At the time when recruiting in the maritime industry was waning in the traditional maritime countries, there were several calls about “where the next batch of seafarers was going to come from”. Some of us were of the view that the next batch of seafarers was going to come from South of the Suez, was going to be brown-skinned, and would have wooly and kinky hair.

As time went on, a distinct pattern emerged in the industry’s traditional workforce demographics. This created some challenges in the industry that have, up till now, not been fully addressed. Some years back, I wrote an article on this issue that received wide attention, mainly because it was the first of such articles written on the issue by a serving shipboard officer who has had first-hand experience working in that new environment. One such significant review was in the Apostolatus Maris of the Catholic News Service, April 17, 2002. The full article which was published in January 2002 in the “Seaways”, the official journal of the Nautical Institute is posted here with special permission from the Nautical Institute

Managing Cultural Diversity
Captain William Amanhyia, MSc, MNI
Shipmaster, Pacific International Lines, Singapore

Currently slightly, more. than 50 percent of the world fleet is mixed manned, mainly with crew originating from different countries in the developing world. This shift in the maritime industry’s traditional labor market demographics has resulted in the creation, of a new, diverse maritime workforce that has now become largely more multi-cultural than ever before. This, perhaps, represents one of the most significant changes facing the maritime industry today.

As a result of the increase in racial heterogeneity on ships, working in a cross-cultural environment has become a way of life for most seafarers. They need, therefore, to be made aware of the challenges and opportunities they are likely to face in such an environment. With more than half of the world fleet now mixed manned, managing cultural diversity can no longer be thought of as an organizational issue alone but also an industrial responsibility.  Cross-cultural issues if they are not properly managed. provoke negative perceptions and reactions, and the principle underlying the management of diversity is to ensure that differences are acknowledged, valued and appreciated.

Two recent incidents I was involved in on mixed manned ships highlight some of the cross-cultural issues that require appreciation of cultural differences in order for them to be dealt with effectively. The first involved my mate, who wanted to know what should be done to an officer found having a beer with the bosun in the officer’s cabin after working hours.

This incident, depending on one’s cultural background, might seem trivial or could have serious consequences on what some culture might interpret as discipline. The second involved a third officer who. during maneuvering out of port through heavy traffic failed to draw the master’s attention when the vessel strayed off the intended track and closed in uncomfortably to an island.  He could not give any reasonable explanation why he failed to inform the master. who had the con at that time. This is also a familiar type of incident involving difficulty in getting, information feedback from some nationalities when their junior officers fear to report faults.

Another reason for addressing cultural diversity is that the maritime industry has now focused on the human aspects of operations as a means through which declining performance standards in the industry can be improved. One issue under this is shipboard habitability standards which have been found to impact on the crews’ sense of wellbeing. Shipping organizations are required to create a conducive environment that can nurture a more productive working relationship among a crew having diverse, and often different core identities, an environment in which shipboard work is less likely to be hindered by obstacles such as conflict and misunderstanding caused by human differences. Organizations’ success however, in developing this ideal environment in which cultural awareness and valuing of differences is a hallmark, can only be an outgrowth of the industry’s total endeavor. and serious commitment to approach cultural diversity in a positive way. 

Potential benefits

There are several areas in the industry where cultural diversity’s potential if properly harnessed, can prove beneficial. For example, apart from the obvious potential that a culturally diverse workforce with different perspectives can contribute to the organization’s creativity the potential exists to use cultural diversity to improve some aspects of habitability standards on board. One well documented problem faced by the industry is the effect of social isolation on crew as a result of fast vessel turnaround. Its negative impact on seafarers’ lives is now of major concern in the industry. Properly harnessed, I believe the rich cultural background of a mixed crew can provide the answer to this.

The company I work for operates mixed manned ships. Six nationalities on a ship with a 23-man crew is the norm. My present ship has nine nationalities and with an average port stay of eight hours, a run ashore is a luxury we barely can afford. However the rich cultural mix on board probably provides a more relaxing environment than a run ashore could do. By encouraging social mixing, there is always something new to learn, “something to keep one’s mind occupied’. Thanks to my Polish chief engineer for example, I now know a bit more about Polish history and why Lech Walesa was a good electrician but a ‘lousy president’ (his own words), My second engineer, from the former Yugoslavia, is learning how to eat curry, having the usual problems with foreign food, but thoroughly enjoyiug himself with what he terms ‘all the exotic eastern cuisine’. As I am preparing this article, my two Indian cadets are preparing for the coming Indian festival of colors; and when “one visits the crew mess in the evenings, one is sure to come across some fantastic national costumes, from lhe Indonesians in their fez hats and colorful batiks, probably with a prayer mat under their arms, to the Burmese in their loincloths and the Sikhs in their colorfu} turbans, all relaxing and chatting after a hard day’s work

It is also a fact that some nationalities when serving on mixed manned ships are able to spend longer periods at sea without any apparent emotional problems. This might be a useful facet of mixed crewing when considering ways and means to reduce number of crew changes. With crew costs averaging about 40 per cent of operating costs, reducing the number of crew changes through crew spending a longer period on the ship might bring about substantial cost savings ‘This Is an area that might be worth investigating.

