Culture Creation in a Semi- Enclosed Environment : The superyacht case

Sammanfattning: Organisational culture is a construct for conceptualising the way people experience and describe their work setting, and can be linked to organisational benefits and employee well-being. Researchers suggest that culture is created through group dynamics and interactions over time, the influence of surrounding environment and the founders of the organisation. This study aims to understand the main aspects of culture creation in semi-enclosed environments, i.e. environments where employees are physically enclosed to their workplace and colleagues without being deprived of their liberty. To fulfil the aim, an explorative, qualitative study of the onboard superyacht environment was conducted. The data was gathered through semi-structured interviews with 31 crew members of various rank and position, employed on superyachts of sizes between 40- 90 meters. The thematical analysis of the interviews found unique characteristics of the environment in terms of customer requirements, work conditions, interactions between crew members and challenges experienced. These findings are discussed in terms of how culture is created through industry impact, crew behaviour and the leader’s role in the organisation. The study concludes that the main important aspects for culture creation in semi-enclosed environments are how relationships, behaviour and identity are shaped by intense interactions due to the enclosed and limited physical space, time spent together and distance from external relations. Furthermore, it is concluded that the industry characteristics create a strong community culture, making the onboard environment on various superyachts fundamentally similar despite not being connected to each other on an organisational level. It is also concluded that the challenges experienced by members in this environment are in line with the these aspects, and therefore closely related to the culture creation. Ultimately, the study found that the environment and superyacht case has great potential for further research. This thesis can therefore be considered a base that outlines the semi-enclosed environment onboard superyachts for future studies.