sociological factors

7/27/2019 Sociological Factors

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Title Sociological factors influencing the practice of incident reporting: the case of the

shipping industry.

Purpose The purpose of the paper is to present the ways in which underlying social and

organisational factors and employment relations underpin the practice of incident reporting in the

international shipping industry.

Design/methodology/approach It uses qualitative case study method involving fieldtrips to two

shipping organisations and sailing on research voyages on two ships of each of the organisations.

It draws empirical data using semi-structured interviews, notes from fieldwork observations and

documentary analysis of company policies, procedures and practices.

Findings The paper reveals that in the two companies studied there were significant gaps

between the policy and practice of incident reporting, which were present primarily due to the

employees fear of losing jobs. It argues that these findings were manifestations of deeper

sociological issues and organisational weaknesses in the shipping industry. In particular

ineffective regulatory infrastructure, weak employment practices, the absence of trade union

support and lack of organisational trust were the key underlying concerns which made incident

reporting notably ineffective in the shipping context.

Originality/value While the weaknesses in the practice of incident reporting in the shipping

industry were reported in the past, previous studies did not offer further explanations. This paper

addresses the gap and provides another illustration of the need for looking into deeper

sociological underpinnings for practices in the workplace. The author also hopes that the study

will have a positive impact on the policy makers in the shipping industry.


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Keywords: Incident report; shipping industry; employment relations; fear of blame; trade union;

organisational trust.

Paper category: Research Paper


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This paper aims to address this gap by discussing the empirical evidence of the practice of

incident reporting and analysing it in terms of the social relations between the seafarers on board

ships and their managers in shore-based management offices of the same organisations. It also

intends to place the finding in the context of employment relations affecting seafarers, as well as

in terms of the wider context of the organisation and relations of employment in the shipping

industry.

2. Incident & Near-miss reporting

Heinrich (1931) theorised that the underlying causes for incidents which result in near-miss

occurrences and those which unfortunately lead to more serious consequences such as fatalities

and injuries are similar. Therefore analysing the causes of near-miss occurrences have equally

significant benefits. In support of this argument Wright and van der Schaaf (2004) highlighted

that as the number of workplace incidents, such as fatalities and injuries, are usually low it is

important to investigate the near-miss incidents with the same fervour. The relatively greater

number of near-miss incidents give the opportunity to get a more statistically reliable result and

also give opportunity to investigate the root causes of a greater number of cases. The authors also

pointed out that such an approach encourages a preventative attitude towards protecting

occupational health and safety. A number of more recent empirical works (see for example

Powell et al ., 2007 and Alamgir et al. , 2009) have supported this view. In the shipping context

too the ISM Code follows similar arguments and identifies the importance of reporting andanalysing near-miss cases with the same dedication as incidents.

Based on the common cause theory proposed by Heinrich (1931) an accident triangle ratio

relationship between the different severities of incidents, such as fatality, minor injury and near-

miss occurrence have been another popular development in this field. It is now common to find

safety literatures discussing that a single case of fatality equates to a greater number of minor


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injury cases and to a much higher number of non-injury or near-miss cases. The UK Health and

Safety Executive, for instance, states that when one major incident or over three-day lost-time

injury occurs in an organisation it is likely that in the same organisation the workers suffer from

around seven minor injury cases and around another 189 non-injury or near-miss cases (HSE,

1997, p. 8). However, there is a debate on the validity of such relationship. It questions the

legitimacy of such claim and argues that the objective of reporting and analysing near-miss

incident reports should be confined to the common cause theory and not extended to the ratio

relationship (see Wright and van der Schaaf, 2004).

Even though incident reporting is viewed as an important element to safeguard workplace health

and safety, studies indicate a number of concerns in its implementation. Research conducted in

different industries such as steel, airline and railways have revealed a high case of

underreporting. Powell et al . (1971) in their review of 2000 cases of industrial injuries and

incidents revealed the extent of the problem. By observing reportable cases and comparing them

with the number of cases actually reported by the workers, the authors estimated that as high as

70 per cent of the cases are not reported. Moreover it is also revealed that the rate of

underreporting is inconsistent across industries. An analysis of the UK Labour Force Survey by

Nichols (1997, p. 201) estimated that while in the UK agriculture sector the rate of

underreporting of personal injuries is as high as 85 per cent, the corresponding figure in the

energy sector is at a moderate 30 per cent.

