Author(s)

RINA SADIA

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to study the impact of culture and work conditions on the process of group modeling building. This process took place in an Israeli factory, in a country of mixture cultures and social backgrounds. The process of building a model involved many participants of different positions in the factory, composing a diverse group with varied inputs. Since the participants were chosen from various levels within the company, they were also from diverse backgrounds in terms of their cultural background, socio-economic status and their work position. These impact their way of thinking and their opinions on the problem. This research applied the existing techniques of group model building process in the Israeli factory, showing that the implementation of this process in real-life differs from theory and requires additional information and tools. This need rises mainly from the dissimilarity of the cultural and social backgrounds of the organization and the workers, differences in the educational level of the employees and their various occupational statuses. These distinct differences suggest revisions and additions to the way this process is performed, such as the need to improve communication skills between participants, the need to establish rules-of-conduct in large groups with diverse back-grounds, and the value of personal conversations in addition to the group process. It is therefore vital for research management teams to acknowledge these differences between group members in order to understand the contradictory information that may come up from different parts of the group during the model-building process, as well as improve the final outcome of the group model building process. Revealing this kind of cultural mixture allows a continuous improvement process of knowledge elicitation through this model building process, thus improving the work of research management teams.

Keywords

culture, feedback loops, group modeling process, knowledge elicitation