Posted: January 16th, 2024

Examining Cultural Differences in Safety Culture Across Global Merchant Fleets

Examining Cultural Differences in Safety Culture Across Global Merchant Fleets

Safety culture is the shared set of values, beliefs, and norms that influence how seafarers behave and perform their tasks on board ships. It is an important factor for ensuring the safety of maritime operations and preventing accidents, injuries, and environmental damage. However, safety culture is not uniform across different merchant fleets, as it may be influenced by various cultural factors, such as national, organizational, and professional cultures. This paper aims to examine the cultural differences in safety culture across global merchant fleets and to explore the implications for maritime safety management.

One of the main challenges in studying safety culture in the maritime industry is the lack of a common definition and measurement tool. Different researchers and organizations have used different approaches and methods to assess safety culture, which makes it difficult to compare and generalize the results. Moreover, most of the existing studies have focused on specific regions or fleets, such as Europe, Asia, or oil tankers, and have not considered the global diversity of the maritime industry. Therefore, there is a need for a more comprehensive and comparative study of safety culture across different types of merchant fleets and regions.

To address this gap, this paper proposes a conceptual framework for analyzing safety culture in the maritime industry based on Hofstede’s (1980) cultural dimensions theory. Hofstede’s theory identifies six dimensions of national culture that can be used to compare and contrast different countries and regions: power distance, individualism-collectivism, masculinity-femininity, uncertainty avoidance, long-term orientation, and indulgence-restraint. These dimensions can also be applied to other levels of culture, such as organizational and professional cultures. The paper argues that these dimensions can affect various aspects of safety culture on board ships, such as leadership styles, communication patterns, decision-making processes, risk perception and tolerance, learning and innovation, and compliance with rules and regulations.

The paper then reviews the existing literature on safety culture in the maritime industry and identifies the main cultural differences across different types of merchant fleets and regions. For example, the paper finds that Asian fleets tend to have higher power distance and collectivism than European fleets, which may result in more hierarchical and centralized leadership structures, less participation and feedback from crew members, and more reliance on formal rules and procedures. On the other hand, European fleets tend to have higher individualism and masculinity than Asian fleets, which may result in more autonomy and empowerment for crew members, more open and direct communication, and more willingness to challenge authority and take risks.

The paper concludes by discussing the implications of these cultural differences for maritime safety management. It suggests that safety managers should be aware of the cultural diversity of their crews and adopt a flexible and adaptive approach to safety management that respects and accommodates different cultural preferences and expectations. It also recommends that safety managers should foster a positive safety culture that promotes trust, cooperation, learning, and continuous improvement among seafarers from different cultural backgrounds.