I believe Malcolm Gladwell has written about this. Others have as well. Typically this is less of a problem for US pilots, and more so in other cultures. For

I believe Malcolm Gladwell has written about this. Others have as well. Typically this is less of a problem for US pilots, and more so in other cultures. For example, some of the studies showed that this type of thing was actually more prevalent in cultures that tended to be hierarchical, and where elders/authority figures should not be challenged (The usual example is Asian pilots.) I believe that the high profile accidents were Korean? (I could be wrong) There are ways to measure this type of hierarchical control (better terminology escapes me at the moment), such as the Power Distance Index [0][1]. I've always enjoyed thinking about this as basically, how likely is an underling likely to tell his boss that's he wrong and he can go shove it? In this case, you can see why it's one aspect of the psychology/geography of where and why entrepreneurial activity occurs. [0] (Wikipedia actually sucks at discussing PDI: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hofstede%27s_cultural_dimensions_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hofstede%27s_cultural_dimension... [1] better information: http://www.clearlycultural.com/geert-hofstede-cultural-dimensions/power-distance-index/ http://www.clearlycultural.com/geert-hofstede-cultural-dimen...