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Impacts of Culture On Crew Interaction
Impacts of Culture On Crew Interaction
MULTI-PILOT AIRCRAFT
H.-J. Hrmann
P.U.F. | Le travail humain
2001/3 - Vol. 64
pages 247 268
ISSN 0041-1868
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EMPIRICAL STUDIES
RECHERCHES EMPIRIQUES
RSUM
Agissant comme dernire ligne de dfense, les pilotes de ligne doivent souvent contrer les
effets dltres sur la scurit lis aux pannes ou aux situations inattendues. Une coopration
au sein de lquipage est absolument ncessaire pour dtecter et traiter ces problmes avec toute
lefficacit requise dans le temps imparti. Toute la communaut aronautique saccorde sur ce
point, mais le dbat est nettement plus ouvert sur ce que doit tre une coopration idale, sur les
aptitudes mettre en jeu et sur ce quil convient denseigner dans la formation professionnelle.
Les effets culturels sont souvent voqus comme origine de ces diffrentes approches de rsolution
des problmes. Cest pourquoi une tude sur limpact culturel de lvaluation professionnelle de
la coopration au sein de lquipage a t ralise dans le cadre dun projet de recherche europen (DGXII) appel JARTEL (Joint Aviation Requirement Translation and Elaboration of
Legislation). 105 instructeurs europens, issus de 14 compagnies diffrentes reprsentant
12 nations, ont particip une valuation professionnelle sur vido dune srie de 8 scnarios
montrant un large ventail de comportements en vol dquipages professionnels. Les rsultats
ont t analyss en testant les hypothses de diffrences culturelles suggres par le travail de
Hofstede (1980, 1991), qui classe les cultures notamment en fonction du degr dautorit
(Power Distance) et de lindividualisme des acteurs. Les principaux rsultats ne vont pas dans
le sens dune sensibilit culturelle nationale. Les jugements des instructeurs des diffrents pays
sont relativement convergents. Les diffrences sont nettement plus marques entre compagnies
(dun mme pays) et entre instructeurs ayant des niveaux diffrents de matrise de langlais.
Des diffrences plus marques pourraient cependant exister avec des quipages de lEurope de
lEst. En rsum, les travaux raliss, mme sils sont encore affiner et confirmer par de
nouvelles tudes, montrent, dans ces mtiers de haute technologie, limportance relative de la
culture nationale par rapport aux effets importants de culture locale et dentreprise.
Mots cls: Gestion des ressources de lquipage, comptences non techniques, scurit
arienne.
** This study is part of the JARTEL project carried out under contract with the European
Commission, DG- TREN by Airbus, Alitalia, British Airways, DERA, DLR, IMASSA, NLR, Sofravia, and
University of Aberdeen.
** Hans-Jrgen Hrmann, German Aerospace Centre (DLR), Department of Aviation and
Space Psychology, Sportallee 54A, 22335 Hamburg, Germany.
E.mail: HJHoermann@compuserve.com.
Le Travail Humain, tome 64, no 3/2001, 247-268
248
H.-J. Hrmann
I. INTRODUCTION
249
250
H.-J. Hrmann
TABLE 1
Non-technical skills (NOTECHS) framework: Categories and Elements
Categories
Elements
Behaviours (Examples)
Co-operation
offer assistance
Considering others
Supporting others
Conflict solving
Leadership and
Managerial Skills
Maintaining standards
Workload management
Situation Awareness
Decision Making
System awareness
Environmental awareness
Option generation
Outcome review
courses of action
251
252
H.-J. Hrmann
Cultural cluster
Cluster 1: Scandinavia
ID high, PD low, UA low
"Marker" countries
Sweden, Norway, Denmark
253
II. METHOD
Prior to carrying out the experiment, it was necessary to develop the
training videos to be used in the experiment, and to establish a method for
calculating an expert benchmark or reference to calibrate each scenario on
the four NOTECHS Categories.
II. 1. DESIGN
H.-J. Hrmann
references was produced for each scenario stipulating the levels of NTS
that the pilot actors were supposed to illustrate. Extreme examples of
behaviour represented in a merely cartoon-like style were avoided. A brief
outline of the eight scenarios used in the experimental sessions is given
below:
(1) Descent- the F/O is flying. A passenger problem is reported by the
cabin crew. The action centres around the Captain allowing himself
to be distracted by secondary events and not monitoring the F/Os
actions. The altitude bust that concludes the sequence is the direct
technical consequence of the F/O mis-setting the cleared flight level,
but the Captains behaviour precipitates the error.
