Impacts of Culture on Crew Interaction

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CULTURAL VARIATION OF PERCEPTIONS OF CREW BEHAVIOUR IN

MULTI-PILOT AIRCRAFT

H.-J. Hrmann

P.U.F. | Le travail humain

2001/3 - Vol. 64pages 247 268

ISSN 0041-1868

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Hrmann H.-J., Cultural variation of perceptions of crew behaviour in multi-pilot aircraft ,

Le travail humain, 2001/3 Vol. 64, p. 247-268. DOI : 10.3917/th.643.0247

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EMPIRICAL STUDIES

RECHERCHES EMPIRIQUES

CULTURAL VARIATION OF PERCEPTIONS

OF CREW BEHAVIOUR

IN MULTI-PILOT AIRCRAFT*

by H.-J. HRMANN**

RSUM

DIFFRENCES CULTURELLES DANS LES PERCEPTIONS DU COMPORTEMENT DES

QUIPAGES DAVIONS PLUSIEURS PILOTES

Agissant comme dernire ligne de dfense, les pilotes de ligne doivent souvent contrer leseffets dltres sur la scurit lis aux pannes ou aux situations inattendues. Une cooprationau sein de lquipage est absolument ncessaire pour dtecter et traiter ces problmes avec toutelefficacit requise dans le temps imparti. Toute la communaut aronautique saccorde sur cepoint, mais le dbat est nettement plus ouvert sur ce que doittre une coopration idale, sur lesaptitudes mettre en jeu et sur ce quil convient denseigner dans la formation professionnelle.Les effets culturels sont souventvoqus comme origine de ces diffrentes approches de rsolutiondes problmes. Cest pourquoi une tude sur limpact culturel de lvaluation professionnelle dela coopration au sein de lquipage a t ralise dans le cadre dun projet de recherche euro-pen (DGXII) appel JARTEL (Joint Aviation Requirement Translation and Elaboration ofLegislation). 105 instructeurs europens, issus de 14 compagnies diffrentes reprsentant12 nations, ont particip une valuation professionnelle sur vido dune srie de 8 scnariosmontrant un large ventail de comportements en vol dquipages professionnels. Les rsultats

ont

t

analys

s en testant les hypoth

ses de diff

rences culturelles sugg

r

es par le travail deHofstede (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 dansle sens dune sensibilit culturelle nationale. Les jugements des instructeurs des diffrents payssont 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 delEst. En rsum, les travaux raliss, mme sils sont encore affiner et confirmer par denouvelles tudes, montrent, dans ces mtiers de haute technologie, limportance relative de laculture nationale par rapport aux effets importants de culture locale et dentreprise.

Mots cls: Gestion des ressources de lquipage, comptences non techniques, scuritarienne.

Le Travail Humain, tome 64, no 3/2001, 247-268

** This study is part of the JARTEL project carried out under contract with the EuropeanCommission, DG-TREN by Airbus, Alitalia, British Airways, DERA, DLR, IMASSA, NLR, Sofravia, andUniversity of Aberdeen.

** Hans-Jrgen Hrmann, German Aerospace Centre (DLR), Department of Aviation andSpace Psychology, Sportallee 54A, 22335 Hamburg, Germany.E.mail: [email protected].

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I. INTRODUCTION

Investigations of accidents and incidents in aviation have repeatedlyidentified effective crew behaviour as the crucial element for safe aircraftoperations. According to the model of accident causation developed byJ. Reason (1997) and Maurino, Reason, Johnston, and Lee (1995) latentand active system failures can become overt and create a critical situationby coincidence with missing or flawed system defences and specifictriggering factors in the environment. In such a scenario the pilots andother crewmembers have to comply with their roles of being principalactors in the final stage of a drama initiated by a fatal chain of hazardousevents. As the last line of defence their technical proficiency as well astheir non-technical skills to perform efficiently as a team become essentialfor preventing damage or catastrophic loss of life and property. Hence,systematic training of non-technical skills (NTS) in the form of CrewResource Management (CRM) courses has been recognised by the aviationindustry as an important complement or part of the pilots technicalproficiency training.

While, there is little disagreement about the general necessity andcontents of CRM training as such, controversies commence quickly ifdetailed training syllabi, instruction methods or desired team behaviours

have to be determined. Views about good manners of co-operation orleadership styles vary substantially between people, organisations, andcultures. For example, driven by individual attitude patterns, companypolicies, and cultural norms different practises emerge about how to useauthority with subordinates, how to treat conflicting opinions, how toassess risks, or how to comply with checklists and procedures. Empiricalevidence is reported by Helmreich and his research group that the cockpitis not a culture-free place (Helmreich & Merritt, 1998; Merritt, 1996).National, organisational, and professional culture of crewmembersmanifest themselves in the airlines safety culture, which holds standards

and norms for safe crew behaviour. Presently, non-technical skills are stillneglected in evaluation and debriefing of the pilots performance inregular check situations. Consequently, investigations of the effectivenessof CRM-training programs as well as the systematic reinforcement ofdesired individual behaviour patterns cannot be done adequately.

