Situation awareness as a determinant for unsafe actions and subjective risk assessment on offshore attendant vessels

Abstract Situation awareness (SA) is often argued to be a “sharp end” indicator of workplace safety, in the sense that inaccurate SA may be the proximal cause for operator error. However, traditional field or lab experiment measures of SA are difficult to combine with large-scale data collections to examine organizational influences on SA and the safety outcomes of SA. In the current study, offshore attendant vessel crew’s SA was measured with a self-report scale. Authentic leadership was modelled as a predictor, while self-report of committing unsafe actions at work and subjective risk assessment were modelled as outcome measures. Structural equation modelling showed the captain's leadership style to account for variation in SA and some variation in unsafe actions. Further, SA accounted for variation in unsafe actions and in subjective risk assessment. The study supports the assumption that SA has a crucial role in maritime safety.