BP Organizational Framing and the Oil-Spill Disaster in the Gulf of Mexico - Research Paper Example

Title: BP organizational framing and the Oil-spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico Student’s Name: Instructor’s Name: Course Name and Code: University: Date of Submission: Background Introduction The Gulf of Mexico oil spill has elicited a lot of reaction from various quarters over the damages it has had on environment and the aquatic life at the Gulf of Mexico. The oil spill has caused massive loss of life in the deep waters of the gulf due to the prevention of oxygen from getting to the waters holding this life. This has been a major concern both from the government in Washington to the International community. The main arguments being brought up here is who is to blame and which measures can be taken to avert such a crisis that resulted in more than three thousand barrels of oil spilling in the waters at the Gulf of Mexico. This has driven all the attention to British Petroleum, the international company responsible for the spilt oil. What many are still analyzing is the contribution that the company made to the disaster. The main concern is the impact of the organizational structure of BP and its relation to the disaster. It is definite that given that BP is an international company, rated as number three after United Nations and Roman Catholic Church in terms of international organization, the company’s organizational structure must have had a great impact on the disaster. This would come in the form of the occurrence (causes) and control of the situation (St. Pierre, Hofinger & Buerschaper, 2007). Justification of the study The Gulf of Mexico oil spill has resulted in great environmental degradation. This is one of the push factors that have necessitated this study. As such this study is driven by the need to actually find out what happened before, during and after the oil spill. This is with the aim of liking the connection between the organizational structure of the oil company, BP and the disaster. This would in one way or the other help avoid such crisis, not just by the BP Company alone, but by other oil companies that are exposed to such environments (Kwanash-Aidoo, 2005). The need to find out the root causes of the Gulf of Mexico has driven course of this study. Given that BP as accompany has been the centre stage of the disaster, it is inevitable that a thorough study is done on the company and how its organization could have directly or indirectly resulted in the crisis. This would help in restructuring the company so as to enable to be in a position to avoid the occurrences of such magnitude and contain them in a better way whenever they occur. Aims and objectives of the study This study has been carried out with a well framed structure of guidelines that define its aims and objectives. Through these guidelines, the study can be said to be successful. The aims and objectives of this paper are; a) To study the nature of the crisis, that is the oil spill at the Gulf of Mexico including the nature of the disaster and how it was handled by BP Company. b) To study the nature of the disaster in relation to its causes and the BP oil company c) To study the structure of the BP oil company, management and its relation to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill d) To come up with possible conclusions and devise ways through which, the oil company, (BP), can be restructured as a way of averting such crisis. Brief overview of BP's organization BP is one of the major international companies in the world according to revenues earned. The company has its headquarters in The Hague, Netherlands with a registered office being in London’s Shell Center. The company engages in the exploration of crude oil and natural gas and is the largest energy company in the world. With over 80,000 employees, the company has a complex organizational structure that facilitates its operations. The company also engages in gas power and solar energy (Boin, 2005). BP, formerly, Anglo Persian Co. was formed in the year 1909 with the aim of developing oil field in Persia (currently Iran). However, since that time, the company has undergone various organizational and ownership changes to being an international oil based company with operations in more than 90 countries in the world. The company has grown to where it is through mergers and takeovers to a level of making a turnover of $297bn (2010). Group and research methodology This study involved the use of various methods that enabled the research to come to the results conclusions reached. These methods mainly involved; administration of questionnaires, setting up of interviews, study of various materials/data analysis and observation. The use of several methods was important as it gave the study the credibility that it required due to the shortcomings that come with various methods. Administration of Questionnaires Questionnaires came in handy during this research. Though it seemed to be an expensive exercise, it was quite useful as it facilitated an avenue through which the busy persons could answer questions that enabled the conclusions of this paper to be reached. Given the nature of both the United States and specifically the Gulf of Mexico, majority of the grown up residents that form up the majority of the useful bracket in the study were in the working class. As such, giving those questionnaires were quite helpful as the contact time limitation and timer for interrogation for such population was quite limited. However the use of this method in the research had a lot of shortcomings. While 3,000 questionnaires were issued only 2,346 had their questionnaires handed back. This is attributed either to lack of interest by the rest of those that did not hand in their questionnaires or lose questionnaires way before they could hand them in. This method was also not that reliable as critical study of some of the questionnaires showed that the respondents had conflicting answers to various questions. This could be attributed to either lack of keen interest in the questions or prejudice in the answering of some of the questions. Observation This was done over a period of four weeks. Observation involved the study of the oil spill scenes using internet based photos, view of the images of the gushing oil in the deep waters and the work of the rescuers. This method was quite good as first-hand information was acquired hence making it quite a reliable method of data collection. Oil spill tragedies are very unpredictable making