The Ship Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

The Ship Management - Essay Example Nowadays, Management of vessels is getting tougher even more because of the omnipresent media which plays the eye and mouth of the cynical public and due to increased regulations. And, these factors apart from making the management tougher have worked as catalyst to initiate social changes. That is, as mentioned above, the concept of social responsibility is not a compulsion on the part of the shipping industry and its managers. So the older companies, which operated ships during the absence of these media and regulations, had no such compulsions. These ship management companies and its business managers had no such obligations and allowed pollution to continue and did not care much for the society. Also, they just concentrated on running the ships without any attempt to diversify into CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility). The mindset of the business managers of that time was, they questioned the need for Social responsibility for shipping companies because ships mostly operate in i solation in far away waters of the world. That is, the view of the shipping managers is that, as the ship does not operate in the vicinity or living area of a large number of people, there is no need to cater to them. But as the media starting making its presence, the people in the vicinity of the shipping operations got to know more than they knew about shipping. That is, how the improperly maintained ships could cause anything from deaths to sea creatures to threats to human lives. Firstly, if the shipping companies does not periodically test the physical capabilities of the ship before it leaves into the sea, it can lead to catastrophe like drowning or sinking of the whole ship. Then, with the development of this world, the need for oil became a never-ending thing and ships only supplied this oil to all the countries in the world. But, due to events which could be triggered by nature or due to the faults of the shipping companies, the oil may get spilled, leading to the destructi on of the environment, particularly sea environment and its inhabitants. Other threat from ships could come in the form of harmful chemicals emitted during breaking of the ship. So all these threats of ships, initiated major changes in the functioning of the shipping management companies and its business managers. The business managers understanding the serious nature of the problem put their minds to come up with strategies that can overcome this negative fallout. And, the important tool they got is the concept of social responsibility. That is, to nullify this image and create a favorable image for the shipping management companies in the minds of the people, they started concentrating on social responsibility. So, these reasons only forced a change in the positive direction in the sector of social responsibility. And to show this social responsibility, the business managers integrated certain policies in the shipping management’s overall strategy. As mentioned before they can do this firstly by organizing separate events or actions like donations, giving aid to patients etc, etc- all these will fulfill its social responsibility. Or by integrating certain policies or rules like MARPOL into their setup, which apart from helping the organization in smooth and effective functioning, also helps to fulfill its social responsibility.     And the many shipping management companies and its business managers as part of their business policy of showing the social responsibility are conducting events. And in this section we can look how one of the major shipping Management Company and its business manager are carrying out certain activities to fulfill their social responsibility. And for example we take a look at the initiatives of Riverlake, a Swiss independent company created and registered in Geneva in 1985.