Jon Ivar Håvold

National cultures and safety orientation: A study of seafarers working for Norwegian shipping companies

Abstract Up to now, little work has been conducted on safety in relation to national culture. This paper examines the association between national culture and the safety orientation of seafarers on Norwegian-owned vessels. Safety orientation is the result of cultural, organizational, and contextual factors that create attitudes and behaviours that in turn influence safety. In this study a safety culture/orientation questionnaire was designed and used to determine risk and safety characteristics. Survey data was collected from 2,558 seafarers from 27 countries. The sample used consisted of seafarers from the 10 countries for which there were more than 10 respondents. Five national (cultural) characteristics were calculated using Hofstedes Value Survey Model 94. Multivariate analysis of variance revealed that (a) the number of nationalities represented on a vessel was related to their attitude towards safety issues, such that two-nation vessels obtain relatively negative scores regarding these issues, and (b) national culture was related to safety culture, such that high power distance, high uncertainty avoidance, and high individualism were positive for safety. The implications of these findings for practice and future research are discussed.

Safety culture and safety management aboard tankers

Abstract The present paper focuses on safety related attitudes/culture and management aboard Norwegian-owned tankers. The data set used in this paper is part of a larger survey study of attitudes towards safety and risk at sea. During the summer and autumn of 2002, a questionnaire was distributed in a self-administered format to seafarers aboard 63 tankers owned by eight shipping companies. A total of 1158 questionnaires were collected from the tanker segment (estimated response rate 70%). The data collected from the tankers interrogated using factor analysis, and four factors were identified. Several hypotheses were tested using a General Linear Model (GLM) and post hoc tests. The results showed significant differences between ship owners, sailors’ occupations, sailors’ countries of origin and sailors’ ages, between flags/registration and between age of vessels, but not between different types of tankers.

Occupational health and safety and the balanced scorecard

Since its introduction in 1992, the balanced scorecard (BSC) has rapidly gained in importance throughout the world. Harvard Business Review even selected it as one of the most important management tools of the past 75 years. This paper takes the performance indicators used in an offshore health‐and‐safety benchmarking study carried out by Aberdeen University on 13 offshore installations operating on the UK Continental Shelf and relates them to the BSC framework. The results from the benchmarking study are discussed from the perspective of suggesting which indicators should populate each perspective of the BSC: financial, customer, internal business and learning and growth. In addition the paper includes the results of interviews conducted with senior managers in the UK and Norwegian oil and gas sector, about use of the BSC in general and with regard to health and safety performance indicators in particular. Reasons for including occupational health and safety in the BSC and reports/papers covering occupational health and safety indicators and the BSC are discussed.

Measuring Occupational Safety: From Safety Culture to Safety Orientation?

Abstract This paper reviews measures of safety climate and safety culture and uses them as a foundation for a new and more practical construct named ‘safety orientation’. Factors and items from the scales are discussed with respect to factor name and importance, reliability and validity. The analysis suggests that researchers have found it difficult to move from exploratory stages to confirmation and causal stages that would allow agreement on industry standards that could be used as benchmarks. Safety orientation is proposed as an operational construct of safety culture and as a first step towards a more practical instrument for benchmarking safety, so that improvement strategies can be implemented.

Safety Culture aboard Tankers

The present paper focuses on safety culture aboard Norwegian-owned tankers. During the summer and autumn of 2002, a questionnaire was distributed in a self-administered format to 1159 seafarers aboard 58 tankers owned by seven shipping companies.