The area ofNTS evaluation has become increasingly important in thelight of recent efforts by the Joint Aviation Authorities (JAA) to harmoniserequirements for aircrew licensing and training within Europe. Whilethe assessment of NTS is indicated in the present codes of the JointAviation Requirements (JARs), the regulations do not give

recommendations on how NTS should be evaluated, and which NTSshould be included in that framework. Therefore, the JAA-ProjectAdvisory Group (JAA-PAG) tasked four research institutes (NLRAmsterdam, DLR Hamburg, IMASSA Brtigny, and the University ofAberdeen) in 1997 to develop a NTS assessment system that becameknown as NOTECHS (van Avermaete & Kruijsen, 1998; Flin, Goeters,

248 H.-J. Hrmann

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Hrmann, & Martin, 1998). The JARTEL (Joint Aviation Requirementsand Translation Elaboration of Legislation) project was born out of theNOTECHS project, with the aim of assessing the usability and the reliabiltyof a set of behavioural markers established in NOTECHS through bothexperimental and operational evaluation. Non-Technical Skills can beconsideredas those skills referring to all pilots attitudes and behaviours in thecockpit not directly related to aircraft control, system management, andStandard Operating Procedures (SOPs) (van Avermaete & Kruijsen,1998, p. 15). Classic examples of NTS are labelled as co-operation,communication, team building, conflict solving, error management,workload management, decision making, attention, or assertiveness.Based on a review of the most influential behavioural marker systemscurrently in use in Europe and in the United States, as well as associated

relevant research findings, theNOTECHSconsortium decomposed NTS intotwo Categories for social skills (Co-operation, Leadership & ManagerialSkills) and two Categories for cognitive skills (Situation Awareness,Decision Making). Based on the observation of crew behaviour, NTSevaluations can be conducted on levels of increasing generality, which areshown in Table 1: distinct behaviour sequences, related skill Elements, orsummarising skill Categories. Respective ratings by the instructor pilotfinally lead to behaviour reinforcement or to recommendations for furthertraining.

As Europe is a multi-cultural environment, the issue of cultural

differences and their impact on flight crew behaviour, and hence non-technical skills, is fundamental to the JARTELproject. In fact this project isin line with recent trends in the scientific literature on Industrial andOrganisational Psychology to consider culture as a critical variable for thegeneralisability of models and concepts for different countries (seeGelfand, 2000). The influence of culture on pilots behaviour has beenwidely reported (Helmreich & Merritt, 1998; Helmreich & Wilhelm,1997; Johnston, 1993; Maurino, 1994; Meshkati 1996; Phelan, 1994).CRM training programmes developed in one country and then exported toanother have often proven less effectiveness (Yamamori, 1987). While

difficult to identify, cultural factors are considered to have an importantinfluence on pilots behaviour. Indeed Meshkati (1996) believes thatoperators culturally driven habits are a more potent predictor ofbehaviour than their intentions, and hence they need to be taken intoconsideration for the assessment of any tool for evaluating pilots skills.Therefore, within the JARTEL project the NOTECHS method and itsbehavioural marker system was tested for cultural robustness and validityin a number of different cultural regions in Europe.

One of the main difficulties when people start discussions aboutculture is that the term itself is open to broad definition. For the purpose

of this study culture is defined as

the norms, attitudes, values, and practicesthat members of a nation, organisation, profession, or other group of peopleshare(FAA HFTeam, 1996, p. 117). Since culture is transmitted throughall sorts of interpersonal interactions it becomes an important factor inCRM which is based on interactions among crew members. Culture astheshared way of life of a group of people(Berry, Portinga, Segall, & Dasen,

Cultural variation of perceptions of crew behaviour 249

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250 H.-J. Hrmann

Categories Elements Behaviours (Examples)

Co-operation Team building and maintaining

Considering others

Supporting others

Conflict solving

establish atmosphere for

open communication and

participation

give personal feedback offer assistance

keep calm in conflicts

Leadership and

Managerial Skills

Use of authority / assertiveness

Maintaining standards

Planning and co-ordinating

Workload management

advocate own position

ensure SOP compliance

take command if situation

requires allocate enough time to

complete tasks

Situation Awareness System awareness

Environmental awareness

Anticipation awareness of time

monitor and report changes

in system states

contact outside resources

when necessary

identify possible futureproblems

Decision Making Problem definition / diagnosis

Option generation

Risk assessment / option choice

Outcome review

gather information and

identify problem

state alternative courses of

action

consider possible risks for

courses of action check outcome against plan

TABLE 1

Non-technical skills (NOTECHS) framework: Categories and Elements

Le cadre thorique des habilets non techniques (NOTECHS) :catgories etlments

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1992, p. 1) influences how we communicate with each other, how wedelegate or accept orders from others, how different opinions arenegotiated, how decisions are made, and so on. While safety andefficiency of flight operation are universally accepted as desired outcomesof CRM, the behaviour patterns that lead to these outcomes might varysubstantially with cultural norms. Even within the European aviationcommunity it is uncertain whether the cultural variety can be accountedfor in a single codex for safe crew behaviour.

In order to examine whether the NOTECHS method can be regarded as anappropriate tool for the evaluation of non-technical skills in the differentEuropeanJAAmember states, an extensive literature review was carried outduring the first phase of theJARTELproject (Hrmann, Fletcher, & Goeters,1998). The aim was to identify stable and meaningful dimensions of cultural

differences and to locate cultural clusters with similar norms and valuesrelated to crew behaviour. Initially, three relevant studies were found, whichdescribe dimensions of national cultural variation in Europe or beyond.They are mainly based on reported work-related values of male employees(Hofstede, 1980, 1991; Helmreich & Merritt, 1998; Smith, Duggan,& Trompenaar, 1996). Empirical evidence is provided in these studies thatnational cultures vary along three general dimensions related to theinteractive processes within working groups, such as flight crews:Individualism vs. Collectivism, Power Distance, and Uncertainty Avoid-ance. Hofstede defines these dimensions as follows:

