The differences of aviation human factors between individualism and collectivism culture

Abstract

Culture is at the root of action; it underlies the manner by which people communicate and develop attitudes towards life. This research examined statistical differences in the 18 categories of Human factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS, Shappell & Wiegmann, 2003) across 523 aviation accidents in the Republic of China (a collective culture) and 119 aviation accidents in the USA (an individual culture) . The result suggests that the culture of individualism seems to be superior for promoting aviation safety compared to collectivist cultures, however, factors such as the design of the aircraft, the management procedures and the nature of safety regulation all have a strong Western influence from the individualist culture. All of these factors are culturally congruent with the USA. It is essential to identify the potential causal roots for these differences from the underlying factors in these aviation mishaps, and identify what kind of factors drive people to act or react to dynamic situations that either lead to an accident help to develop an effective accident prevention strategy. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.