How New Demands Change an Organisation: A Case Study of SIRE 2.0

Abstract

As shipping being an international industry, part of managing vessels is navigating the complex relations between commercial and legislative demands while ensuring the safety of the vessel but also those working on board. In the tanker segment specifically, the Ship Inspection Report Programme (SIRE) is a non-statutory requirement that ship managers should comply to as it serves as the ticket to trade. The second version of this program is underway, and apart from the technical assessment, it will incorporate the psychosocial assessment of the seafarers. This thesis has explored how customer demands in the tanker segment affect the business performance of a ship management company and how the assessment of psychosocial conditions can be part of the ship management. This has been done through semi-structured interviews and thematic analysis of the responses from the industry’s shore personnel, onboard crew, INTERTANKO and OCIMF, the latter being the administrator and constructor of the program. The results showed that from a business perspective SIRE 2.0 is not expected to change anything since it is the only way through which vessels can be contracted. However, it is expected to raise the industry’s safety standard as the new inspection process aims to assess all vessels equally from a technical, hardware, and human perspective. In terms of assessing psychosocial conditions, results showed that the interviewees have been prioritizing people’s wellbeing all along and SIRE 2.0 requirements for ensuring that the psychosocial aspect of onboard employees are well taken care of, will not lead to procedural changes.