Individualism-Collectivism (IND) refers to the relation between theindividual and the group. In individualist societies (like Great Britain orScandinavia) personal choices and achievements are favoured overcontinuing membership to a specific group. Implications of behaviour areseen only in a narrowly defined area of personal costs and benefits(Helmreich & Merritt, 1998). On the opposite end of this scale are thecollectivist societies (like Portugal or Turkey) where group membership isforemost and people form, and are part of, strong cohesive groups whichtake precedence over individual goals. When being embedded in such agroup, open conflicts are avoided, in case of disagreement solidarity

striving and harmony become important.Power Distance(PD) is defined by Hofstede as the extent to which theless powerful members within a culture expect and accept that power isdistributed unequally (1991, p. 28). On the individual level powerdistance can be seen in terms of the amount of respect and deferencebetween superiors and subordinates. In countries with lower powerdistance (like Denmark or Ireland) subordinates feel less dependent onhigh rank colleagues. They prefer consultation and, if necessary,contradiction. In countries with higher power distance (like France orex.Yugoslavia), there is considerable dependence of subordinates onsuperiors, and subordinates are unlikely to approach or question theirsuperiors directly (Merritt, 1996).

Uncertainty Avoidance (UA) can be defined as the extent to whichmembers of a culture tend to feel threatened by uncertain or ambiguoussituations (Hofstede, 1991). An emotional need to resolve ambiguityquickly and to leave as little as possible room to chance is seen as a


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common behaviour attribute in countries with high uncertainty avoidance(like Greece or Portugal). This translates into levels of stress and thedesire for predictability through adherence to written or unwritten rules.

In an attempt to group European countries on these dimensions, fivedifferent cultural clusters were identified in the JARTEL project withcharacteristic profiles onIND, PDand UAas shown in Table 2. Data for theoften-neglected East European countries could be supplemented recentlyfrom two further cross-cultural surveys that included Russia (Bollinger,1994; Naumov & Puffer, 2000).

TABLE 2

Clusters of national culture in Europe

Grappes de cultures nationales en Europe

This attempted culture mapping certainly contains some shortcomingsmainly due to inconsistent results between studies or distinct national

subcultures (e.g.,Belgium, Switzerland). Possible discrepancies were triedto resolve by giving higher weight to Helmreich and Merritts (1998)study as their data was also drawn from a population of pilots. For thepurpose of the JARTELexperiment the derived typology was regarded asthe best approximation towards an a-priori clustering of cultures inEurope. It is assumed that pilots from countries within one cluster havemore cultural values in common than pilots from different clusters.However, without further empirical evidence the proposed classificationdoes not claim being the appropriate concept for other studies. From theviewpoint of theJARTELconsortium sufficient amount of cultural variationfor testing the cultural robustness of the NOTECHS system is provided, ifeach of the five clusters is represented by at least one marker country.

Apart from national culture, organisational culture might alsoinfluence the views on ideal CRM-related behaviour. In order to gainmore experience concerning the impact and significance of organisationalfactors on crew standards, each cultural cluster was represented by two

252 H.-J. Hrmann

Cultural cluster "Marker" countriesCluster 1: ScandinaviaID high, PD low, UA low

Sweden, Norway, Denmark

Cluster 2: North West EuropeID high, PD medium, UA medium

UK, The Netherlands, Germany

Cluster 3: South Central EuropeID medium, PD high, UA high

Spain, Italy, France

Cluster 4: South Peripheral EuropeID low, PD high, UA high

Turkey, Portugal, Greece

Cluster 5: East EuropeID medium, PD high, UA high

Russia, Poland, Hungary

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different company types: a national flag carrier and a smaller regionalairline. Alternative classifications that position airlines instead of countrieson any of the dimensions for national or organisational culture could notbe found in the sifted published literature. Since too detailed informationon the companies management or training philosophies could bethreatening for the participating airlines, it was decided to accept thisfairly rough split into national flag carriers and smaller regional airlines asa second independent factor besides national culture for variations inevaluations ofCRM behaviour.

In the light of expected European requirements on the evaluation ofNTS, the proposed NOTECHS system should be robust against differencesin national culture. This means that different nations are expected to haveequivalent standards for assessing crew behaviour. To test this as-

sumption, it was decided to recruit an approximately equal number ofinstructor pilots from larger and smaller airlines in each of the fiveclusters. The experimental sessions were carried out in classrooms usingvideo scenarios filmed in a Boeing 757 simulator at British Airways (BA).After certain written material study and a half-day briefing, all par-ticipating instructors rated eight scenarios that show typical examples ofcrew interaction and problem-solving in the cockpit. Several ques-tionnaires were also completed by the participants, to provide statisticaldata on their background, cultural grouping, experience, and attitudestowards their profession. If significant differences in understanding CRM

concepts across cultures did exist, NTS-evaluations in a sample ofinstructors should vary in relation to their cultural background. On theother side, differences between types of organisations are acceptable aslong as they are not diminishing safety aspects. More details about theexperimental protocol can be found in Delsart (2000).

II. METHOD

Prior to carrying out the experiment, it was necessary to develop thetraining videos to be used in the experiment, and to establish a method forcalculating an expert benchmark or reference to calibrate each scenario onthe four NOTECHS Categories.