Studies conducted in different industries show that the most common cause for underreporting is

located in workers fear of the consequences of reporting. The workers apprehend that reporting

of an incident or near-miss occurrence would bring them to disrepute or subject them to direct or

indirect disciplinary actions because the managers would assume that they were responsible for it

(see for example van der Schaaf and Kanse, 2004).


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For instance, in the health care sector Lawton and Parkers (2002) work revealed significant

underreporting and showed that incidents were more commonly reported only when patients

were harmed, whereas, when incidents were recovered without causing harm to the patients the

hospital staff showed reluctance to report. By analysing further the authors concluded that

reporting was largely driven by a culture of blame and fear of litigation.

In the aviation sector, too, Elwell (1995) and OLeary and Chappell (1996) found a high number

of cases of underreporting of operator errors. Their studies showed that as flight operators felt

embarrassed to report their errors and feared that they would be punished as a result of reporting

they chose not to report them.

The common concern across the industries thus is workers fear of the consequences of

reporting. This as Carroll (1998) pointed out shows that underreporting is more common when

the employees perceive that reporting of incidents would lead to blaming and disciplining

particular individuals which is intended to encourage accountability (1998, p. 713).

To address this concern Reason (1997) is among those who suggested that management should

facilitate anonymous reporting and offer indemnity against disciplinary proceedings to those who

report incidents and near-miss occurrences. It has been evidenced in a number of empiricalstudies. In the area of health-care, research conducted by Stump (2000) showed that anonymous

paper-based incident reporting system when introduced to an American hospital was a major

success. Within the first six months of bringing in this change to the reporting procedure, the

number of reported cases increased by more than five times.


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The accounts from the shipping industry also suggest the presence of an industry-wide culture of

blame. The 2001 annual report from the Maritime Accident Investigating Branch (MAIB) UK,

for example, summed it up in its analysis in which it highlighted that seafarers routinely fail to

report because regardless of the nature of incidents they fear of being blamed for reporting them.

It stated that throughout the industry, mariners are genuinely frightened that if they were known

to be reporting safety deficiencies, they would almost certainly lose their jobs (MAIB, 2001, p.

9).

The underlying factors leading to such fear, however, have not been adequately discussed in the

context of the shipping industry. This paper attempts to investigate that by analysing its practice.

For a better appreciation of the practice, first it is important to contextualise the research. In the

following section the key features of the industry which influence the organisational and

employment relations are discussed.

3. The international shipping industry: context of the study

It is argued that while economic globalisation affects workplaces in industries around the world,

its impacts in the shipping context are significantly more striking. Alderton and Winchester

(2002) pointed out that regulating this industry has always been a challenging task primarily due

to the remote location of the workplace. But this challenge was significantly exacerbated by the

consequences of increased free market capitalism assisted by State deregulation. Till around themid 1960s it was a common practice for the ship-owners to register their ships in the country of

their domicile. That also led to employing local seafarers giving rise to a common national

identity. Such countries are termed the Traditional Maritime Nations (TMN) and typically

include UK, Norway and Greece. But since the 1970s increased market freedom allowed the

ship-owners to shift the registry of their ships to countries, such as Liberia and Panama, which

are commonly known as the Flags of Convenience (FOC). They chose to move from TMN to


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FOC because the latter offered comparatively relaxed regulatory conditions. It meant that the

ship-owners were no longer obliged to maintain their ships to a high standard.

The relaxed regulatory requirement on shipboard labour was an even bigger incentive for the

ship-owners. This encouraged them to source seafarers from new labour supply nations, such as

Philippines and countries in the Eastern Europe, on comparatively lower salaries (Alderton et al ,

2004; BIMCO/ISF Manpower Study, 2005). Moreover they engaged in downsizing of shipboard

staff, and offering them temporary contractual employment and relatively inferior working

conditions. Studies have revealed how in the last 30 years shipboard crew have dramatically

reduced and in some cases the peripheral yet important staffs such as trainees were completely

withdrawn (Beth et al. , 1984; Bloor et al ., 2004).

As the ship-owners sourced seafarers from the wider labour market under poor regulatory

oversight they offered rudimentary employment condition. In particular it involved short-term

contracts which meant that the ship-owners enjoyed minimal obligation towards the seafarers

and held no responsibility for their future employability. A large scale survey of 4,525 seafarers

conducted by the International Labour Organisation in 2001 revealed that the majority of

seafarers worked on contracts covering a single voyage or tour of duty, the length of which was

typically between five and 12 months (ILO, 2001, p. 64). From the seafarers perspective such

short-term contractual employment potentially made them insecure about their next employment(Alderton et al. , 2004). Thus, such unprecedented freedom gained by the ship-owners allowed

them to choose regulators and exploit the global labour market. It produced a vacuum in the

regulatory front in the shipping industry and among other developments undermined the

employment relations in the industry (DeSombre, 2000).


