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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