it difficult for researchers to get to the tragedy scenes and get first-hand information at the start of the tragedy. Getting to know the causes of such spills whenever they occurred took long as detailed investigation had to be done to find out such causes. Due to the nature of the spill, it was difficult for data collection to be done due to extreme sea conditions that forced the researchers to stand a little bit far from the oil spill scenes. The researchers also found it difficult to collect data from the oil spill scenes as it brought some conflict of interest. The researchers instead of helping the affected were seen to be busy jotting down what was happening in such scenes. Interviews While comparatively, this was not used on large-scale, it was very important in giving the paper the touch of expertise that is in the Risk management and disaster preparedness in the United States and BP as an organization. The use of this method was quite successful as information obtained was collected from the most reliable sources. Interviews were carried out on various stakeholders in the oil industry, the United States government and the regulatory authorities. However this method was still faced with a number of challenges. This involved the long bureaucracy involved before setting the interview. Most of those that were interviewed were experts in the oil industry and were quite busy that it needed early booking of appointments before staging the appointments. This was difficult since the research only took three months. This required a lot of patience from researchers in this study as they even had to go to an extent of postponing interviews as the officials to be interviewed were quite busy. Some officials were very reluctant in accepting the request for an interview while some turned down such requests. Some officials went ahead to request for questions on the interview even before the interview which actually did not go well as per the initial plan as this would make them to have a preemptive mind over certain issues, which they would have answered differently, if they were to be in the interview off cuff. Some officials went ahead avoiding certain questions, which did not actually work well for the interviews, as some information were lacking. Generally the time factor did not work well for the interviews (Tindall, 2009). Data analysis & Collaboration of Information Data and Statistical analysis was the most used method of data collection and analysis that formed the conclusions and findings of this paper. This worked well, for the paper as most of the information used was from reliable sources. This boosted the credibility of the study as such information could be acquired and referred to by the readers of this report in case need arises. The interconnection between the statistics obtained and the explanations helped boost the credibility of the paper as they all were in tandem hence showing close relation between the two. However for the information acquired from various books and study materials, lot of comparison had to be done to ensure that the conclusions reached were quite realistic. So many materials had to be purchased over a period of three months to facilitate this study. Some materials needed for the study were not readily available hence orders were placed with bookstores to facilitate their availability. This took longer than it was anticipated. This process took long, with some books giving contradictory information slowing down the process. Even with various challenges facing the use of these methods of data collection, the research team had to work with determination to overcome them. This involved working with time schedules while at the same time incorporating contingency measures to ensure that the required information is obtained in the shortest time possible. This forced the team members to work overtime in a bid to beat the deadlines. Analysis Bp organization in the context of frames Bp is a large organization with over 80,000 employees and thousands of business operation centers. As such the company has a wide organizational structure that makes decision making to be a challenge. The long line of bureaucracy from the top management to the bottom has worked against the company in instances such as the occurrence of the Gulf oil spill. This is because of the management policies that have given the top managers the final control and vetting over the decisions taken by the low-level managers and employees. This explains why it took long for the company to issue a statement on the status of the oil spill and what the company is doing to deal with the disaster. BP’s response to the disaster was okay but was faced by a lot of hitches. This means that the company did not have a well established disaster preparedness system in place. Just after the oil started spilling, the company responded by sending workers and vessels at the site in trying to suck up the spilt oil and seal up the leakage. However, the company had not prepared for handling the methane gas that is equally dangerous and harmful. This means that the company needs to initiate changes on the disaster management and preparedness. In terms of media relations, the company in the first place failed in their bid to handle the gulf crisis. Given the extent of the damage and the level of destruction that was caused by the spill, it was wrong for the company to take long before giving a formal statement over the disaster. This is a show of poor publicity and public relations policies taken by the company. The media were left guessing for some time before a formal statement was released by Tony Hayward, the Group’s Chief Executive. This made the image of the company to be cast in a bad light, forming a negative opinion about the company when this could have been reduced. The company had to suffer a lot in terms of its public image brought up by the media. This is due to the effects the oil spill would have ion the populations around the gulf and the ecosystem in the Gulf area. This made the managers of BP to be out to task on regular bases on the state of the crisis and how it is being run. Unfortunately, the company was quick to giver wrong figures on the daily barrels of oil that was spilling into the waters. Figures from different organizations indicated that an average of 85,000 barrels per day. However, the company was trying to push down the figures to as low as 40,000 barrels per day. This was very unrealistic as some sources such as government energy Detectives had come up with figures that were over 