Säkerhetsstyrningens kulturella logik : ett organisatoriskt perspektiv på sjösäkerhet

Sammanfattning: Multinational cross-cultural manning of merchant ships is not a new element in shipping. Today, however, the phenomenon, is common and takes place under other economic auspices than before. The situation has led to various solutions. Two of them are to put a ship under foreign flag with special ship management or to keep the national flag and man the ship partly with foreign nationals employed under special agreements. This study aims at finding the cultural shipboard dimensions of multinational crews within a framework of organisational psychology. The research method was built upon a base of literature studies. The task was to perform case studies of three ships and three shipping companies representing the above mentioned categories. An element of the study was to examine how the ISM code complied with the organisational culture. The research method implied the researcher’s presence onboard during a voyage. During the voyages interviews with the crew members were carried out. Sequences of work were documented by field observations and walking around observations. Observant participating in meetings and crewmembers’ professional- and social conversation took place. Relevant correspondence and documentation were also analysed. Daily meetings with the ship management were performed to consolidate the observations made. The companies’ head offices were visited in order to obtain a holistic view of the interaction between shipboard management and central management functions ashore and to follow up findings from the study. The analytical work was composed of an iterative process of alternating collecting of data writing down field notes and listening to interviews. The final synthesis was the integration of the data in an explanatory framework. The conceptual or explanatory framework reflects the cultural psychological view that culture is composed of artifacts, espoused values and basic assumptions, which together are governing the actions of the involved parties. The analysis of the cases has also included elements of the cultural historical activity theory as well as the cultural web model. Special attention has been given to the onboard conditions of the language to serve as the tool for distribution of knowledge. The study also reflects over the contrast between the traditional perspective on human error and that of a sociocultural view. Furthermore is discussed the relations between viewing the safety management as a ”system” or as an expression of ”culture”. In addition, the results from the study are in brief the following. Safety manuals have a discourse which presents the safety management systems as a break down of a complex whole. That means that the real world is not reflected in a holistic view which leads to a critical reduction of facts. A remedy is to apply culture, especially safety culture, as an interlinking component. Another result is that shipboard work as a ”context” presents a mediating artifact to create co-operation and understanding between individuals when different cultures come together. Human error appears to be explainable in terms of cultural dimensions. An important aspect of cultural management appears to be the avoiding of feelings of ”we and them”, originating from socio-economic conditions. Misunderstandings across cultures occur when people make different attributions to explain specific behaviour. Finally a model for cultural management is presented using the observations and results from the study.