II.1. DESIGN OF THE VIDEO SCENARIOS

The scenarios to be used in the experiment were filmed in a Boeing757 simulator, with the Captain and the First Officer (F/O) played by

British and Italian pilots. Air traffic controllers and cabin attendantswere played by BA employees. Language of conversation was Englishthroughout all films. Eight scenarios were used in the main experiment,chosen from fifteen that were filmed. The scenarios were designed by BAand DERAspecialists to demonstrate a range of realistic situations showinggood and poor practice across the NOTECHS Categories. A set of design


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references was produced for each scenario stipulating the levels of NTSthat the pilot actors were supposed to illustrate. Extreme examples ofbehaviour represented in a merely cartoon-like style were avoided. A briefoutline of the eight scenarios used in the experimental sessions is givenbelow:

(1) Descent- the F/O is flying. A passenger problem is reported by thecabin crew. The action centres around the Captain allowing himselfto be distracted by secondary events and not monitoring the F/Osactions. The altitude bust that concludes the sequence is the directtechnical 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 des-tination 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 withthe airfield and receives little or no support from the experiencedCaptain. The F/O remains confused.

(4) Top of descent- an electrical failure occurs. Problem well handled byboth pilots working as a team.

(5) Approach and landing in very gusty conditions. The Captain is verysupportive of the underconfident F/O and achieves a very positiveresult 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 proximitywarning because of disorientation. F/O takes control and prevents anaccident.

(7) An automatic approach in instrument weather conditions (CAT III).Very good standard operation. An example of a typical everyday flightdeck activity with both pilots contributing to a safe outcome.

(8) Joining the holding-pattern awaiting snow-clearance. The Captainpersuades the F/O that they should carry out a visual approach withan illegally excessive tail-wind for commercial reasons. The F/Opoints out to the Captain that he disagrees with his decision.

A training video was also produced that contained an introduction tothe project background and the NOTECHS method. It gave explanationsand definitions of the concept of Elements and Categories followed byshort video examples of NTS behaviours. After each brief scene, pauseswere given to facilitate discussions. For further practice in using themethod two more complex scenarios were actually rated at all levels.

II.2. REFERENCE RATING

A set of reference data was required for the analyses in order toexamine rater accuracy. Two independent groups of pilots (three fromBritish Airways and five from Lufthansa) with thorough experience in theinstruction of Line-Oriented Flight Training and NTSevaluation assessedthe eight test scenarios. Each group came up with a consensus rating foreach of the Categories and Pass/Fail judgements.

254 H.-J. Hrmann

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In the minority of cases where the British Airways and Lufthansagroups showed discrepant ratings, the design reference was consulted todetermine the appropriate rating. The design reference was the behaviourspecification from the original script that the pilot actors in the scenarioswere supposed to demonstrate.

II.3. PARTICIPANTS

Fifteen experiment sessions were run involving 105 male instructorpilots from 14 different airlines across Europe. However, one pilot did nottake part in the evaluation of the test scenarios, and another onlycompleted the score forms for scenarios 1 to 4. To test the nationalcultural robustness of the NOTECHS method the instructor pilots were

recruited from companies located in five different cultural clustersidentified in Europe. In addition, it was decided to recruit anapproximately equal number of instructor pilots from major and fromsmaller, regional-sized companies to examine effects of the organisationalculture on the NOTECHS method (see Table 3).

TABLE 3

Number of participating instructor pilotsin the different cultural clusters

Effectifs des pilotes instructeurs participantsselon les diffrentes grappes culturelles

II.4. PROCEDURE

Groups of raters recruited from one company participated in theexperiment during a full day standardised session. All participants werealready briefed about the background of the experiment and about theNOTECHSmethod by written material distributed in advance.

After arriving, the raters received a short introduction to the JARTELexperiment and were asked to fill in a background questionnaire to gatherdata about their professional background- such as age, nationality, flyingexperience(flying hours),exposure to different kinds ofCRM training (yes-no), experience with NTS evaluation (yes-no), and English languageproficiency (1=poor, 2=moderate, 3=good). Besides the company type


Cultural cluster Company type No. of pilots

1. Scandinavia 1A Large company1B Smaller company

910

2. North West Europe 2A Large company2B Smaller company

1011

3. South Central Europe 3A Large company

3B Smaller company

11

19

4. South Peripheral Europe 4A Large company4B Smaller company

610

5. Eastern Europe 5A Large company5B Smaller company

127

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other aspects of organisational culture were also included in thisquestionnaire. For example, whether the company regularly providesreports on Human Factors (HF) issues (yes-no).A short form of the FlightManagement Attitudes Questionnaire (FMAQ, Helmreich & Merritt,1998) was administered to tap Hofstedes dimensions of Power Distance,Individualism, and Uncertainty Avoidance. On the country levelHofstedes computational method was used to derive these scores. On theindividual level the FMAQ-scale Command Responsibility was used asan attitude measure towards unequal distribution of power in the cockpit.Low scores on this scale reflect less distance between the Captain and hiscrew. Communication is openly initiated in both directions. High scoresare related to high Power Distance with less communication initiated byjunior crew and greater unquestioned reliance on the Captain (Helmreich

& Merritt, 1998, p. 77).The raters then received training in the NOTECHS method and

instructions for using the method during the experiment. This briefingwas carried out in a controlled manner using the training video describedabove and an interactive question and answer session. A number of pointswere discussed and clarified, ranging from the need to observe both pilotsthroughout the scenarios and not to over-concentrate on the Captainsbehaviour, to the importance of treating each actor as a differentcharacter, if he appeared in more than one scenario. It was also pointedout that the raters should try, where possible, to disregard their own

company procedures and rules when judging the behaviours in the videos.Where a breach of an Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) was intendedto be significant it would be mentioned by the actors in some direct way.At the end of the training video, raters further practised using theNOTECHSsystem to rate two more complex scenarios.

