ISM Code implementation: an investigation of safety issues in the shipping industry

Acknowledging that shipping safety continues to be a major topic of interest in the maritime community, the present study attempts to identify the critical factors of International Safety Management (ISM) Code implementation, to identify the dimensions that describe whether the ISM Code has fulfilled its intended purpose as well as to assess their interrelationships. Moreover, the present study aims to explore whether the fulfillment of the Code’s intended purpose is associated with accident reduction. Evidence was drawn from a sample of 63 masters and chief officers who have hands-on onboard experience on ISM Code implementation and data were analyzed through the use of Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), correlation analysis, and binomial logistic regression. Findings indicate that the critical factors of ISM Code implementation can be categorized in the crew-related and the company-related dimensions. Also, the fulfillment of the intended purpose of the ISM Code consists of the factors of safety management system efficiency and increased safety, which were also found to be significantly associated with the crew-related dimension of ISM Code implementation. Finally, results showed that both safety management system efficiency and increased safety increase the probability of accident reduction at the highest level.