Favouritism in Ship Management: A Scale Development and Validation

The most important determinant of quality and safety in ship management is human resources. Personnel turnover rate, job satisfaction level of seafarers, organizational commitment, high level and individual well-being of the employees, have an important role in ensuring quality and safety. In many studies, it may be seen in the results of research that favouritism increases job stress and personnel turnover rate, while decreasing job satisfaction, organizational commitment, motivation, and teamwork. Favouritism has a negative impact on safety and quality management of ships. Based on this important consideration, in this study seafarers' perceptions have been measured, with an aim at developing a valid and reliable favouritism scale. The scale questions, prepared on the basis of semi-structured interviews and favouritism studies, have been applied to 252 different seafarers. As a result of the factor analyses conducted in SPSS 23, a 22-item favouritism scale, consisting of three factors related to demographic and personal characteristics, social rights and opportunities and operational processes, has been developed. The reliability and validity studies of the scale have been conducted, and it has been observed that the scale has high reliability.