Culture and engineering in the USA and Japan

Comparisons of Japan with Western countries have long been used to explore the relationship between technology and culture. In the 1950s and 1960s such work sought to determine if technological imperatives were diminishing cultural differences. In the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s many sought to identify aspects of Japanese culture that might lie at the root of Japan's technological successes. This article argues that we should now undertake more micro and more systematic comparative studies that are more directly grounded in theory. Studies concentrating on engineers and the practice of engineering would seem to be an especially promising starting point. © Springer-Verlag London Limited 2003.