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Moreover, such development which geographically dispersed the labour, capital and regulatory

base left the industry much fragmented. It became common to find a ship registered in country

A, owned by the ship-owner domiciled in country B, operated by seafarers from countries C, D

and E, and trading between countries F and G. Among other impacts it undermined the scope of

trade union to engage in collective bargaining or represent the seafarers or act as an intermediary

between them and their managers on employment issues. Their absence deprived the seafarers

from forming into an organised workforce and thus made it even harder for them to approach the

managers collectively with their work related concerns (DeSombre, 2006; Lillie, 2004).

4. Research Method

In order to understand the practice of incident reporting and analysing them in the social,

organisational and employment relations context more effectively this study took a qualitative

case study approach using semi-structured interviews as the main data collection technique and

supplemented by the fieldwork observation and documentary analysis.

The benefits of case study using a qualitative line of inquiry to reveal the underlying factors in

the context of a workplace have been widely argued. Whipp (1998), for instance, pointed out that

each workplace needs to be looked at separately and thoroughly by getting under the skin of the

organisation because an apparent single organisational problem often has its roots extended to a

number of social issues. The hidden features of employee relations thus can only be revealed if detailed attention is paid to the individual cases. Following this argument, Kochan (1998) also

pointed out that for a full appraisal of the social elements within a workplace or an industrial

setting the case study approach is most suited.

The cases studies were conducted in two international shipping companies whose land-based

management offices were both located in Europe. The larger of the two was a branch office of a


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global ship-management company and operated around 25 tankers and dry-cargo ships around

the world. The other specialised in a niche market of transporting petroleum oil products and

operated around 10 ships in the European waters. Both fleets registered their ships with several

flags, some with TMN while others with FOC. In each office between 30 and 40 people were

employed and from among them 10 managers, who were directly responsible for administering

the fleet in different capacities including for acting on the incidents and near-misses reported

from their fleet, were interviewed. On an average these interviews lasted for an hour while the

whole data collection process in each office took around five days. Besides interviewing, the

company policy and procedures on incident and near-miss reporting and related correspondence

between the management and ships were also studied.

Subsequent to the land-based part of the data collection, research voyages were undertaken on

board two tankers from each company all four of which were registered with FOC. On an

average 12 days were spent on each ship during which period a total of 67 seafarers were

interviewed; 43 of them were from the two ships of the larger of the two organisations while 24

were from the other. In addition overt observation of their shipboard activities including daily

maintenance work, navigational practice and safety drills was also conducted. The majority of

the analysis for this study [1], however, is drawn from the interviews of 16 senior officers four

from each ship. They formed the shipboard management team which was responsible for

reporting incidents and near-misses to the shore-based managers. It comprised of the captain,who is the overall responsible person for the ship and its crew and particularly in-charge of

communicating shipboard incidents and near-misses to the managers; the chief officer, who is

the captains deputy and in-charge of the ships stability and carriage of cargo; the chief

engineer, who is in-charge of shipboard machineries and all engineering staffs; and the second

engineer, who is deputy to the chief engineer and oversees the daily operation of all machineries.


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Both organisations were in the shipping business for long and were well established. They

operated safety management system which included incident reporting even from long before the

ISM Code was made mandatory. The clients of the two shipping companies included the

internationally known Oil Majors, such as Shell and Chevron. The four ships on which I

conducted the study regularly traded Oil Majors cargo. It is widely believed in the industry (see

Sagen, 2005) that regardless of the flag of a ship or the profile of a company, trading with Oil

Majors is an indicator of high operating standard. Also, the publicly available information on

safety record of the two organisations and their ships showed that their standard of safety was

considerably better than the industry-wide average (see Equasis, 2007; Paris MoU, 2008).

Most interviews were recorded and later transcribed while hand-written notes were taken for

those for which the participants did not give permission to record. Also a research diary was

maintained in which the observations were noted. The large amount of data thus generated was

transcribed and systematically coded with the help of the N-Vivo program. Around 30 codes

were generated from the data which were then examined for their regularities and patterns for the

purpose of identifying conceptual links and thematic guides (Coffey and Atkinson, 1996).