In the afternoon session, the eight test scenarios were shown. Theparticipants rated the Element, Category, and Pass/Fail levels for both theCaptain and F/O after each scenario. It was decided to use a five-pointrating scale at the Elements and Category level to allow the ratersto distinguish between different gradations of NTSqualities (1=very poor,

2=poor, 3=acceptable, 4=good, 5=very good). However, from the purelicensing point of view a crewmembers performance is either acceptableor unacceptable. Therefore, additionally a two-point pass/fail scale wasused in the experiment, but is not included in this study. Not observedratings were allowed on each scale level in case of absence of behaviourthat was not relevant to a particular situation and therefore not seen. Theaverage inter-rater reliability was estimated to be .76 at the category level(OConnor, Hrmann, Flin, Lodge, & Goeters, in press).

At the end of each experimental session, the raters filled in anEvaluation Questionnaire, which contained 16 multiple-choice andopen questions about their opinion on the NOTECHS system and theexperimental method. Last, open discussions were conducted for de-briefing on general feelings, to achieve knowledge on the context andcollect qualitative data for the understanding of the results.

All rating and questionnaire data were coded and arranged into adatabase by the University of Aberdeen in Scotland.

256 H.-J. Hrmann

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III. RESULTS

The distribution of the background variables within and between thefive cultural clusters is shown in Table 4.

Before looking at differences between the NTS-ratings across thecultural clusters, the rater groups were compared on the basis of relevantbackground information, such as flying experience, language proficiency,CRM experience, etc. If, in addition to their cultural background, thenational clusters differ on further not directly culture related aspects, thenbetween-group differences cannot be attributed to culture alone. Forordinal and categorical data (items 4 to 11) the effects were tested forsignificance with the c2 statistic, while analysis of variance (ANOVA) wasused for age, flying hours and the FMAQ-scales.

As can be seen in Table 4 the pilots were comparable across thecultural clusters on items related to general pilot experience (No. 1 to 3)as well as to their general exposure to Human Factors issues and CRMtraining (No. 4 to 8). In these two item groups only one effect wassignificant (No. 8). The five clusters did not deviate significantly withrespect to experience as participant in different types of CRM training.However, there were significant differences for culture related variables(English proficiency and Command Responsibility) and activities as CRM

instructor (No. 9 and 10). The raters in NWEurope had clearly more pre-experience with NTS evaluation than the others. 91% participants incluster 2 mentioned that they were familiar with NTS evaluations beforethe JARTEL experiment. They had also received more training as CRMinstructors (81%).

Analyses of the FMAQ scales led to another interesting finding. Whileall pilots seemed pretty much homogeneous in regard to Individualism(No. 13) and Uncertainty Avoidance (No. 14), significant differences onthe Command-Responsibility scale were found. According to Helmreichand Merritt (1998) the Command scale comes closest to Hofstedes

dimension of Power Distance. Apparently, the raters in SC Europe and EAEurope favoured stronger leaders as Captains than the others. Thepreferred authority gradient in the cockpit seemed to be slightly steeper inthese clusters than in Scandinavia, NWEurope, or SPEurope. However, itmust be emphasised that the clusters are probably not entirelyrepresentative for the culture they tap or for a certain airline. On the otherside these results support to some degree the suggested a-priori clusters.The differences in IND, though not significant, showed somecorrespondence with the expectations in Table 2. Merritt (1996) foundsimilar results in her dissertation study. Command Responsibility was the

strongest determinant of differences among airline pilots, whereas scoresfor INDand UA were higher and more homogeneous in a pilot populationthan in Hofstedes original sample.

The next stage of analysis led to the comparison of the NTS evaluationsbetween the cultural clusters. For each of the four NOTECHS Categoriessixteen ANOVAs were conducted (2 crewmembers (Captain and First


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258 H.-J. Hrmann

Cluster 1

Scandinavia

Cluster 2

NW Europe

Cluster 3

SC Europe

Cluster 4

SP Europe

Cluster 5

EA Europe Significance

General pilot experience

1.Age 48 47 46 43 46 n.s.

2.Military flying

hours 1168 1020 1253 700 0 n.s.

3.Total flying hours 11442 11301 9449 9844 9237 n.s.

Exposure to Human Factors issues and CRM training

4. : ConflictCRM

Management58% 67% 53% 56% 89% n.s.

5.CRM:

Decision making68% 76% 67% 63% 90% n.s.

6.CRM: Group

dynamics 58% 76% 47% 40% 78% n.s.

7.CRM: Stress

management 58% 62% 47% 63% 89% n.s.

8.Airline provid-

ding regular HF

reports

37% 86% 67% 81% 47% **

Direct experience as CRM instructor

9.Experience with

NTS-Evaluations 32% 91% 10% 25% 5% **

10.Training asHF/CRM Instructor

42% 81% 73% 56% 11% **

Culture related variables

11.English

Proficiency 2.8 2.7 2.0 2.3 2.3 **

12.FMAQ. CommandResponsibility (PD)

22 22 40 24 39 **

13.FMAQ.

Individualism (IND) 138 127 133 114 137 n.s.

14.FMAQ.

Uncertainty Avoid-

ance (UA)

39 43 38 45 29 n.s.

