Shipboard Conflict, Maritime Safety and Human Factors: Toward A Socio-Technical Theory of Conflict in Multicultural and Digital Shipping

Abstract

Contemporary shipping operates through the interaction of sophisticated technologies, multinational crews, hierarchical authority and employment relations within safety-critical environments. Maritime safety research has established the importance of fatigue, workload, communication, situational awareness, human error, organisational conditions and cultural diversity. Recent studies have also begun to model conflict alongside language and communication factors in maritime risk. The unresolved theoretical question is therefore not whether conflict matters, but whether persistent and unresolved safety-relevant shipboard conflict constitutes a distinct relational mechanism with explanatory value beyond established human-factor constructs. This conceptual paper develops Conflict-Induced Maritime Risk Theory (CIMRT) to address that question. CIMRT proposes that organisational, employment-relational, cultural and technological conditions can influence the emergence and persistence of unresolved conflict, which may subsequently affect human-factor coordination and safety-related behaviour. Socio-Technical Systems Theory provides the principal theoretical foundation, complemented by Social Identity Theory, Crew Resource Management, Safety Culture, Human Factors Analysis and Classification System, and Resilience Engineering. The paper does not claim empirical validation. Instead, it specifies a staged research programme involving construct development, expert assessment, cognitive interviewing, factor validation, structural modelling, qualitative inquiry and comparative model testing. Particular emphasis is placed on distinguishing conflict from frustration, communication quality, workload, fatigue, organisational injustice and psychological unsafety. CIMRT is consequently advanced as a falsifiable theoretical proposition. Its contribution will depend on whether unresolved safety-relevant conflict can demonstrate conceptual distinctiveness, plausible temporal ordering and meaningful incremental explanatory value beyond established maritime safety explanations.