An enormous amount of technological ingenuity has been deployed in the industry to make cost savings, such as shorter turnaround and smaller crews, possible. Most have impacted negatively on the life of seafarers in social terms. I believe that even if a small part of such ingenuity could also be deployrd to research into the potential inherent in cultural diversity, it might enable the industry to capitalize on the power of diversity. Unfortunately, several factors have combined and reinforced each other to prevent such attempts.

Barriers to change

‘The increase in international trans-border labor mobility has taken place only within the past few decades. Cultural diversity issues are therefore relatively new in industries and even in the USA, which probably has the largest multi-cultural workforce ashore, it is only in the last few decades that cultural diversity has become a management issue. It is, therefore, not surprising that the critical mass needed to trigger off the incentive to address a new issue such as cultural diversity has not yet been attained.

In addition, many shipping organizations in the traditional maritime countries have only recently been significantly affected by the increase in racial heterogeneity on ships ‘The pattern that emerged during the demographic changes in the industry’s workforce has caused mixed manning to become synonymous with third world crewing. Since third world crewing is perceived in the traditional maritime countries as cheap competition from the developing world, and the industry’s policies and practices have historically been influenced and dictated by these same traditional maritime nations, there hasn’t been much incentive to address issues connected with mixed manning

Reinforcing this factor is the fact that. because people’s inadequate knowledge of human differences causes them to regard ‘otherness’ or difference as deficient and substandard, the norms inherent in the new workforce have been perceived as obstacles rather than us options Mixed manning, bas therefore taken on a symbolic meaning and now comes pre-loaded with peoples’ individual perceptions and biases. The first step, therefore, will be to understand the concept of culture and its influence on racioethnicity, as the interaction of the two is what leads to cultural diversity in workplaces.

Influence of culture

Culture is a code through which patterns of conduct are communicated and deciphered through the use of words, gestures and symbols. It is acquired early in life from the society in which we are brought up. Professor Geert Hofstede, the pioneer ia the analyzing the relationships between organizational actions and cultural beliefs, describes it as ‘the software of the mind’ because much like a computer’s operating system, culture provides us with an essential code by which we make sense of the world. Anthropologists have identified over 70 variables, or cultural universals, elements found in all cultures and through which characteristics distinct to a particular culture are manifested. Some of those elements are time, orientation, power differential and modes of communication. The anthropologist E.J. Kolde, who studied these cultural variables, produced a table of the elements and how they vary across cultures. Part of the table is shown below.

Element	Culture A	Culture B
Verbal communication	Explicative	Implicative
Non verbal communication	Passive	Active
Modes of thinking	Pragmatic	Universalistic
Personal orientation	Individualistic	Collectivistic
Time orientation	Intense	Casual
Leadership style	Time-Oriented	People-oriented
Power distance	Short	Distant

People’s racial and ethnic background will therefore instill in them values and these which will be different for each race or culture determine an individual’s attitude to work and authority and will also influence work behavior.

Relationship Issues

Most of the issues concerned with cross-cultural relationships have to do with factors such as power relationships, norms of participation and decision-making as well as performance appraisal. Some of the earliest research on the influence of race, and ethnicity on work behavior in the maritime industry was carried out by Professor David Moresby. Moresby, of the Institute of Marine Studies, Plymouth University, applied the works  environmental preferential schedule (WEPS} to the maritime industry and came up with a matrix of behavior exhibited by personnel from some of the maritime industry’s  major labor-producing countries

Moresby used the power differential index (PDI) and the rule orientation index (ROI) both developed by Hofstede as indices in bis matrix. The PDI is a measure of the hierarchical distance that exists , between managers and their subordinates. Managers from high PDI cultures exercise a great deal of power and are apt to give directives rather than seek broad participation in decision-making. Subordinates are required to show due deference to their bosses and are less inclined to speak out. Managers from low PDI cultures on the other hand are more inclined to speak out and to participate in decision making. The other index, ROI, is a measure of the tendency to stick to rules. A high ROI indicates a person abides by the rules even in circumstances when it is against the company’s interest to do so, A low ROI indicates that the person concerned generally uses the rules as guidelines. A representative sample of the matrix is reproduced opposite :
Although Moresby’s work involved only two possible cultural variables, it indicates that culture can no longer be thought of as some ill defined concept but that its variable dimensions across cultures also

	HIGH PDI	LOW PDI
HIGH ROI	India, Singapore, Malaysia France, Greece, S. American	West Germany
LOW ROI	Philippines, West Africa, Japan East Africa	USA,  NW Europe, Canada Scandinavia

The mate’s question

For example the mate’s question and the junior officer’s reluctance to take part in decision making, referred to at the start of this article, have to do with the power differential index. For someone who comes from a high PDI culture, where managers are expected to maintain a great hierarchical distance from subordinates, an officer does not sit down to have a drink with a rating’ Such a mate will perceive what the officer and bosun did as wrong The officer and bosun from a low PDI culture, on the other hand, may see nothing wrong with this. Further problems may arise when a performance appraisal has to be done for an officer after an incident like this.