Following that, these codes were grouped together into categories based on their common

attributes which could then be discussed against the extant theories. The themes relating to the

operation of incident and near-miss reporting included:

(1) Complying with procedures;

(2) Human failure;

(3) Fear of blame; and

(4) Job insecurity.

5. Findings

5.1 Policy & Procedures


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Moreover, both organisations also generated their own forms for reporting incidents. These

required information concerning the events leading to the incident, the details of the damage or

injury, the list of all persons and parties involved and the actions taken to mitigate the damage. In

one of the two organisations the reporting form asked over 60 questions, most of which required

either yes or no answers while in the last section of the form the questions demanded detailed

account of the incidents. The questions included:

Were regulations ignored to complete operation?

Was the person/personnel pre-occupied with other thoughts?

Were short-cuts taken?

Did the person misunderstand instructions?

Identity of the person authorising the work.

These questions closely resembled the suggested direct and root causes noted earlier. They

indicate that for the purpose of identifying the underlying causal factors of incidents both

companies placed heavy emphasis on locating seafarers flaws and weaknesses. Such approach

was against the arguments presented in the research literature as discussed above. It, as

Fahlbruch and Wilpert (1999) pointed out, is far too myopic because such fault-finding

investigation approach diverts the attention of the management away from looking into the

underlying causal factors of the reported incidents.

Furthermore, the descriptive section of the incident reporting forms required the captains to

provide as much information as possible. It even demanded photographs and sketches to help

explain the incident in detail. The company procedures claimed that such additional information

helped them make effective insurance claims and meet the statutory requirements. The nature of

the information required for reporting incidents suggests that there was limited opportunity for


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the captains or others involved in the incidents to remain anonymous and thus subsequently face

potential recrimination. It is apparent from the procedures laid out in the two organisations that

the argument in favour of making the reporting of incidents anonymous (Reason, 1997) was not

considered.

5.2 Lack of compliance

During the interviews the managers from both companies insisted that their companys policy

and procedures on incident reporting were longstanding and robust. They believed that if the

system operated effectively it would make their organisation a safer place. One of the managers,

for example, said:

We have had it [incident reporting] since the 1980s. Reporting, analysing incidents,

preparing statistics for the fleet and sending circulars to all ships are nothing new...

you see, the system here is very mature.

However, most of the 20 managers interviewed shared their unequivocal disappointment in the

actual practice of incident reporting pointing to the ways their seafaring colleagues failed to

comply with the companys procedures. They suspected that the seafarers were holding back

information on most near-miss occurrences and even on some cases of incidents. One manager in

one of the companies, for example, pointed out:

We do our best to implement it [incident reporting]. It is fully implemented here in theoffice... we have the expertise to look into the reports and dig out the root cause...

statistical system... but the ship-staff dont follow everything we set rolling here we

have a major problem of underreporting.

The managers further emphasised that the success of the operation of incident reporting relied

entirely on the seafarers as only after they reported the incidents, could the managers get


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involved. By extending this argument, the managers focused on persuading the seafarers to

report more incidents and near-miss occurrences. Such persuasion was evident from the frequent

letters and fleet circulars that were sent out by the managers to the captains urging them to send

more reports.

As the managers did not have any means to know how many unreported incidents or near-miss

occurrences there were, they turned to the popular accident triangle ratio relationship theory as

discussed in section 2. Around 12 managers claimed in their interviews that as per the number of

serious incident and injury reports which they claimed that the seafarers were compelled to

report due to the seriousness of the cases the seafarers should be sending in many more reports

on near-miss occurrences. They also felt that the seafarers were happy to report personal injuries

or such other untoward events arising out of technical problems or mechanical breakdowns but

chose not to disclose those events which could be construed as their professional failures. One

senior manager carefully articulated his views and said:

Their [seafarers] favourite is the obvious ones: accidents... then they report illnesses

and injuries especially for which they required doctor visit and then the machinery

breakdowns and finally loads of minor concerns... I feel a large portion of in-between

block of operational errors mechanical issues and their faults and oversights are not

reported.

These managers views coincided with studies conducted in different occupational fields.

Stanhope et al . (1999), for example, conducting a retrospective review of case notes of 500

childbirths in two London obstetric units identified 196 cases of reportable incidents in

accordance with the hospitals protocols. They found that however only less than a quarter of

these cases were reported by the staff. Moreover, when the authors grouped the cases into


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serious, moderate and minor events, they found that the staff reported nearly half the serious

incidents, only around quarter of the moderate events and just 15 per cent of the minor events.

