Security aspects on corporate culture in a logistics terminal setting

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the security aspects on corporate culture among terminal workers in a transport network. This is done against a background of increasing numbers of international supply chain security programmes that all more or less advocate security awareness among the employees as a cornerstone in security. A semi-structured interview guide was designed, in order to facilitate both a theoretical focus and flexible conversations. Fifteen interviews were done altogether at three different goods/freight terminals, and each interview took approximately 30–45 min. The nature of this study is explorative and therefore it focuses on the similarities rather than the differences within the interviews. This research utilizes theories and viewpoints from both social sciences and logistics in order to fill the gap between the ideas from supply chain security programs and the real situation in the transport network. The research are limited by the difficultness in establish clear and evident causal relationships between all the different factors that together compose the corporate security culture. The management wants the terminal workers to perform their planed and scheduled operational tasks according to the written procedures. The security awareness idea advocates that, if needed, shall the employee perform security tasks instead of the planed operations. This means that the employees may be forced to choose between fulfilling their normal tasks or performing security duties. This duality in management signals influences the security aspect of corporate culture.