further models.
EFFECTS OF CULTURE ON DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM 307
Figure 6.7. Modeling assistance.
In Figure 6.6, the system examines the process used by the decision maker. By noting the tasks completed by the decision maker, the system can determine that the user is electing to attempt to create a production plan manually. Since the system “knows” that such problems can be solved using operations research techniques, the system interrupts the user to suggest this alternative modeling structure. Note that the system does not force the user to abandon the current task. Rather, the system notes that it is an alternative and attempts to explain why. Further note that the system reassures the user that the final decision is in the hands of the user since it can be altered to include the “nonquantifiable” issues not handled well by optimization. In this way, the system reassures the user that there is a place for his or her analysis.
If the user asked for more information, it might be useful to help him or her understand where the suggested approaches were superior and why. First, consider, for example, Figure 6.7. In this screen, the system is comparing the plans developed by the decision maker's personal approach and those developed by the alternative modeling approach. This provides the user with the evidence he or she needs to believe that the model might work as well as to determine what flaws exist in his or her analyses. In addition, such objective analyses help the user understand why years of experience might not be substitutable for an appropriate model.
Second, consider the situation where the cultural differences among users of the DSS suggest a need for broader access to data and models. For example, where organizational goals differ, the need for information will differ. Consider two cultures, one in which organizational goals such as efficiency, productivity, and profit are optimized and the other in which organizational goals such as organizational stability, growth, industry leadership, and organizational efficiency are optimized. This difference in goals suggests a difference in the
INTERNATIONAL DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS
focus of statistical data. The manager from the first culture will need information regarding issues such as profit, margin on sales, return on total assets, and the time to produce a single item. That is, this manager needs statistics which suggest how profitable the company is in its current state and how profitable it would be if a change were implemented. The focus of this manager is on the size of the profit differential resulting from the change. The manager of the second culture would also be concerned with the difference in productivity but would focus on the impact of the change on the stability of the company. This manager would consider statistics such as industry ranking and market value, especially with regard to how the change will affect each of those statistics. Hence, both sets of statistics should be available to the decision makers. In addition, screens such as those previously noted that help the user to understand why someone might look at the other statistics could be useful. An example is shown in Figure 6.8.
The options for a DSS designer are somewhat more complicated when the preferences are in conflict with one another. For example, consider the situation where one culture adopts standards for performance whereas the other culture does not adopt standards and is more likely to focus on the importance of being (rather than an outcome measure). These two cultures conflict in terms of both where to focus (the activity or the outcome) and whether or not to provide standards in the evaluation. One approach to addressing the standards problem is to provide a module that will facilitate the understanding and development of standards. Such a module could help users see a relationship between the rankings on relevant criteria and alternatives generally accepted as good so as to facilitate
Figure 6.8. Transnational support.
EFFECTS OF CULTURE ON DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM
the development of standards in the long run. Similarly, the module could help users identify noncompensatory relationships among standards. That is, by examining the standards, the average standard, and actual outcomes, decision makers are more likely to become aware of situations where acceptable levels on a given standard are as important (or more important) that meeting an overall standard of performance.
This method of providing historical data of outcomes and data allows the decision makers to generally perceive opportunities for improved decision making. If it is important that changes in the process happen quickly; the system can be programmed to encourage decision makers to consider these relationships by providing pop-up screens noting incon-sistencies in decision-making procedures or the value of alternative information in selecting among alternatives.
The culture will also affect the premodel functions and the postmodel functions in the model management system. The time orientation of the culture, uncertainty avoidance tendency, and human-nature orientation affect the desirability of methods for generating alternatives to known problems or conditions. Those cultures that are future oriented, have high uncertainty avoidance, and/or have a “good” human-nature orientation are likely to want systems that facilitate alternative generation.
Similarly, the uncertainty avoidance tendencies and the person-nature orientation of the culture are expected to affect the needs for postmodeling support, such as “what-if” analyses or postoptimality analyses. In particular, high uncertainty avoidance tendencies and cultures which perceive they can master their destinies will value such ad hoc queries to determine the sensitivity of their solutions to potential changes in their environments.
In this situation, prompting the user to consider more pre- and postmodeling function-ality is probably best. For example, if the value of a given decision is dependent upon the availability of a scarce resource, the system might automatically notify the user. In this case, the system could post a message such as that identified in Figure 6.5.
