ABSTRACT
Inquiries into accidents such as Prestige, Herald of Free Enterprise, Sleipner, Scandinavian Star Estonia, Bow Mariner and Hoegh Osaka ask questions about management systems and organizational culture, highlighting the importance of organizational and human factors as antecedents to accidents. The main purpose of this chapter is to provide students, managers and human factors practitioners with background on what culture can be and what safety culture research within shipping can teach us. This chapter reviews and discusses the culture construct and how cultural aspects can influence maritime safety.