(2) In cruise over Brussels- 170 miles to destination London Heathrow.
After suffering an engine fire, the Captain decides to continue to destination against the good advice of the F/O to land as soon as possible.
(3) Crew carrying out pre-departure checks. The F/O is unfamiliar with
the airfield and receives little or no support from the experienced
Captain. The F/O remains confused.
(4) Top of descent- an electrical failure occurs. Problem well handled by
both pilots working as a team.
(5) Approach and landing in very gusty conditions. The Captain is very
supportive of the underconfident F/O and achieves a very positive
result after good training input.
(6) A night approach in the mountains. Captain decides to carry out a
visual approach through high terrain and triggers a ground proximity
warning because of disorientation. F/O takes control and prevents an
accident.
(7) An automatic approach in instrument weather conditions (CAT III).
Very good standard operation. An example of a typical everyday flight
deck activity with both pilots contributing to a safe outcome.
(8) Joining the holding-pattern awaiting snow-clearance. The Captain
persuades the F/O that they should carry out a visual approach with
an illegally excessive tail-wind for commercial reasons. The F/O
points out to the Captain that he disagrees with his decision.
A training video was also produced that contained an introduction to
the project background and the NOTECHS method. It gave explanations
and definitions of the concept of Elements and Categories followed by
short video examples of NTS behaviours. After each brief scene, pauses
were given to facilitate discussions. For further practice in using the
method two more complex scenarios were actually rated at all levels.
II. 2. R EFERENCE
RATING
254
255
Cultural cluster
1. Scandinavia
Company type
1A Large company
1B Smaller company
2. North West Europe
2A Large company
2B Smaller company
3. South Central Europe
3A Large company
3B Smaller company
4. South Peripheral Europe 4A Large company
4B Smaller company
5. Eastern Europe
5A Large company
5B Smaller company
No. of pilots
9
10
10
11
11
19
6
10
12
7
II. 4. PROCEDURE
Groups of raters recruited from one company participated in the
experiment during a full day standardised session. All participants were
already briefed about the background of the experiment and about the
NOTECHS method by written material distributed in advance.
After arriving, the raters received a short introduction to the JARTEL
experiment and were asked to fill in a background questionnaire to gather
data about their professional background- such as age, nationality, flying
experience (flying hours), exposure to different kinds of CRM training (yesno), experience with NTS evaluation (yes-no), and English language
proficiency (1=poor, 2=moderate, 3=good). Besides the company type
H.-J. Hrmann
256
257
III. RESULTS
258
H.-J. Hrmann
TABLE 4
Cluster means of background variables and FMAQ scales across the cultural clusters.
Percentages are related to the proportion of affirmative answers for the respective item
(n.s. =not significant, * =significant at 5% level, ** =significant at 1% level)
Moyennes des variables de base par grappe culturelle et chelles FMAQ selon la grappe culturelle.
Les pourcentages correspondent aux proportions de rponses affirmatives aux items respectifs
(n.s. =non significatif, * =significatif au seuil de 5%, ** =significatif au seuil de 1%)
Cluster 1
Scandinavia
Cluster 2
NW Europe
Cluster 3
SC Europe
Cluster 4
SP Europe
Cluster 5
EA Europe
Significance
48
47
46
43
46
n.s.
2. Military flying
hours
1168
1020
1253
700
n.s.
11442
11301
9449
9844
9237
n.s.
4. CRM: Conflict
Management
5. CRM:
Decision making
6. CRM: Group
dynamics
7. CRM: Stress
management
8. Airline providding regular HF
reports
58%
67%
53%
56%
89%
n.s.
68%
76%
67%
63%
90%
n.s.
58%
76%
47%
40%
78%
n.s.
58%
62%
47%
63%
89%
n.s.
37%
86%
67%
81%
47%
**
32%
91%
10%
25%
5%
**
42%
81%
73%
56%
11%
**
2.8
2.7
2.0
2.3
2.3
**
22
22
40
24
39
**
138
127
133
114
137
n.s.
39
43
38
45
29
n.s.
259
TABLE 5
Percentage of significant main effects in one- and two-factorial
Pourcentages des effets principaux significatifs
dans les analyses de la variance un et deux facteurs
Independent Factors
A. National culture (NC)
A. Company type
9%
A. HF reports
11%
A.
