Diversity and Social Trust

ABSTRACT

The labor milieu of merchant seamen is an environment which may be treated as a laboratory to analyze the processes ongoing in contemporary organizations. In this article authors concentrate on two main problems concerning interpersonal relations in a ship in the context of trust: the intercultural communication and the issue of diversity based on other qualities. Today's management practices aimed at economization of work at sea result in the fact that many of deep-sea vessels' crews are multinational teams. Long-term isolation of vessels' crews means good conditions for research on the influence of multiculturalism on interpersonal relations as well as for the level and sort of trust between seamen. The authors make attempt to prove that there is no simple and positive relation between the lack of cultural differences (understanding of others) and the level of trust. On the basis of their qualitative and quantitative research on people working at sea the authors also try to specify the tolerance of seamen toward the others. The diversity dimensions such as age, gender, religion/denomination and sexual orientations are used to describe multiculturalism in categories of acceptance and rejection. In the research presented in the article the authors have used the auditorium questionnaire (n = 224) and 20 in-depth individual interviews with seamen.

Key words:

• merchant seamen
• trust
• Polish maritime industry
• multicultural labour milieu

Acknowledgments

Authors would like to thank captain Artur Chorzelewski, the Director of Training Centre For Marine Officers, Maritime University of Szczecin and Adrian Druchniak, the Director of Marine Rescue Training Centre in Szczecin for great help with gaining access to respondents.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Arkadiusz Kolodziej

Arkadiusz Kołodziej Ph.D., is a lecturer at the Institute of Sociology, Szczecin University. He has a few years' experience in Human Resources Management (Polish Post Office). His scientific interests comprise: social forecasts, human resource management, sociological methodology, and maritime sociology. He is the member of Polish Sociological Association.

Agnieszka Kolodziej-Durnas

Agnieszka Kołodziej-Durnaś habilitated Ph.D., is a lecturer at the Institute of Sociology, Szczecin University. Her scientific interests comprise: organizational sociology, organizational culture, maritime sociology. She is the member of Polish Sociological Association. She gave lectures abroad in Lithuania, Germany, and the Czech Republic. She introduced and cochaired the session of Maritime Sociology at the two conferences of European Sociological Association in Lisbon (2009) and Geneva (2011).