Teamwork and Safety in the Maritime Industry: A SWOT Approach

Abstract The past few decades the use of teams has increased, also in complex sociotechnical systems such as the maritime industry. Safety issues involve a wide range of elements, including human factors, and pose a number of challenges to organisations in the shipping industry. The primary aim of this study was to examine the Big Five of teamwork model and its ability to capture teamwork aspects of all kinds of teams, independent of team type, organisational level and domain. The collection of data was done through performing semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions structured in accordance with a SWOT framework. The study was carried out in an organisational network in the maritime domain. The sample consisting of 39 participants representing three different teams and organisational levels were all male. The Core team consisted of employees of ship management companies, while the Top officers team and the Ratings team represented the crew on board vessels. The Big Five model captured 60% of all the SWOT statements generated through the interviews and accounted for a significantly higher number of statements than the residual, confirming the model’s ability to capture teamwork. Performing a content analysis of the statements not accounted for by the Big Five, amounting to 40% of the SWOT statements, revealed that these statements were relevant for teamwork, constituting a meaningful residual. The anticipation that the teams put different emphasis upon the various components of the Big Five model, and that the profile would differ depending upon organisational level, was confirme