Defense of doctoral dissertation 17th of June 2016: maritime personnel’s conceptions of safety management

MSc Jouni Lappalainen defends his doctoral thesis in Geography entitled Finnish maritime personnel’s conceptions on safety management and safety culture, on 17th of June at the University of Turku, Tauno Nurmela lecture hall at noon.

The purpose of this thesis was to explore Finnish maritime personnel’s conceptions of safety  management  and  its  relationship  with  the  concept  of  safety  culture. In  addition,
the aim was to evaluate the impact of the ISM Code (International Safety Management Code)  on  the prevailing safety culture in the Finnish  shipping  business.

A  total  of  94 interviewees  and  seven  Finnish  shipping  companies  were  involved  in  this  study. In general, maritime personnel had a positive attitude towards safety management systems, but also criticism was found among the interviewees, especially on the way that the ISM code has been applied in practise. There is also need to improve the co-operation between maritime actors, authorities, and shippinig companies both nationally and internationally.

The opponent is Professor Jens-Uwe Schröder-Hinrichs (World Maritime University, Malmö, Sweden) and the Custos Professor Jussi S. Jauhiainen (University of Turku.

Thesis  is available in electronic form as well.