TABLE 4

Cluster means of background variables andFMAQ 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%)

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Officer) and 8 scenarios). With national culture in form of the five clustersas the independent factor more than half of the main effects (55% out of64 analyses) were statistically significant (see Table 5). Compared tonational culture the effects of variables tapping organisational culture werenegligible. Only 9% of the main effects of company size and 11% of themain effects for the provision of Human Factors reports were significant.These results seemed to indicate that national culture determines theevaluations of CRM behaviour to a high degree. However, as was saidabove, this factor was confounded with other variables that should bebalanced before conclusions about cultural differences can be drawn.

To receive an estimate for the actual cultural effects on the NOTECHSratings, two-factorial analyses were conducted which combine nationalculture with additional variables as shown in Table 5. Company type,

provision of HF reports, NTS-rating experience, and English proficiencywere entered together with national culture in two-factorial ANOVAs, whilethe FMAQ Command-scale was utilised as a continuous covariate in theANOVA with national culture as second independent variable. If thevariation of the NTS-ratings is balanced for differences in these fiveadditional factors, the direct impact of cultural differences on the ratingscan be estimated more adequately. As shown by the percentages inTable 5 cultural effects were reduced from 55% to only 23-25% inthe 2.factorial AN(C)OVAs. Especially, attitudes towards the commandresponsibility of the Captain and English language proficiency were

significant sources of variance between the five clusters.


Independent Factors Effects for Factor A Effects for Factor B

A. National culture (NC) 55%

A. Company type 9%

A. HF reports 11%

A. National culture

B. Company type

54%

11%

A. National culture

B. HF reports

54%

13%

A. National culture

B. NTS-experience

36%

20%A. National culture

B. FMAQ Command-scale

25%

41%

A. National culture

B. English Language

23%

52%

TABLE 5

Percentage of significant main effects in one- and two-factorial ANOVAs

Pourcentages des effets principaux significatifsdans les analyses de la variance un et deux facteurs

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0,35

0,670,61 0,62

0,22

0,57

0,47

0,540,51

0,82

0,71

0,49

0,29

0,66

0,780,73

0,28

0,69 0,710,66

0

0,5

1

1,5

2

Co-operation Leadership & Manag.Skills

Situation Awareness Decision Making

Scandin NW Euro SC Euro SP Euro EA Euro

Re

lativetoRe

ference

Rati

ng

FIG. 1. Absolute deviation scores for Captains over the eight scenarios

Scores en cart absolu pour les commandants sur les huit scnarios

0,35

0,280,32

0,15

0,37

0,25

0,32

0,12

0,50 0,48

0,69

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0,43

0,50 0,51

0,00

0,52 0,50 0,53

0,19

0

0,5

1

1,5

2

Co-operation Leadership & Manag.

Skills



Re

lativetoRe

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Rating

FIG. 2. Absolute deviation scores for F/Os over the eight scenarios

Scores en cart absolu pour les co-pilotes sur les huit scnarios

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In order to illustrate the quantity and direction of cultural differencesthe within-cluster means for each Category and crewmember positionwere compared with the reference ratings. Figures 1 and 2 show theabsolute differences between the participants ratings for Captains and F/Os and the reference for the respective Categories aggregated over theeight scenarios. These two charts give an impression of how large or smallthe cultural effects actually were. As all deviations were within the rangeof plus/minus 1 grade on the rating scale, this finding confirms that theaccuracy of all ratings in general was quite substantial (OConnor et al., inpress). For the Captains, ratings of Co-operation had the smallestdeviation from the reference, for the F/Os Decision Making had thesmallest deviation scores. Across the five clusters instructors from NWEurope and Scandinavia came closest to the reference ratings (see

Table 6). The NTS-evaluations for the F/Os were even more accuratelyrelated to the reference than those for the Captains.

In Figures 3 and 4 the direction of potential cultural effects is shown.The values are the relative deviation scores (average differences betweencluster means and reference rating) for Captains and F/Os over the eightscenarios. A negative value corresponds to a general trend to be morestrict with the respective NTS-skills in comparison to the reference(underestimation), a positive value corresponds to overestimation.Looking at Figure 3 for the Captains, their Leadership skills appeared in apositive light over all clusters, whereas Situation Awareness was seen more


0,09

0,40

-0,40

0,06

-0,09

0,26

-0,38

-0,08

0,03

0,44

-0,42

0,00

-0,11

0,30

-0,61

-0,25

0,06

0,39

-0,35

-0,09

-1

-0,5

0

0,5

1

Co-operation Leadership & Manag.

Skills



Re

lativetoRef

erence

Rating

FIG. 3. Relative deviation scores for Captains over the eight scenarios

Scores en cart relatif pour les commandants sur les huit scnarios

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negatively than in the reference ratings. The F/OsNTS were generally seenmore critically by all raters, especially the social Categories Co-operationand Leadership. Co-operation and Leadership skills of F/Os were seen lesspositively in all clusters, whereas Situation Awareness and DecisionMaking 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/OsNTS-skills (see Table 6).An example may further illustrate the results. In the first videoscenario a rather directive Captain managed a medical problem with oneof the passengers, which was reported by a Senior Cabin Crew Memberduring descent. The F/O as the flying pilot became overloaded withadditional tasks (like radio telephony) and dialled in a wrong altitude withthe Mode Control Panel. The Captain failed to monitor the F/Os actionsand an altitude violation resulted. The scenario ends with the Captaincriticising the F/O for his poor performance. The majority of raters fromSCEurope and EAEurope judged this altitude bust more as a problem of

the F/O, who made the error, while the Captains NTS were rated asacceptable. On the other side, most raters from Scandinavia, NW Europe,

and also SP Europe evaluated the Captains Co-operation, Leadership andSituation Awareness as well as the F/Os Leadership and SituationAwareness with poor. The latter three clusters also had the lowest scoresin Command Responsibility. There seemed to be a relation between

