The Effect of Foreign Crew's Cultural Homogeneity on the Self-efficacy and Organizational Commitment

The primary purpose of this study is to examine empirically the effect of foreign crew`s cultural and organizational characteristics on their self-efficacy and organization commitment. Currently, the restrictions on the employment of the foreign crews are being eased in the Korean shipping industry and many problems are occurring consequently. However, specific and empirical studies on the relevancy of cultural characteristics to the crew`s self-efficacy and organizational commitment on board the vessels with combined crews have not yet been carried out. To solve these problems, we examined how the cultural characteristics such as acculturation and accommodation of different culture related to the improvement of cultural homogeneity of vessels with combined crews influence on the self-efficacy, job satisfaction and organizational commitment of the foreign crews through SEM analysis. According to the results, hypothesis 1 and 2 were all supported with statistical significance. To conclude, this study suggests that foreign crew`s cultural homogeneity and their self-efficacy should be firstly enhanced in order to improve organizational commitment on the vessel with combined crews. Furthermore, a study on self-efficacy of crew organization is urgently needed to enhance the effectiveness of an organization in a vessel with combined crews that has special environment. The result of this study will contribute a lot to the organization management of a vessel with combined crews.