A Study on Air Traffic Controllers’ Cultural bias and Their Response on Abnormal Situations

A status of air traffic controller is a government officer and air traffic controllers who work at airport are divided by duty rating and work experience. Abiding by law, rules and regulation, air traffic controllers are working together based on mutual trust. This paper’s theoretical background is based on cultural bias theory. The theory divide people group into four groups according to cultural bias such as fatalism, hierarchy, individualism and egalitarianism. A research model was designed how such four cultural bias could affect air traffic controller’s risk response in case of emergency or abnormal situation during their work. Depend on empirical research, it was found that air traffic controllers perceived they had been more biased to fatalism than hierarchy. The characteristics of fatalism group are as follows: first of all, they follow rigid rules and regulation. However, they have less self-efficacy compared to other government officers. According to structural equation model, air traffic controller’s fatalism had a significant negative effect on organizational royalty. Their royalty, however, had a very significant positive effect on planning response and immediate response.