Safety Climate Assessment in Shipping (SAFE CLASS); Loss prevention through Psychological Capital assessment

Human error is the main cause for the majority of maritime accidents. One may think that with all the technological innovations from which modern shipping has greatly benefited, the number of accidents that occur would have been significantly reduced. How ever, this is not the case. Reliable and well-functioning technical systems are important, but often not sufficient to avoid accidents. A better understanding of how leadership, organizational,and human processes influence HSE outcomes emerge as an import priority for the next generation of maritime training and Development initiatives. The term positive organizational behavior (POB) is intended to identify a newly emerging focus on a positive approach to developing and managing human resources at work. The new composite construct of PsyCap has been defined as an individual's positive psychological state of development and is characterized by: (1) having confidence (self efficacy)to take on and put in the necessary effort to succeed at challenging tasks; (2) making a positive attribution (optimism) about succeeding now and in the future; (3) persevering toward goals and, when necessary, redirecting paths to goals (hope) in order to succeed; and (4) when beset by problems and adversity, sustaining and bouncing back and even beyond (resiliency)to attain success. The first study from this PhD Project demonstrated that PsyCap was significantly correlated with perception of safety climate in Air Traffic Controllers. In a second two-part study this finding was replicated in a sample of maritime workers. Furthermore PsyCap had an indirect (mediating) relationship with perceptions of safety climate through job satisfaction. This finding is followed up in the third and final study from the PhD project where we investigate psychological capital (PsyCap) as a protective factor in the relationship between risk perception and sleepiness. The hypothesis that strong PsyCap lessens the relationship between risk perception and sleepiness was tested in a cross-sectional sample of 402 maritime workers. The findings showed that PsyCap offers most protective benefits when workers perceive levels of risk as low, while the benefits of PsyCap diminish as levels of risk increase.

Human error is the main cause for the majority of maritime accidents. One may think that with all the technological innovations from which modern shipping has greatly benefited, the number of accidents that occur would have been significantly reduced. How ever, this is not the case. Reliable and well-functioning technical systems are important, but often not sufficient to avoid accidents. A better understanding of how leadership, organizational, and human processes influence HSE outcomes emerge as an impor tant priority for the next generation of maritime training and development initiatives. The term positive organizational behavior (POB) is intended to identify a newly emerging focus on a positive approach to developing and managing human resources at wor k. The new composite construct of PsyCap has been defined as an individual?s positive psychological state of development and is characterized by: (1) having confidence (self efficacy) to take on and put in the necessary effort to succeed at challenging ta sks; (2) making a positive attribution (optimism) about succeeding now and in the future; (3) persevering toward goals and, when necessary, redirecting paths to goals (hope) in order to succeed; and (4) when beset by problems and adversity, sustaining and bouncing back and even beyond (resiliency) to attain success. The proposed empirical relationship that will be tested is that maritime crew members? positive PsyCap, through positive emotions, relates to their attitudes, behaviors and perceptions regardi ng safety climate that in the end will facilitate HSE- outcomes. In other words, positive crew members, defined here as sailors with positive psychological capital and positive emotions, may exhibit stronger safety attitudes, more positive safety climates and safety behaviors. The industrial application of this project will be to validate PsyCap as a potential new evidence-based indicator of safety critical behavior that could be indexed in future maritime audits.