Difference in attitudes toward Crew Resource Management based on nationality

<p>The E-3A Airborne Early Warning and Control System aircraft operates with multinational crewmembers from 15 different nations on 12 different aircrew positions. Given this non-standard cultural environment, the authors explored the differences in the attitude toward Crew Resource Management (CRM), based on nationality, and how these differences could be used as a predictor for other nationalities attitudes. The potential benefit of this study may be, that CRM methods could be developed further to either work universally, independent to national or cultural backgrounds, or be adjusted for different cultural contexts in order to be even more effective. Primary data was gathered through a survey questionnaire issued to aircrew members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) E-3A Component. The survey focused on key attitudes in a CRM environment such as teamwork ability, criticism appreciation, and open mindedness; taken from standardized questions based on Hofstede and Minkov’s (2013) Values Survey Module (VSM). Analyzing the gathered values, revealed that in fact differences between various nations exist. Comparing the cultural dimensions calculated for the participating nations in this study did not allow for a correlation of attitude differences to certain index patterns. Significantstatistical differences could be detected in three of the five questions, indicating that national culture and the attitude toward CRM does correlate and hence needs to be addressed in CRM training. CRM is not perfect and is, as always reiterated, a constantly evolving construct. One part of it, in the now globalized and more and more interrelated world, is to deal with different baselines that each culture brings into this coherent model.</p>