Cultural norms will also affect the temporal orientation of the data that decision makers will expect to find in a DSS. The time orientation of the culture and the activity orientation affect the preference for current or historical data in an analysis. Cultures that emphasize the past and/or the being nature will emphasize historical data in the system. In addition, the human-nature orientation, activity orientation, and time orientation will affect the desirability of monitoring systems as part of a DSS and the kind of information that should be maintained in such monitoring systems. Furthermore, the activity orientation and the time orientation affect the preference for static measures of merit of an alternative over dynamic measures of historical change. For example, societies that emphasize the value of individuals and their development will require monitoring systems that trace the growth of people, projects, or organizations over time to support their decision making. This is in contrast to societies that emphasize the individual, which would need only current performance information.
Another area in the design of DSS affected by culture is the scope of the DSS to which members of the organization have access. In some cases, access to either information, models, or results is expanded (limited) because of the need for more (less) people involved in the decision-making process. For example, in cultures that emphasize harmony with nature, lower levels of management need information because upper management's focus is on maintaining harmony. Similarly, in cultures that believe in “good” human-nature orientation, information is available to greater numbers of people so as to generate more innovative solutions to problems. At other times, this access changes to limit the generation of alternatives, the questioning of assumptions, or the direction of communication. The scope of the system seems to be affected by the person-nature orientation, the level of individuality, and the human-nature orientation of the culture.
INTERNATIONAL DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS
DISCUSSION
It is important to focus on the differences in culture which could affect decision makers' needs because such features could affect the perceived usefulness of a system substantially. As more companies become transnational and as more decision making in those transna-tional corporations is decentralized, DSS design which allows flexibility in the approach to decision making and which helps decision makers become more comfortable with the styles associated with other cultures will become critical. If decision makers cannot use the system to be responsive to their own needs and to communicate their analyses to their colleagues, the system will not be used. In the long run, if decision makers do not use the system, then even the best designed system is a failure.
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QUESTIONS
1. Describe the factors that would influence your design of a DSS for another country. In particular, describe the cultural factors that are unique to that country and/or strongly influence the decision-making process in that country as well as the specifications of design that would be affected. Explain why you believe this association exists. Be specific.
2. What guidelines would you provide to a designer of a transnational DSS to help him or her be more sensitive to the needs of decision makers in all countries? In particular, what aspects of the system are most likely to be affected by the transnational nature of the system? How? Be specific.
3. Suppose you are developing a DSS for a CEO in a U.S. corporation (you may select a specific industry if you like) for strategic planning. One of the tasks of this CEO is to acquire one or more transnational corporations. Discuss how you would design database access in such a system. Include how you would integrate corporate databases, how you would provide unique databases for this system, and how you would integrate public databases. Be certain to include databases available via the Internet or other public source.
4. Suppose you propose an Internet-based, strategic DSS project at your company (or at some fictitious company) for your (non-information system) department. Discuss the issues that you want included in the feasibility analysis for the project. In particular, discuss the various costs and benefits that would need to be considered and how they would be measured.
5. Suppose you work for a company that has divisions in two countries, e.g., the United States and China. Each division needs information systems for both transaction pro-cessing and DSS development. Analyze the needs and designing systems for the U.S. division first and then perform similar activities for the division in China. You com-munication will be through e-mail. What changes in methodology would you make to ensure other projects are successful?
6. In Greek, there is no word for privacy. Discuss how the absence of this concept would impact building a French-Greek DSS.
7. Talk with some of the international students at your university. Discuss what words, symbols, or concepts that might appear in a DSS might get “lost in translation.”
8. Talk with some of the international students at your university. Discuss differences in decision making and management across the cultures that might impact DSS design.
ON THE WEB 313
9. How do differences in the laws and conventions on privacy impact the design and use ofaDSS?
10. How do differences in laws and conventions governing “the press” in different countries impact the design of a DSS?
ON THE WEB
On the Web for this chapter provides additional information about international standards, transnational management, and communications issues as they apply to the design of DSSs. Additional discussion questions and new applications will also be added as they become available.
• Links provide access to information about transnational business. The Web page provides links to sites to help the user learn about conducting business in other countries as well as across national boundaries. These links provide directories of businesses and trade associations, news access and information about resources, and restrictions to business.
• Links provide access to information about transnational communication. Communi-cation implies that information can be transferred and understood. These Web links help in translation of languages (including idioms) as well as provide information about legal and technical issues of concern.
• Links provide users with multicultural information. One problem in designing a transnational DSS is the understanding of cultures in other parts of the world. The Web page can provide tours and insights into different cultures to help users gain that information.
You can access material for this chapter from the general Web page for the book or directly athttp://www.umsl.edu/^sauterv/DSS4BI/intl.html.
