ABSTRACT
Optimal communication and teamwork are essential for onboard safety, as breakdowns in communication or teamwork could cause accidents. This chapter provides some important concepts and models related to communication and teamwork. Applications of the concepts and models are illustrated using different examples, primarily from the maritime domain. Communication is usually more inefficient, and the risks for misunderstandings are higher, when multimodal communication is impossible or difficult, for example, when communicating over a radio or mobile phone. Human communication is heavily context dependent. A major part of the meaning and understanding constructed from communication exchanges is derived from the shared knowledge and mutual context of the actors involved in the communication. E. Metze and J. Nystrup model is designed for the analyses of communication in a professional context, unlike transactional analysis, developed by the psychiatrist Eric Berne, which is designed for persons in psychotherapy.