262 H.-J. Hrmann

-0,21

-0,13

0,03 0,00

-0,23 -0,21

-0,02

0,12

-0,49

-0,36 -0,33 -0,33

-0,43 -0,44

-0,21-0,25

-0,52

-0,38

-0,23 -0,19

-1

-0,5

0

0,5

1

Co-operation Leadership & Manag.Skills



R

elativetoRe

ference

Rating

FIG. 4. Relative deviation scores for F/Os over the eight scenarios

Scores en cart relatif pour les co-pilotes sur les huit scnarios

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different views of the situation and Power Distance. Correlationcoefficients between the FMAQ-scale Command Responsibility and theNTSevaluations were all highly significant for the Captains in scenario 1but not for the F/Os. Coefficients varied between .18 (for Decision

Making) and .45 (for Situation Awareness) for the entire sample ofinstructors. The average correlation was .34 for the Captains and .17 forthe F/Os. This means the NTS of the Captain were evaluated morepositively by instructors who scored higher on Command Responsibility.

Finally, some qualitative data are reported about the different views ofthe instructors on the NOTECHS system and the conduct of theexperiment. In the Evaluation Questionnaire participants were asked togive their opinions about the consistency and comprehensiveness of theNOTECHS system, its usefulness and the applicability of the five-pointrating scale. With the c2 statistic no significant cultural differences were

detected in regard to any of these aspects. The division of non-technicalskills into four Categories and 15 Elements was accepted by most ratersand did not vary with cultural differences. The high number of raters(88%) across all cultural clusters, who were equally satisfied with the fourCategories and 15 Elements of the NOTECHS system indicated that theproposed decomposition of NTS had a high degree of cross-culturalacceptance and usability.

IV. DISCUSSION

In the context of the task for JAA to harmonise requirements andregulations for pilot licensing and training, national cultures and culturaldifferences became troublesome entities. Europe is in a transitionaleconomic period. As in other fields of industrial and organisational


Absolute Deviation Relative Deviation

Cultural Cluster Captains F/Os Captains F/Os

Scandinavia .57 .29 .04 -.09

NW Europe .45 .29 -.07 -.12SC Europe .64 .53 .01 -.39

SP Europe .62 .43 -.17 -.34

EA Europe .60 .48 .00 -.35

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

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research (Gelfand, 2000; Pearce & Frese, 2000; Triandis, 2000) a needfor further cross-cultural studies, especially including East Europeancountries is also identified for the aviation industry. Efforts to establishcommon standards for a European license have to take nationalcharacteristics of different cultural regions into account. Attention wasdrawn to cultural issues especially in the area of Multi-Crew Cooperationand Crew Resource Management training (Helmreich & Merritt, 1998).While in the 1980ies CRMwas perceived as a set of culture-free principleswith quasi-universal validity for enhancing safety, evaluation studies in the1990ies have shown that CRMtraining outside the culture comfort zoneof the trainees is less effective and accepted (Merritt, 1996). Whicheverway the issue is addressed, national culture has per definition a directimpact on attitudes and values of individuals from any given culture.

Therefore, it was expected that instructors from different Europeancultures would perceive crew behaviour in multi-pilot aircraft differentlyand might assess what they have seen according to different standards.

To test the NOTECHSsystem for cultural robustness in Europe is one ofthe central research questions of the JARTELproject. If the experiment didreveal substantial disagreement about good or bad practice of flight crewinteraction and co-operation, the standards forNTS evaluation had to becalibrated for cultural effects. With the proposed five-cluster model fornational culture as an independent factor we found 55% of the maineffects to be significant in a series ofANOVAs. However, a closer inspection

of the group mean scores revealed that the differences are only gradual, asthey preferably vary between the scale values ofvery poorand poororacceptable, good and very good. OConnor et al. (in press)reported that 81% of all 105 participants in the JARTELexperiment matchthe reference ratings if the five-point scale was collapsed to a dichotomousacceptable versus unacceptable rating. This finding illustrates that notmuch variation is left which could be accounted for by culture.

Most of the intercultural effects occurred for scenario 7, which wassupposed to show a clear standard performance of an automatic precisionapproach in poor weather conditions. In this scenario the crewmembers

do not communicate with each other very intensively, because all actionsare thoroughly carried out in accordance to the procedures. However, tocompletely grasp the situation, full comprehension of the Englishconversation is crucial. When the self-assessed variable of Englishlanguage proficiency was combined with the cultural factor in two-factorial ANOVAs, all cultural effects disappeared for this scenario andinstead a number of main effects for language arose. In fact, differences inEnglish proficiency seem to be a prominent source of variance that isalmost as strong as the differences in national cultural. Only 23% of thecultural effects remain significant when English language is entered as

another independent factor. Similarly, national culture seems to overlapwith prior NTS-evaluation experience of the instructor pilots and withscores on the FMAQ-scale Command Responsibility. When included in theanalyses, these factors also reduce the number of cultural effectssubstantially. While Command Responsibility is related to Hofstedesdimension of Power Distance, which is in itself an aspect of cultural

264 H.-J. Hrmann

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differences, experience with NTSevaluation and language are factors thatcan be influenced by training to level out different perceptions andstandards of crew behaviour. IfNOTECHS were to be applied in the nativelanguage of the instructor pilots, as will be the case in operational use, andif a more intensive training period as in JARTEL was provided, culturaleffects with this evaluation method should almost disappear. A furtheroperational validation phase of the JARTELproject was recently started toclarify among other aspects on the language issue of NOTECHS (Polo,2000).

