A lack of research has been undertaken to explore work–family conflict and its impact on the shipping industry. The objective of the present study was to empirically examine the effects of work–family conflict, job stress, and job satisfaction on seafarer performance. Data were collected from merchant ship seafarers in the Yangshan Port, Shanghai, China (n = 337). A data analysis was performed using hierarchical regression analysis. The research results revealed that work–family conflict and job stress negatively affects seafarer self-reported performance, while job satisfaction positively influences seafarer job performance. Findings also show that job satisfaction plays a moderating role in the relationships between work–family conflict, job stress and seafarer performance. Our findings demonstrate that work–family conflict, job stress and job satisfaction manifested are significant predictors for seafarer performance. Important applications and implications are provided for managers and researchers.

BackgroundFatigue is an important factor for the safety of ships. In order to alleviate fatigue of the seafarers, the STCW Convention (International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification, and Watchkeeping for Seafarers) has made many regulations on the working time of seafarers. At present, if a crew member takes only one day off at home before returning to work on the ship, the working time on the ship must be re-calculated again. If the time spent at home is not sufficient to allow the crew to recover, the regulations of only stipulating the working time, not stipulating the home vacation time, cannot guarantee the crew’s fatigue been well controlled. The aim of present study is to explore the relationship between vacation schedule and fatigue of the seafarers.MethodsIn present study, a simplified stress scale developed by the Ministry of Labor of Japan has been used as a measurement tool. The method of stratified sampling was adopted. Data collection mainly came from domestic ocean-going seafarers (n = 165). Analysis was conducted using the Cross (chi-square) analysis and hierarchical multiple regression analysis methods.ResultsWe found that there was no difference between crew members of different positions in terms of average vacation time and on-board service time (p > 0.05). The length of last vacation time and this service time for seafarers of different positions showed obvious differences (p < 0.01). The rank has a significant effect on the length of the last vacation (χ2 = 101.560, p = 0.000 < 0.01) and the length of this service time (χ2 = 75.624, p = 0.000 < 0.01). Also, the results showed that there was a significant negative correlation between the duration of vacation and overall fatigue (t = –7.160, p = 0.000 < 0.01), while there was a significant positive correlation between the length of service time on board and overall fatigue (t = 3.474, p = 0.001 < 0.01).ConclusionThe results indicated that a reasonable vacation schedule was crucial for the relief of the seafarers’ fatigue, and also played a positive role in the state of working on the ship again.

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The resources in the engine room are comprised of many factors, meanwhile, numerous factors affecting these resources. All of these factors are necessarily simplified and hierarchized so that the studies or practice on the engine-room resource management (ERM) have clear priorities. As such, the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) was utilized as the study technique for this purpose.

For matching various working condition of ship propulsion system, a modified mean value model of a large-scale low-speed directly reversible marine diesel engine is put forward. A starting and braking torque module is added to the conventional model. A new friction model which considers static friction is adopted. So, the new model can run smoothly across all propulsion working condition, such as starting, running, braking, reversing, etc. The dynamic simulation models of propeller running across four quadrants and ship longitudinal motion are given too. The 5S60MC marine diesel engine equipped on a 76000DWT bulk carrier is taken as an example. The simulation results show that steady data of diesel are in good accordance with test-bed data, and dynamic data match to ship sea trial data in crash stop condition. The best is to read these instructions and follow the outline of this text.