B.
A.
B.
A.
B.
A.
B.
A.
B.
54%
National culture
Company type
National culture
HF reports
National culture
NTS-experience
National culture
FMAQ Command-scale
National culture
English Language
ANOVA s
11%
54%
13%
36%
20%
25%
41%
23%
52%
Officer) and 8 scenarios). With national culture in form of the five clusters
as the independent factor more than half of the main effects (55% out of
64 analyses) were statistically significant (see Table 5). Compared to
national culture the effects of variables tapping organisational culture were
negligible. Only 9% of the main effects of company size and 11% of the
main effects for the provision of Human Factors reports were significant.
These results seemed to indicate that national culture determines the
evaluations of CRM behaviour to a high degree. However, as was said
above, this factor was confounded with other variables that should be
balanced before conclusions about cultural differences can be drawn.
To receive an estimate for the actual cultural effects on the NOTECHS
ratings, two-factorial analyses were conducted which combine national
culture with additional variables as shown in Table 5. Company type,
provision of HF reports, NTS-rating experience, and English proficiency
were entered together with national culture in two-factorial ANOVA s, while
the FMAQ Command-scale was utilised as a continuous covariate in the
ANOVA with national culture as second independent variable. If the
variation of the NTS-ratings is balanced for differences in these five
additional factors, the direct impact of cultural differences on the ratings
can be estimated more adequately. As shown by the percentages in
Table 5 cultural effects were reduced from 55% to only 23-25% in
the 2.factorial AN(C)OVAs. Especially, attitudes towards the command
responsibility of the Captain and English language proficiency were
significant sources of variance between the five clusters.
1,5
1
0,82
0,67
0,35
0,71
0,69
0,78
0,73
0,71
0,62
0,61
0,57
0,51
0,5
0,66
0,54
0,47
0,66
0,49
0,29 0,28
0,22
0
Co-operation
NW Euro
Situation Awareness
SC Euro
SP Euro
Decision Making
EA Euro
FIG. 1. Absolute deviation scores for Captains over the eight scenarios
1,5
1
0,69
0,5
0,50
0,35 0,37
0,52
0,51 0,53
0,43
0,28
0,33
0,32 0,32
0,25
0,19
0,15 0,12
0,00
0
Co-operation
NW Euro
Situation Awareness
SC Euro
SP Euro
EA Euro
FIG . 2. Absolute deviation scores for F/Os over the eight scenarios
Scores en cart absolu pour les co-pilotes sur les huit scnarios
Decision Making
Scores en cart absolu pour les commandants sur les huit scnarios
261
0,5
0,44
0,40
0,26
0,09
0,06
0,03
0
-0,09
0,39
0,30
0,06
-0,08
-0,11
0,00
-0,09
-0,25
-0,35
-0,5
-0,61
-1
Co-operation
NW Euro
Situation Awareness
SC Euro
SP Euro
Decision Making
EA Euro
FIG. 3. Relative deviation scores for Captains over the eight scenarios
Scores en cart relatif pour les commandants sur les huit scnarios
262
H.-J. Hrmann
0,5
0,12
0,03
0,00
-0,02
-0,13
-0,21
-0,21 -0,23
-0,5
-0,49
-0,21 -0,23
-0,36
-0,43
-0,52
-0,44
-0,25
-0,19
-0,33
-0,33
Situation Awareness
Decision Making
-0,38
-1
Co-operation
NW Euro
SC Euro
SP Euro
EA Euro
FIG. 4. Relative deviation scores for F/Os over the eight scenarios
negatively than in the reference ratings. The F/Os NTS were generally seen
more critically by all raters, especially the social Categories Co-operation
and Leadership. Co-operation and Leadership skills of F/Os were seen less
positively in all clusters, whereas Situation Awareness and Decision
Making were underestimated only by raters from clusters 3, 4, and 5.
Raters from South Central and South Peripheral Europe as well as from
Eastern Europe were most critical about the F/Os NTS -skills (see Table 6).
