The Influence of Shipboard Safety Factors on Quality of Safety Supervision: Croatian Seafarer’s Attitudes

Abstract

According to the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA), 70% of accidents on board were caused by human error, and almost one-fifth of these accidents have been related to inadequate supervision. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate which of the safety factors can influence the quality of safety supervision. For this purpose, a questionnaire with 24 statements was distributed to professional seafarers. Two exploratory factor analyses were conducted to identify the underlying factor structure. The first analysis yielded one factor, quality of safety supervision, and the second analysis yielded four factors, namely: safety communication, safety training, safety compliance, and safety rules and procedures. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis was applied to examine the influence of seafarers’ demographic characteristics and the four identified factors on the quality of safety supervision. The results revealed the following two statistically significant predictors of safety supervision quality: safety communication and safety training. The theoretical and practical implications of the results in terms of improving the quality of safety supervision in the maritime industry were discussed and compared with results in other industries.