1 GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS AND THE IMPACT ON HUMAN RESOURCES STRATEGIES FOR SEAFARERS Ender ASYALI*, Yusuf ZORBA*, A. Güldem CERIT*, O. Kamil SAG** *Dokuz Eylul University, School of Maritime Business and Management, Izmir, Turkey ** Pirireis University, Istanbul, Turkey Contact: Asst. Prof. Dr. Cpt. Ender ASYALI Head, Marine Engineering Department Dokuz Eylül University School of Maritime Business and Management Tinaztepe Campus Buca 35160 Izmir TURKEY Phone/Fax: +90 232 453 8197 e-mail: ender.asyali@deu.edu.tr ABSTRACT Achieving sustainable competitive advantage depends on formulation and implementation of appropriate human resources strategies in dynamic and complex environments. The increasing interest in the strategic management of organizations has resulted in concentrating on various organizational functions with their role in the strategic management process. Strategic human resources management (SHRM) is the pattern of the planned human resource deployment and activities intended to enable an organization to achieve its goal (Wright and McMahan, 1992). SHRM is an approach to make decisions on the intentions and plans of the organization concerning employment relationship and its recruitment, training, development, performance management, reward and employee relations policies and practices and it is an essential component of the organization’s corporate or business strategy. The improvement of organizational effectiveness is an overall objective of SHRM (Armstrong and Michael, 2006). On the other hand, human resource strategy is a pattern of human resource programs, policies and plans implemented by a human resource department. HR strategies to set out what the organization intends to do about its human resource management policies and practices, and how they should be integrated with the business strategy. Environmental factors such as technology, uncertainty, changes in economic environment and demographic, rapid changing demand, increased competition, all affect human resource strategies of organizations. Human resource is one of the leading determinants in maritime transport industry and both the industry and the individual shipping companies consider human resources strategies as an important area of research. The global financial and economic crisis that has been affecting international trade and shipping in a very dramatic way since the fourth quarter of 2008 forces researchers to examine the short and long term trends in maritime careers generally and particularly in seagoing professions. This study aims to research the developments in human resources strategies during the global financial and economic crisis. A survey was applied to the human resources managers in