An example may further illustrate the results. In the first video
scenario a rather directive Captain managed a medical problem with one
of the passengers, which was reported by a Senior Cabin Crew Member
during descent. The F/O as the flying pilot became overloaded with
additional tasks (like radio telephony) and dialled in a wrong altitude with
the Mode Control Panel. The Captain failed to monitor the F/Os actions
and an altitude violation resulted. The scenario ends with the Captain
criticising the F/O for his poor performance. The majority of raters from
SC Europe and EA Europe judged this altitude bust more as a problem of
the F/O, who made the error, while the Captains NTS were rated as
acceptable. On the other side, most raters from Scandinavia, NW Europe,
and also SP Europe evaluated the Captains Co-operation, Leadership and
Situation Awareness as well as the F/Os Leadership and Situation
Awareness with poor. The latter three clusters also had the lowest scores
in Command Responsibility. There seemed to be a relation between
Scores en cart relatif pour les co-pilotes sur les huit scnarios
263
TABLE 6
Average absolute and relative deviation scores against the reference ratings.
Absolute deviation scores show the average quantity of rater bias,
relative deviation scores show the direction of rater bias
Scores en cart moyen absolu et relatif compars aux valuations.
Les scores en cart absolu correspondent la moyenne du biais dvaluateur,
les scores en cart relatif montrent la direction du biais dvaluateur
Scandinavia
NW Europe
SC Europe
SP Europe
EA Europe
Absolute Deviation
Captains
F/Os
.57
.45
.64
.62
.60
.29
.29
.53
.43
.48
Relative Deviation
Captains
F/Os
.04
-.07
.01
-.17
.00
-.09
-.12
-.39
-.34
-.35
IV. DISCUSSION
In the context of the task for JAA to harmonise requirements and
regulations for pilot licensing and training, national cultures and cultural
differences became troublesome entities. Europe is in a transitional
economic period. As in other fields of industrial and organisational
Cultural Cluster
H.-J. Hrmann
research (Gelfand, 2000; Pearce & Frese, 2000; Triandis, 2000) a need
for further cross-cultural studies, especially including East European
countries is also identified for the aviation industry. Efforts to establish
common standards for a European license have to take national
characteristics of different cultural regions into account. Attention was
drawn to cultural issues especially in the area of Multi-Crew Cooperation
and Crew Resource Management training (Helmreich & Merritt, 1998).
While in the 1980ies CRM was perceived as a set of culture-free principles
with quasi-universal validity for enhancing safety, evaluation studies in the
1990ies have shown that CRM training outside the culture comfort zone
of the trainees is less effective and accepted (Merritt, 1996). Whichever
way the issue is addressed, national culture has per definition a direct
impact on attitudes and values of individuals from any given culture.
Therefore, it was expected that instructors from different European
cultures would perceive crew behaviour in multi-pilot aircraft differently
and might assess what they have seen according to different standards.
To test the NOTECHS system for cultural robustness in Europe is one of
the central research questions of the JARTEL project. If the experiment did
reveal substantial disagreement about good or bad practice of flight crew
interaction and co-operation, the standards for NTS evaluation had to be
calibrated for cultural effects. With the proposed five-cluster model for
national culture as an independent factor we found 55% of the main
effects to be significant in a series of ANOVA s. However, a closer inspection
of the group mean scores revealed that the differences are only gradual, as
they preferably vary between the scale values of very poor and poor or
acceptable, good and very good. OConnor et al. (in press)
reported that 81% of all 105 participants in the JARTEL experiment match
the reference ratings if the five-point scale was collapsed to a dichotomous
acceptable versus unacceptable rating. This finding illustrates that not
much variation is left which could be accounted for by culture.
Most of the intercultural effects occurred for scenario 7, which was
supposed to show a clear standard performance of an automatic precision
approach in poor weather conditions. In this scenario the crewmembers
do not communicate with each other very intensively, because all actions
are thoroughly carried out in accordance to the procedures. However, to
completely grasp the situation, full comprehension of the English
conversation is crucial. When the self-assessed variable of English
language proficiency was combined with the cultural factor in twofactorial ANOVA s, all cultural effects disappeared for this scenario and
instead a number of main effects for language arose. In fact, differences in
English proficiency seem to be a prominent source of variance that is
almost as strong as the differences in national cultural. Only 23% of the
cultural effects remain significant when English language is entered as
another independent factor. Similarly, national culture seems to overlap
with prior NTS-evaluation experience of the instructor pilots and with
scores on the FMAQ-scale Command Responsibility. When included in the
analyses, these factors also reduce the number of cultural effects
substantially. While Command Responsibility is related to Hofstedes
dimension of Power Distance, which is in itself an aspect of cultural
264
265
differences, experience with NTS evaluation and language are factors that
can be influenced by training to level out different perceptions and
standards of crew behaviour. If NOTECHS were to be applied in the native
language of the instructor pilots, as will be the case in operational use, and
if a more intensive training period as in JARTEL was provided, cultural
effects with this evaluation method should almost disappear. A further
operational validation phase of the JARTEL project was recently started to
clarify among other aspects on the language issue of NOTECHS (Polo,
2000).
