Approaches to a cross-cultural engineering design theory

Abstract

Engineering Design Theory as an integral part of design education serves the purpose of structuring actions and thinking processes in order to increase the efficiency of development processes and the quality of developed products. In many institutions in Europe and the U.S.A., problem-oriented process models based on the approach of functional decomposition have complemented teaching approaches that rely on studying standard solutions such as machine elements. If one assumes that these models have been designed to suit the thought habits and educational traditions in the cultural spheres of their origin, their validity in the context of the globalization of engineering education must be discussed. Especially with regards to Western and Asian cultures, Nisbett [1] substantiates the existence of profound cognitive differences that might be relevant for design education and practice. Summarizing some of Nisbett's assertions, Westerners are more likely to rely on categorizing and individualizing objects and applying formal logic in any situation, whereas Asians prefer not to disentangle objects from their context in favour of a more holistic view of the world. This paper explores the consequences of such cultural differences in the context of product design and development to add plausibility to the authors' own observations from teaching practice with students from China, Germany, South Korea, Thailand and the United Kingdom. The discussion focuses on the applicability of the established model of the Engineering Design Process, narrowing the scope of Design Theory but broadening on the view that different design practices are attributed solely to differences in social interactions.