Professionals in complex scientific, business, military and humanitarian domains must identify problems, make sense out of complex and confusing information, weigh options, and coordinate with others in order to make decisions and take action. The shift towards multinational operations in complex work domains presents a problem: Intelligent and thoughtful people from different national groups sometime construct different realities, use alternative coordination schemes, and make different decisions. As a result, competent, well-meaning professionals may struggle during interactions with their equally competent, well-meaning counterparts. Cultural differences in cognition can compromise the productivity, safety, and quality of work. While the identification and measurement of national differences is critical, there are few tools for measuring differences and predicting complex cognitive processes.

This Track is accepting submissions for the IEA August 2009 Congress in Beijing, China. We are calling for proposals for symposia, panels, workshops, and papers that address current or emerging issues in cultural ergonomics. The content of these offerings could include case studies, empirical research, conceptual models, evaluations, methods and techniques. In particular, we are interested in contributions covering novel methods of qualitative and quantitative data collection in the field. If there are enquiries, please email Ken Boff at ken.boff@mac.com.