While most managers pointed out that due to their persuasion they were beginning to receive

more and more cases on near-miss occurrences, some were sceptical about this apparent success

of their campaign. This latter group emphasised that although the lower section of the accident

pyramid was beginning to swell, it was actually a case of manipulated reporting. They pointed

out that ship-captains were sending more and more reports which were typical examples of

supervisory issues but not those which for instance would identify shipboard operational failure.

One manager in one company, for example, stated:

All near-miss reports that our ships send are like 2nd officer seen on deck without

safety shoes if he had slipped he would have broken his legs. I get like this all the

time... we dont want these as these are disciplinary issues. There are more serious

issues happening all the time, such as: mooring rope-parting, slips and trips, close

quarter situations [in navigation]... but we never get to know of them.

On the whole the managers concluded that despite their efforts the reporting practice in their

organisation was ineffective. They attributed the failure to their seafaring colleagues non-

compliance with company procedures.

5.3 Fear of Blame

The onboard senior officers however presented a completely different view on the allegation of

non-compliance of the company procedures on incident reporting. While they acknowledged that

they underreported, the reason that they presented for it was markedly different. In their

interviews the senior officers clearly expressed their deep fear of the consequences of reporting

incidents. They revealed that for every reported incident the managers demanded an explanation


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and blamed the onboard staff. In the interviews the officers explained that after every reporting

they were subjected to a series of intimidating interrogation from their managers seeking further

detail of the events. An analysis of the paper copy of e-mail correspondence between the

managers and senior officers of the last five reports on one of the ships corroborated this claim.

These appeared as faultfinding exercises in which the managers established accountability for

each event. Similar expressions were also captured in the interviews. One senior engineer, for

example, expressed his anxiety about being blamed by the managers for an incident for which he

felt no responsibility. He said:

On this ship I had near death accident but it was not my fault. But they [managers] are

asking for many explanations. After every reporting they keep asking why this, why

that, and why like that that there is a tendency to locate the guilty person... In their

analysis they blamed that I did not work as per the procedures and said that I did not

have the necessary skills and leadership qualities maybe I am on their hit list ...if I

can avoid I wouldnt report the next time.

In the same way, a captain remarked how reporting of incidents could also put their colleagues

professional reputations at stake and explained his dilemma with a recent example. He

mentioned how on one occasion while navigating through a busy channel an engineer made an

error of judgement and disrupted the ships power supply. Subsequently, the ship lost control and

came perilously close to colliding with another ship. By recollecting this near-miss occurrence,the captain said:

It was very dangerous and should never have happened... it was definitely an incident

to learn from but I did not report it because I knew that after reporting the managers

would inquire and find out who that engineer was. Then they would have singled him

out and spoilt his career.


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This contradiction of a no-blame approach between the incident reporting policy and practice

needs further clarification. On probing this debate around half of the managers in their interviews

were frank enough to admit to their ineffective no-blame initiative. They revealed that

seafarers fear of being questioned about the reported incidents and subsequently being blamed

was understandable. One manager, for example, explained:

No blame culture is present only in theory it is very difficult we try but I must

admit we fail more often than we should. It is a known problem there is all this

planned approaches to incident reporting but I will be honest, it differs from reality.

This also corroborates the finding of Anderson et al. s (2003, pp. 180-190) study on the

effectiveness of the implementation of the ISM Code. By enquiring the ship managers views

from around 200 organisations through questionnaire survey the authors revealed that 60 per cent

of the managers believed that their seafaring colleagues were reluctant to report. They felt that

the seafarers were mainly concerned that by reporting they would either lose their jobs or that it

would have a negative influence in their career.

The managers who were willing to discuss this issue in their interviews further revealed that the

seafarers fears were in fact well grounded. They admitted that it was hard for them to disregard

the contents of incident reports or near-miss occurrences when judging the professional

performance of the seafarers, especially the senior officers. One of them used the example of seafarers promotion and said:

No matter how much I try, I cannot promote a chief officer to captain who had had

more than his share of accidents. Can you? Not that we wish to spy on them through

this reports, it is just that I would be uneasy... we tend to overlook it for a regular re-

employment but promotion is different I must admit.


