What Do Cultural Dimensions Reveal about Flight Deck Operations?

Abstract

Boeing supplies airplanes and provides service and training to customers throughout the world. We want to understand “culture” because of the perception that cultural differences affect the safety of airplane operations. The predominant approach to cultural differences has been characterized by Hutchins, Holder, and Perez (2002) as essentialism. Essentialism is the view that culture is an essential part of every person. It asserts that culture is written indelibly into the identity of a person early in life and makes itself visible in his or her behavior. This view stems from Hofstede's (1980) work and is seen in more recent work on cultural differences that seek out national traits. As an alternative framework, Hutchins et al. propose a contextualist view, which directs attention to how people draw on the resources around them to construct meaningful courses of action. We discuss the differences between these two frameworks in understanding cultural differences.