Decoupled implementation? Incident reporting in Chinese shipping. (February 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Xue, Conghua; Tang, Lijun; Walters, David
• Is Part Of: Economic and industrial democracy. Volume 42:Number 1(2021)
• Page Start: 179
• Page End: 197
• Publication Date: 2021-02
• Subjects: Chinese chemical shipping -- decoupling and interaction -- incident reporting -- International Safety Management Code -- occupational health and safety management; Management -- Employee participation -- Periodicals; 331.0112
• DOI: 10.1177/0143831X18758175
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0143-831X

Abstract

The occupational health and safety record is relatively poor in shipping and under-reporting of incidents is a concern in the industry. Much previous research investigated why workers did not report; this article shifts the focus to examine whether management genuinely welcomes safety-related reports in the context of Chinese chemical shipping. It reveals a functional decoupling between policy and practice related to incident reporting despite external monitoring. While companies had policies and procedures to encourage reporting, in practice the management associated seafarer competence with the number of problems reported and discouraged the crew from reporting problems which would be difficult or costly to solve. The findings suggest that to address the issue of under-reporting, it is more appropriate to deal with the problem of decoupling than to focus on changing crew's behaviour.