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Regardless of how the managers viewed the purpose of no-blame culture in their organisation,

what came out strongly from the analysis was their belief that shipboard incidents, injuries and

near-misses were the direct results of seafarers lack of skill and training and their rule-breaking

attitude. They appeared convinced that issues such as poor quality of seafarers training, their

apathy towards work and their inherent tendency to take short-cuts from the companys stated

operating procedure were the primary concerns. Such preconceived notion had an overarching

influence on how the managers responded to the reported incidents. This was evident from the

interview of all managers, one of who, for example, said:

Look what we really want is a good quality crew, especially competent senior

officers. But we dont get many of them. If you study our records [of incidents and

near-miss occurrences] youll find that true; all accidents are because of seafarers

lack of training or simply when they fail to follow our procedures.

This presented a paradox for the managers. On the one hand they were aware of the importance

of exonerating seafarers from the fear of blame in order to promote reporting and knew that the

purpose of reporting was to learn from the mistakes by locating the underlying reasons and

progressively improving occupational health and safety in the companies. Yet, on the other hand,

for the purpose of safeguarding the ship from deviant or under-trained seafarers they strongly

believed in apportioning blame to individual seafarers. This contradiction was well articulated by

one manager, who said:As a superintendent we are fire-fighters, we need to know the cause of the problems,

which is the people in most cases... [Although] we strongly recognise that we are not

here to blame them, we are here to analyse the reports and learn from the root causes,

but I am sorry, my first job is to find what's going wrong... perhaps someone needs

some extra training... Its a catch 22 situation, I am afraid.


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locate faults with their seafaring colleagues. Thus it can be concluded that incident reporting in

the two organisations was an exclusive and deliberate tool to make the seafarers accountable for

all reported incidents. This provides a partial explanation to why these managers did not consider

the need for offering their seafarers anonymity or an indemnity from disciplinary proceedings.

The managers conviction that seafarers are the main causal factor for shipboard incidents draws

from the notion that majority of accidents are caused by human-failure (see for example the

views of Weigmann and Shappel, 2003). It was evident from their fixation to allege seafarers

irrational behaviour, lack of motivation, law breaking attitude, and misapplication of good rules

as the causes of shipboard incidents. The appeal in pointing to human error as the cause for

accidents is not new and is also found in the more scientific literature (see for example

Ellingwoods (1982) assertion of the causes of structural failure). While it may fall outside the

remit of such literature to appreciate the underlying social and organisational factors of

accidents, but hastily classifying ignorance, carelessness and irresponsibility as the causes of

80-90 per cent of the accidents (1982, p. 112) is a shallow interpretation and indeed misleading.

Such theory has been severely criticised by a number of authors (see Kinnersley, 1973;

Mathews, 1986; Nichols 1997, pp. 61-68 for a discussion). Over the years the critiques have

argued that blaming the operator just because he or she is the last link in the causal chain of

incidents is a myopic approach. They highlighted that when managers subscribe to the humanerror theory they are prejudiced to identify the unsafe workers. The authors warned that these

are not only deficient or possibly even wrong approaches to analysing incidents, but, more

critically, they compel investigators to deviate from identifying the crucial underlying

organisational and social factors causing the incidents, such as the fear of reporting due to, for

instance, the pressures of production.


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6. Discussion

The findings reveal that the practice of incident reporting differed considerably from what was

intended. Based on these analyses the discussion now brings to light the ways in which

underlying organisational context influence the practice of incident reporting in the two

organisations. In particular it discusses how the consequences of seafarers employment

practices, trade union influence and organisational trust play significant roles.

6.1 Job Security

The senior officers in the first company were employed on a short term temporary contract. On

an average they worked for five months and went on unpaid leave for three months. Prior to

every new assignment these officers, who mostly came from the countries in the Eastern Europe,

were required to sign on a new contract. As pointed out earlier in the ILO study (2001) and later

confirmed in other studies (see Kahveci and Nichols, 2006) seafarers engagement on fixed

short-term contracts was not an exclusive feature in these two organisations.

Such employment practice, however, was not without consequence. It made the seafarers

anxious about the lack of continuous employability. Consequently they tended to prioritise ways

to keep their jobs and secure their future employment. Given the blame culture that the two

organisations operated in, opting to be forthright about reporting incidents and near-miss

occurrences was not considered prudent. This corroborates Quinlans (1999) argument on howprecarious employment coerces workers to accept inferior working conditions, and among other

impacts impairs their ability to communicate to their managers and negotiate for a better

workplace.