In one case, a master was badly assaulted by an otherwise docile Burmese crew because he reported to his company that his Burmese mate was not assertive enough to maintain discipline on board The mate was also a Burmese and mingled freely with bis countrymen. The mate was subsequently dismissed from the vessel and the rest of the crew reacted wildly The master had misunderstood the collectivistic culture of the Burmese and their tendency to form support groups on mixed manned ships. The Burmese crew. in turn, also misunderstood the master’s culture which demands a hierarchical distance to be maintained between officers and ratings as racial discrimination. This unfortunately is a common occurrence on mixed manned ships. Performance appraisal is a very important function of senior management on ships. It is needed to identify crews’ training needs and career mobility If not done fairly, not only is it harmful to the organization’s human resource management plan but it is also bad for morale on the ship. Because much of the appraisal methods used on ships are subjective and therefore highly susceptible to culture biased errors recognition of this avoids the creation of diversity tensions and enable senior officers to recognize that what they see is highly colored from their cultural perspective. Knowing this enables them to approach appraisal with an unbiased mind. Unfortunately, the industry’s current major labor-producing countries are places where cultural influence is very strong. India, producing most of the officers on nixed manned ships as a result of their social caste system, is characterized by a high PDI and ROI culture. The Philippines, producing most of the ratings has n relatively lower PDI and ROI rating, and has a collectivistic and’ easy going culture. What happens when officers from these two countries serve on the same ship and need to do performance appraisal of each other? Obviously unless the cultural differences are understood and appreciated, any such assessment will be severely flawed and yet it is currently the norm in the industry. The some happens when you have Chinese, Burmese or Africans serving together on the same ship. Without cultural differences being appreciated problems of such nature are bound to arise.

Cultural antagonisms 

Another important issue is the fact that some nationalities just do not get along well together on ships. Although this is well known in the maritime industry, racial sensitivity has prevented this from being addressed or researched. however if mixed manning is to serve the industry as well as it should, then this issue will need to be openly addressed. Currently it appears that Indonesian and Filipino crew do not mix well at all. The same is true with Indian officers and Chinese crew, and to a certain extent, a covert uneasiness bordering on antipathy, that has traditionally existed between Indians and Africans. When nationalities from these countries serve together o. ships, a lot of racial diversity tension is created. This cultural antagonism needs to be properly researched into and addressed, since some of these countries currently supply the bulk of the industry’s labor. When crew are made aware that such issues do exist, they get to accept that this does not in anyway reflect on competency of the nationals involved but are rather the result of cultural differences

The third mate’s case also illustrates a very serious effect of cultural influence on critical shipboard operations. The third mate from a high PDI culture was just not used to speaking out. In his culture, junior officers may feel they are not in a position to voice out their doubts, and may well. become a weak link in a chajn that may eventually lead to an accident if not recognised in time and dealt with appropriately. This has been observed to be a common problem nowadays on mixed manned ships, and instructors from bridge team resource management courses haye also made similar observations. Other variables also may inpact negatively on critical shipboard operations, and need to be properly researched into.

Conclusion

While change is an inevitable part of organizational life, it is those organizations that are able to capitalise on this that survive. Charles Darwin once said, ‘it is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but. the one most responsive to change.’ The, maritime industry is now faced with a multicultural workforce which require organizations to provide an environment that enables the crew to operate comfortably within it. In order to do that, awareness of national characteristics needs to improve overall in the industry, This requires providing diversity training for scafarers so they can do away with the subtle assumptions that differences equate to deficiencies, an assumption that has been the root cause of much racial tension on mixed manned ships.

Cultural diversity being a rclatively new field, there is not much information available on tbe subject, especially that pertaining to the maritime industry, to assist senior officers on mixcd manned ships. The maritime industry is also perhaps the industry with the most culturally diverse workforce right now. Extensive research is therefore needed in this area. In this respect, the Nautical Institute with its diverse membership is best placed to take the initiative, and I believe this is an area that needs to be given priority.

References

1. Hofstede, Geert. (1991) Cultures and Organizations. Software of the Mind, McGraw
2. Kolde, E,J. Environment of International Business, Boston: Kent Publishing
3. Moresby. David. ‘Cross – cultural issues in the manning of ships’, Bimco  Bulletin ,2/9