The remaining effects that were found here even after controllinginfluences of the background variables are distributed rather un-systematically over categories, scenarios and crew position. In general, theevaluations 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 NTSevaluations for the Captains and the FMAQ-scale Command Responsibility.Over all videos the average correlation is .18 for the Captains and.07 forthe F/Os and categories. As elaborated for the first scenario, participantswith higher scores on Command Responsibility (e.g., from South Centraland East Europe) seem to blame primarily the F/O, who made an error bysetting the wrong altitude. The Captains behaviour was perceived asacceptable, though he created unnecessary strain through poor workloadmanagement and also should have detected the error by timely monitoring.

Within the concept of CRM as error management strategy the Captainsbehaviour should be seen unacceptable. From the high correlationsbetween Command Responsibility and theNTSevaluations of the Captainin this scenario we conclude, that instructors with higher Power Distance(like in cluster 3 and 5) tend to focus their NTS evaluations more onobvious errors of the individual crewmember than on behaviour styles thatare centred around avoiding and detecting errors as well as mitigatingpotential error consequences. However, this conclusion assumes that allparticipants were in fact exposed to the same amount ofCRMtraining as thedata in table 4 suggests.

Aspects of organisational culture have only a minor influence onratings with the NOTECHS method. Systematic effects either of companysize or of the regular availability of human factors reports on NTSevaluations can be discounted. The expectation that organisationalculture would have a stronger impact on NOTECHS ratings than nationalculture cannot be confirmed by the data of this study. Summarising theanalyses of effects of national and organisational culture, it can beconcluded, that the decomposition of NTS into Categories and Elementsas in the NOTECHS system has a high degree of cross-cultural acceptance.Effects of national culture appear to be only marginal on the five-pointscales of the Category level. Provided that language proficiency of theusers was on an equal level and appropriate familiarisation took place, theNOTECHS method in most aspects can be regarded as robust againstvariations of national and organisational culture in Europe.

It is not the intention of this paper to disregard cultural influences oncrew interaction and teamwork in general. The available literature on


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cross-cultural research reports many counterexamples. Perhaps,commercial airline pilots are not prototypical members of their nationalcultures. The professional culture of many airline pilots seems to bearsome unifying principles of cockpit work. Highest safety standards are acommon goal of all professional aircrews. Most of their flight relatedactivities are in accordance with SOPs, which are designed by a few aircraftmanufacturers and influential airlines. Furthermore, the training of manyEuropean instructors and pilots takes place in a limited number oftraining centres attached to or linked with only a few global players in thistraining industry. Therefore standards and values of flight-relatedactivities are more homogeneous within the population of pilots.

Another important and even less researched issue is that of mixed-cultural crews. With the coming European license for airtransport pilots,

in future it will become more commonplace to operate aircraft withmulticultural crews in the cockpit and in the cabin. Already some of thelarger carriers are basing parts of their flightcrews in different parts of theworld. Customers profit from cultural synergy if they can communicatewith flight attendants in their native language. Also communications withlocal ground staff at the airports can be facilitated by crewmembers withmulticultural background. However, as the crew complement is oftenchanging from one flight to the next, the tasks of teambuilding andmaintaining can become more demanding. Communication barrierscould already arise when briefings have to be conducted in a second

language or when cultural constraints are mistreated by lack of respectiveawareness, tolerance, or competence. In order to manage a flight safelyand efficiently the requirements for crew co-operation should be clearlydefined in advance. As long as safety is involved, every crewmembershould have the same concept of desired behaviours and actions. Theseconcepts of crew behaviours must be adequately trained, continuouslypractised, and consequently assessed and reinforced throughout all levelsof the respective company. The NOTECHS system provides an applicableframework of NTS behavioural markers, which has proven its reliabilityand sensitivity to evaluate CRM-behaviour in a quasi-experimental study of

the JARTEL project. Cross-cultural comparisons have shown that theassessment procedure, the material, and the standards are sufficientlytolerant and robust in consideration of cultural influences on CRMbehaviours. In the next project phase of JARTEL the NOTECHS methodwill be used in real operational settings of different airlines trainingdepartments in order to further evaluate its practicability and shape thismethodology for its implementation in coming guidance material of JAA.

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van Avermaete, J. A. G., & Kruijsen, E. A. C. (1998). The evaluation of non-technical 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 Confe-rence: Publication 2455.(pp. 75-87). Moffett Field, CA: NASA Ames ResearchCentre.

SUMMARY

As the last line of defencepilots in commercial aviation often have to counteract effectsof unexpected system flaws that could endanger the safety of a given flight. In order to timelydetect and mitigate consequences of latent or active failures, effective team behaviour of thecrew 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 mosteffectively. Within the framework of the European project JARTEL the cultural robustness ofevaluations of crew behaviour was examined. 105 instructor pilots from 14 different airlinesrepresenting 12 European countries participated in this project. The instructorsevaluations ofcrew behaviours in eight video scenarios will be compared in relation to cultural differences onHofstedes dimensions of Power Distance and Individualism.

Key words: Crew Resource Management, Non-Technical Skills, Cultural Effects,Aviation Safety.

Paper received: October 2000.Accepted in modified form: April 2001.

268 H.-J. Hrmann

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Impacts of Culture on Crew Interaction

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