Abstract
This article focuses on the anticipatory socialization of foreign workers. The purpose of this article is to discuss the methods and roles in order to encourage the normative integration of human resource, in terms of pre-employment training for seafarers by an international maritime company.
Most of the seafarers who work for international maritime companies are foreigners, and they make short-term working contracts. Therefore, the mobility and diversity of seafarers in terms of nationality and back ground are very high. Then, it is very important for maritime companies to standardize the capability of seafarers, and to share the firm specific knowledge and safety management policy with individual seafarers. One of the effective solutions for this issue should be the normative integration, particularly the anticipatory socialization.
This article mainly focuses on the training ship as a case study of anticipatory socialization. I conducted an interview research to the seafarer strategy division of a ship management subsidiary in Singapore, owned by a Japanese major maritime company, and also a participant observation on board of the training ship from Singapore to Thailand operated by the company. While I was on board, I conducted interview to an instructor and trainees who were from various countries and maritime colleges, and also joined the on-board pre-employment training, in order to observe the training methods and behavior of an instructor and trainees.
Based on the research above, the article discusses the effective methods and roles of anticipatory socialization of foreign workers, in terms of pre-employment training for seafarers to encourage the normative integration.
As a result, this article concludes to suggest the technical and cultural results of anticipatory socialization by the training ship. Then, it specifies the following four roles of this training: standardization of capability, sharing the firm specific safety management policy, understanding the roles and tasks of seafarers, and finally, control of reality shock.