The arrangement in the second company with regard to the employment of the senior officers,

however, was different. It employed North West European nationals on a permanent basis on a


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fixed work schedule which required them to work on board for around eight weeks in a 12-week

period. During leave they were paid and in most cases these officers returned to work on the

same ships.

Although such arrangement appears to offer these senior officers permanent employment,

surprisingly, they too felt vulnerable about keeping their jobs. In their interviews these officers

revealed their fear of being made redundant. They felt that the managers were planning to

replace them by their counterparts from the East Europe who draw comparatively lower wages.

To the senior officers this loomed as a permanent threat which is why they felt that they had to

exercise greater caution in their day-to-day work including when deciding on which incidents to

report or whether to report at all. One senior engineer, for instance, in his interview said:

We are constantly worried as we keep seeing more and more engineers [from X

nation] taking over [our jobs]... tomorrow I may be gone now the time has come for

me to stay quietly, keep a low profile and of course not draw anyones attention by

reporting an accident or something.

This was not a mere speculation by these senior officers. During the interviews the managers too

acknowledged that their organisation was gradually replacing all West European senior officers.

The BIMCO/ISF Manpower Study (2005) categorically identified this as the trend. It illustrated

the way ship-owners globally are replacing seafarers from West Europe, North America andJapan by their counterparts from countries in the Far East, Indian sub-continent and East Europe.

Thus although the two groups of senior officers were employed under different types of

employment contract their common fear was the lack of job security. They both felt equally

dispensable. As identified earlier (ILO, 2001, pp. 31-48) the explanation to this in part lies in the


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widespread laissez-faire approach adopted in the shipping industry which resulted in significant

restructuring of its labour market.

6.2 Trade Union

Studies show that active trade union involvement can play a major mitigating role in such

employment conditions. Bohle and Quinlan (2000, pp. 438-442), for example, reviewing a wide

body of literature on the factors supporting effective management of occupational health and

safety revealed that trade unions help to organise the workforce and thus make them more

confident to communicate workplace concerns including reporting of incidents to the managers.

Lewchuk et al .s (1996) empirical work on the impacts of workplace joint health and safety

committee in Canada found that when such committees were supported by the trade unions they

were more effective in lowering workplace injuries. They concluded that with effective union

involvement there is increased likelihood for workers to communicate risk and present their

views and concerns to the managers.

On the other hand, without the support from trade unions, workers fears and concerns about job

security are more pronounced. Without the presence of active trade union they fear having no

protection from managements decision on redundancy and such matters of employment

relations (Turnbull and Waas, 2000).

There is evidence that suggests that trade union involvement needs to be supported by

legislations as it is only then that its impacts are most effective. Walters (2006) in his discussion

on worker representation in UK concluded that such regulatory provisions offer employees the

basic floor of rights (2006, p. 104) to take support from the trade union and present their views

and concerns in a representative manner.


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However, unfortunately, the shipping industry in its fragmented state neither has any such

regulatory provision nor does it enjoy the benefits of effective trade union support. This study

showed that in both organisations trade union was considered as an external entity that could

not intervene in the internal matters. A crewing manager of one of the organisations, for

example, expressed the following which is the general appreciation of how the managers

perceived trade union organisations. He said:

There is a bit of presence of X Union [of a particular country] where they only discuss

the wage scale... I can't imagine that they have any other role to be honest... on ships,

we sometimes get the ITF Inspectors but that's about it.

The lack of an effective trade union was also evident from the seafarers perspective. In one

typical response, an officer from one of the case studies mentioned:

We dont know who they [the trade unions] are. Our union dues are deducted from our

salaries and we receive a magazine in return... I personally have never met anyone.

The void and its consequences is aptly summarised by Lillie (2006) who pointed out that the

changes to the shipping regulatory, ownership and labour nexus especially since the 1970s have

individualised the seafaring labour. Without any effective regulation on the collective

representation of seafarers and the lack of trade union support it has considerably weakened theirability to present their concerns to the managers.

