Team leadership and professional culture: A research on ship masters

Human factor in marine accidents has been a common research topic in maritime studies. In this study, leadership of the ship masters, who lead all activities onboard maritime ships on operational and managerial levels, carry all legal responsibility and authority for benefits of the crew, protection and sustainment of the cargo, the ship and all its commodity, is being researched from professional culture aspect. In this study, a triangulation was applied using in-depth interviews, a focus group discussion, observations and a survey as qualitative and quantitative methods. The power distance was found to be the prominent core cultural dimension in professional culture of ship masters. The findings show that the ship management has a very hierarchical structure. The study shows that besides having some characteristics of charismatic, team oriented and human oriented leadership styles, the ship masters carry characteristics of autocratic and paternalistic leadership styles as well as. This study contributes to the literature as it deals with concept of professional culture, profession of ship master and team leadership on professional culture aspect.