Cross cultural interactions: Methods and motivations for study

Human factors practitioners have become increasingly aware of the need for attending to team interaction dynamics. This has produced substantial research, methodological advances and, ultimately, recommendations for team design, training, interaction support and assessment. Concurrently, awareness has grown that cross cultural differences influence the usability and safety of technologies. To date, however, human factors practitioners have rarely considered the intersection of these two topics: cross cultural interactions in team performance settings and/or the design and assessment of multi-cultural teams (and of technologies to support them). This panel will review the motivation for such research and a variety of approaches to conducting it. Central themes will be (a) definitions and dimensions of cultural differences, (b) team performance assessment methodologies appropriate and useful in cross-cultural team research, and (c) cross-cultural team design, training and aiding methodologies that are the targets of such research.