Leading for safety: A weighted safety leadership model in shipping

Abstract

Recent years have witnessed a growing concern for safety and highlighted the importance of leadership in safety practice within high-risk organizations. By following up and integrating the state-of-art research trends, this study aims at (1) bridging a gap in safety leadership research – i.e., the lack of a holistic understanding of safety leadership contribution at all managerial levels within high-risk organizations; (2) developing and validating a weighted safety leadership model in the context of shipping which incorporates key safety leadership behaviors that may enable researchers and practitioners to better understand and exercise safety leadership in shipping organizations. To systematically fulfill the research aims, this study integrates both numerical and descriptive data by sequentially applying three interdependent research techniques – namely inductive analysis of literature, modified Delphi method and Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). The study results in a holistic weighted model with concrete safety leadership behaviors at each managerial level, which contributes to the building of theoretical foundations in the domain of safety leadership research and serves as practical standards for accelerating safety leadership development in shipping organizations.