The remaining effects that were found here even after controlling
influences of the background variables are distributed rather unsystematically over categories, scenarios and crew position. In general, the
evaluations of the F/Os behaviour are seen more critically compared to the
reference ratings than that of the Captains, especially in clusters 3, 4,
and 5. In some scenarios a correlation was found between the NTS
evaluations for the Captains and the FMAQ-scale Command Responsibility.
Over all videos the average correlation is .18 for the Captains and .07 for
the F/Os and categories. As elaborated for the first scenario, participants
with higher scores on Command Responsibility (e.g., from South Central
and East Europe) seem to blame primarily the F/O, who made an error by
setting the wrong altitude. The Captains behaviour was perceived as
acceptable, though he created unnecessary strain through poor workload
management and also should have detected the error by timely monitoring.
Within the concept of CRM as error management strategy the Captains
behaviour should be seen unacceptable. From the high correlations
between Command Responsibility and the NTS evaluations of the Captain
in this scenario we conclude, that instructors with higher Power Distance
(like in cluster 3 and 5) tend to focus their NTS evaluations more on
obvious errors of the individual crewmember than on behaviour styles that
are centred around avoiding and detecting errors as well as mitigating
potential error consequences. However, this conclusion assumes that all
participants were in fact exposed to the same amount of CRM training as the
data in table 4 suggests.
Aspects of organisational culture have only a minor influence on
ratings with the NOTECHS method. Systematic effects either of company
size or of the regular availability of human factors reports on NTS
evaluations can be discounted. The expectation that organisational
culture would have a stronger impact on NOTECHS ratings than national
culture cannot be confirmed by the data of this study. Summarising the
analyses of effects of national and organisational culture, it can be
concluded, that the decomposition of NTS into Categories and Elements
as in the NOTECHS system has a high degree of cross-cultural acceptance.
Effects of national culture appear to be only marginal on the five-point
scales of the Category level. Provided that language proficiency of the
users was on an equal level and appropriate familiarisation took place, the
NOTECHS method in most aspects can be regarded as robust against
variations of national and organisational culture in Europe.
It is not the intention of this paper to disregard cultural influences on
crew interaction and teamwork in general. The available literature on
H.-J. Hrmann
REFERENCES
Berry, J. W., Portinga, Y. H., Segall, M. H., & Dasen, P. R. (1992). Cross-cultural
psychology: Research and applications. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
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Bollinger, D. (1994). The four cornerstones and three pilars in the House of
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van Avermaete, J. A. G., & Kruijsen, E. A. C. (1998). The evaluation of nontechnical skills of multi-pilot aircrew in relation to the JAR -FCL requirements
(Report: NLR- CR-98443). Amsterdam: EC NOTECHS project.
Yamamori, H. (1987). Optimum culture in the cockpit. In H. W. Orlady
& H. C. Foushee (Eds.) Cockpit Resource Management Training, NASA Conference: Publication 2455. (pp. 75-87). Moffett Field, CA : NASA Ames Research
Centre.
SUMMARY
As the last line of defence pilots in commercial aviation often have to counteract effects
of unexpected system flaws that could endanger the safety of a given flight. In order to timely
detect and mitigate consequences of latent or active failures, effective team behaviour of the
crew members is an indispensable condition. While this fact is generally agreed in the aviation
community, there seems to be a wide range of concepts how crews should interact most
effectively. Within the framework of the European project JARTEL the cultural robustness of
evaluations of crew behaviour was examined. 105 instructor pilots from 14 different airlines
representing 12 European countries participated in this project. The instructors evaluations of
crew behaviours in eight video scenarios will be compared in relation to cultural differences on
Hofstedes dimensions of Power Distance and Individualism.
Key words: Crew Resource Management, Non-Technical Skills, Cultural Effects,
Aviation Safety.