Cultural Differences in Systems Engineering: What They Are,What They Aren’t, and How to Measure Them

摘要

Despite frequent use of the term culture in contemporary engineering practice, there isrncurrently no reliable way of understanding what constitutes true shared beliefs and meanings thatrnimpact how groups of Systems Engineers spread across multiple departments and countries workrntogether. This paper develops a framework to address that gap and measure cultural variation inrnSystems Engineering contexts. Drawing from the field of cultural anthropology, we demonstraternmethods to empirically measure cultural consensus and divergence related to fosteringrncollaboration, understanding business success or failure, and identifying characteristics ofrneffective cross-functional teams. The discussion identifies substantive content of what realrnorganizational cultures are, where they are different, and where they overlap. That quantifiedrncontent feeds culture as a rigorous element of organizational strategy into global alignment andrnprocess excellence or six sigma initiatives targeted at changing team behavior. The result is arnframework for conducting rigorous, empirical investigations to truly understand the humanrndimensions that are critical to effective Systems Engineering practice. We discuss areas thisrnapproach applies to global process alignment and team effectiveness.