6.3 Organisational Trust

Studies also show that a relationship of trust between managers and workers benefits workplace

operation including reporting of incidents. In a classical literature Beyond Contract: Work,

Power and Trust Relations , Fox (1974) showed that the level of workers contribution in their job


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is largely a reflection of the amount of trust their employers place on them. A high-level of trust

from employers which is typically characterised by managers showing long-term obligations

towards their workers including looking into their welfare, encourages the workers to develop a

personal commitment at work. Such relationship leads to the convergence of the organisations

and employees goals. On the other hand, a low-level of trust offered by employers encourages

workers to measure their contribution centred on the idea of economic exchange (see Blau,

1964). It exhibits divergent interest between workers and managers in which both parties fulfil

their short-term agendas. In such relationships, workers are typically given limited leeway and

asked to comply with the managers specific work requirements. Such low-trust relationships

between managers and workers generally result in both workers and employers limiting their

obligations to the contractual requirements.

In the case of the two organisations studied the findings consistently exhibited a low level of

trust between the managers and seafarers. For instance, it showed that the managers refused to

trust their seafaring colleagues on the incident and near-miss reports. They felt that the seafarers

were breaking rules as they were deliberately not complying with the companys policies and

procedures and even falsifying the incident reports. The seafarers response reflected this low-

trust environment. They believed that the managers were likely to cause them harm and use the

reports against their interest and were thus sceptical about the incident reporting system.

From this discussion it can be debated that the chances of seafarers to provide the level of

intimate detail that the managers expected in the incident reporting system could be greater if

there was a high-trust relationship between them. Arguably for the purpose of effective incident

reporting a high-trust work environment is of major relevance in the shipping sector particularly

because of the lack of other forms of support available to the seafarers. The explanations to the

lack of trust are partially located in the nature of seafarers employment relations. Slovic (1999,


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p. 697) in his work on factors affecting social construction of risk, pointed out that trust-building

is one of the most fragile elements of human relationship which requires a long period to develop

but can be destroyed in an instant. The senior officers work and leave arrangement in the two

organisations as such did not help them build a relationship of trust with their managers. In both

setups the officers intermittent work schedule along with the short-term contract in the case of

the first organisation was as such not conducive to trust building.

7. Conclusion

The study set out to identify the underlying factors affecting the practice of incident reporting in

the shipping context. It revealed a significant gap between its principles and the way it was

implemented in practice. The senior officers fear of losing job was the major contributing factor

which caused this gap. This finding however is not unique as the practices exhibited are common

with what is reported in studies from other industries. However, the discussion revealed that in

the shipping context incident reporting is particularly challenging because the organisational and

social supports which are considered as prerequisites for effective incident reporting were largely

absent. The combination of weak employment practices, the void in the regulatory steer for

representative participation from seafarers, the absence of trade union support severely limited

the scope for effective implementation of incident reporting system in the shipping industry.

Furthermore, it is also important to note that the managers prejudice against rule-breaking andpoorly trained seafarers made the problem insurmountable. Such attitude resulted in a deeply

embedded low-trust relationship between the managers and senior officers which further

exacerbated the concern. These multifaceted causal features thus arguably make effective

incident reporting in the shipping context an exceptionally challenging task.


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Admittedly the study suffers from certain weaknesses. The one that was most notable was the

case study methodology. While it followed its principles in terms of selection it can be argued

that the two organisations studied were the examples from the better end of the shipping

industry. Their regular business with the Oil Major companies and their above average safety

records are such indicators. Thus, it is possible that although the general concerns with reporting

of incidents were identified, there are additional challenges faced by other organisations which

are not captured in this study. However, arguably this methodology is also the strength of this

study as it helped locate deep theoretical understanding of the underlying issues of incident

reporting which outweighs the acknowledged limitations of the representativeness of the case

study approach.

Notes:

1. This paper is derived from a wider study which investigated the impact of the ISM Code in the

management of occupational health and safety in the shipping industry.

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Sociological factors influencing the practice of incident reporting: the case of the

shipping industry.

Link Table

The following table links between the reviewers comments and the revised paper:

No. Subject of the reviewers comments Comment number in the revisedsubmission

1 Tidy up s3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 17, 23, 24, 27,28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 34, 36, 37, 38, 39,41, 42, 43 and 44

2 Add some material to contextualisethe study

s13 and 14

3 Material can be drawn from pages 19-26

s14, 35 and 40

4 The big picture to be made moreexplicit

s14

5 Ethnographic approach s16

6 Details of data collection/ analysismethod

s19 and 22

7 Who is responsible for reporting? s18 and 19

8 More detail about the companies s 5 and 18

9 How were interviews split? s18 and 19

10 What do senior officers denote? s 2, 4 and 19

11 More detail in methods section s 22 and 45

12 Remove square bracket and quotereference

s 25 and 26

sociological factors

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