Abstract
Conflicts, while being unavoidable in an unorthodox workplace such as the ship, might produce serious consequences. Therefore this study aims at to identifying and classifying the reasons and the consequences of conflict related incidents on board that have made the international news. For this aim twenty-two news articles on conflict related incidents have been gathered from eight maritime industry specific online news outlets and a content analysis has been carried out to illustrate the role of conflict in these news-worthy incidents. The results show that conflict can be observed in three categories: (1) Conflict between the crew members and the shipowner/ship management companies; (2) conflict between superiors and subordinates; and (3) conflict among crew members. In the first category, “unpaid wages” and “inadequate working conditions”, in the second category, “abuse of power and authority” and “intolerance to criticism”, and in the last category “fight among crew members” due to various reasons, such as ethnical differences and exclusion are found to be prevailing reasons for conflict situations that may result in dire consequences. Even though these incidents are irreversible, the content analysis carried out in this study highlights several policy implications that can be implemented to alleviate the intensity of conflict situation on board.
Highlights
The ship, which is the seafarer’s workplace, is undeniably different than a conventional office setting and the shift of a seafarer is disparate to those of white-collar employees
The content analysis of the online news articles provided a categorisation that consists of three categories of conflict
As the subjects of the conflict situations on board, seafarers must have a grasp on conflict management skills
Summary
The ship, which is the seafarer’s workplace, is undeniably different than a conventional office setting and the shift of a seafarer is disparate to those of white-collar employees. The issue of conflict, its reasons, consequences, and management in workplaces have long been topics that scholars of various disciplines have focused on. As conflict in the workplace has visible consequences on people, their behaviour and, as a result, the performance of their organisations (Suliman and Abdulla, 2005), this should not come as a surprise. There are various ways that workplace conflict can be manifested, ranging from minor disagreements to severe physical altercations and might be caused by reasons including, but not limited to insults, injustice, discrimination of any kind, unfairness, obstruction of goals, incompetence, bullying, and verbal or physical aggression (Scheiman and Reid, 2008). Considering the fact that almost every adult spends a significant portion of their time at their place of work (Lipsky et al, 2016), understanding the nature of workplace conflict is the first step towards developing a countermeasure
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