Because national cultures exert heavy influences on pilot behavior and operator expectations, cross-cultural differences must be considered in adapting elements of a just culture to helicopter operations around the world, human factors expert Ron Frey says.
“Cultures vary, even within countries,” and in developing operational and organizational safety cultures, “you have to put that in the national culture context,” Frey, senior partner with the Human Factor and Incident Investigation Institute in Ottawa, said in a presentation to the CHC Safety and Quality Summit, held in late March in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
A number of operators have implemented safety management systems (SMS) that were originally developed in other countries or other industries, without considering that they might not be effective in their own operating environment, said Frey, also a former chief psychologist for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Clashes between some aspects of national cul…
