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Decoupled implementation? Incident reporting in Chinese shipping

Author

Listed:
  • Conghua Xue

    (Department of Humanities and Arts, Nantong Shipping College, China)

  • Lijun Tang

    (School of Business, Plymouth University, UK)

  • David Walters

    (Work Environment Research Centre, Cardiff University, UK)

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Conghua Xue & Lijun Tang & David Walters, 2021. "Decoupled implementation? Incident reporting in Chinese shipping," Economic and Industrial Democracy, Department of Economic History, Uppsala University, Sweden, vol. 42(1), pages 179-197, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:ecoind:v:42:y:2021:i:1:p:179-197
    DOI: 10.1177/0143831X18758175
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