100,000 barrels. The loss of the laptop containing the personal data of the 13,000 oil spill claimants did not work well either for the company. This showed that the company was not keen in dealing with the disaster just as the media reported (Olsson, 2009). The main problem that came with the oil spill disaster is the failure to have requirements of the oil storage and supply put in place. Prior to the spill, it is noted that regular checks and analysis on the side of the company on the oil pipes did not take place as required. As such, the company is to blame for the disaster. The government also failed in the sense that it did not carry out regular checks to ensure that materials used in making and repairing the oil pipes are of the required quality. The company had used lower-quality material that bust, leaving the oil to spill. This would have been averted (Crandall, Parnell & Spillan, 2009). The company, (BP) managed to put up a bright face in this disaster but failed to deal directly with the cause of the problem. Given that the leakage was due to the busting of the oil pipes, it is not enough just to have pressure on the Chief Executive officer (Hayward) resign and claim that the much needed changes would now be initiated by the new Chief Executive. Asked about the decision to step down the former Chief Executive, Hayward said, "I believe the decision I have reached with the board to step down is consistent with the responsibility BP has shown throughout these terrible events. BP will be a changed company as a result of Macondo and it is right that it should embark on its next phase under new leadership," This means that he actually may have been forced by the bored t0 step down. However, it satisfied the short-term goal of assuring the Gulf People and the world as a whole that the company is concerned and that necessary changes are being taken. This cooled down the attacks on the company from various quarters. The BP Company received a lot of criticisms from various quarters and its competitors were not left behind. The company, according to energy experts has been receiving preferential treatment than other players in the industry from the United States government. This state, analysts attribute to the political reasons given that the Company is co-owned by two close allies of the United States. Other players argued that such a crisis would surmount to cancellation of license were it not be for political reasons. Analysis of the problem/issue/process of re-framing the organization Shell BP needs to take an integrative process in re-framing its operations. This would include quality assurance through following of the right procedures and requirements. For instance, if the company had used the recommended material in making and repair of its oil tunnels, then the crises would not have occurred (Coombs, 2011). The company discovered that there is a need for continuity if reasonable changes that would benefit the company are to remain even after the Mexican Gulf crisis. Though the company’s board decided to have its Chief Executive step down, which was for Public Relations purposes, they felt there was a need to continue with the positive changes Hayward had initiated. This was a sign of maturity in Human Resource management. As such Hayward was paid hefty take home of over one 1.02 million pounds and asked that he helps the incoming CEO, Bob Dudley in shaping up the company through smooth transition. He was also promised to be taken as a non-executive board member of the TNK- BP board. These was a deviation from the previous cases where the company initiated changes without allowing for continuity, especially after a merge, take over or buy-off. BP suffered great loss through the compensation of the residents of the Gulf of Mexico. This ran into billions of dollars being lost by the company as part of the compensation. As such, the company has no otherwise but to, in the short time, stop its expansion process and focus on strengthening the existing business entities. The company may also be forced to sell more of its assets to boosts its financial standing and avoid a funds crisis. BP has to contend with the long bureaucracy characterized by its operations. As such the company will need to think of its organizational structure in a bid to deal with the slowed down process of decision-making. This may require the company to do more in-servicing to its low level managers and give them more decision-making powers. Findings, recommendation and conclusion Bp being an international company with wide and massive investments needs to have a well set up media relations unit that will help take care of its publicity. Given the wide negativity that was played out by the media during the gulf oil spill crisis, there is a need to change the negative perception. This will call for regular interaction and forums with the media where the company can positively explain what it stands for. There is a need for the company to undertake a wide range restructuring in order to pick up the pieces. This means that the top management has to take an objective approach and come up with organizational policies that will reduce or deal with the hitches that occurred during the crisis. Such may involve reducing the long bureaucracy so as to facilitate decision-making. This is through the empowering of the junior managers so that the backlogs of decisions to be made are not thrown on the desks of the top management managers slowing down the decision-making processes (Ray, 1999). There is a need for re branding of the company so as to start up from a good footing. Such would require that the company comes up with the new name so as to do away with the other name. This would in the long run rid the company of the negative perception that comes with the name BP. It would also provide a favorable environment for bidding for tenders in other companies. References Michael St. Pierre, Hofinger, G. & Buerschaper C. (2007). Crisis management in acute care settings: human factors and team psychology in a high stakes environment, New York: Metropolitan Books Kwanash-Aidoo, K. (2005). Public relations issues and crisis management. Canberra: Cengage Learning Australia Boin, A. (2005). The politics of crisis management: public leadership under pressure, Washington: Cambridge University Press Olsson, S. (2009). Crisis Management in the European Union: Cooperation in the Face of Emergencies. New York: Springer, Tindall, K. (2009). Framing the global economic downturn: crisis rhetoric and the politics of recessions. London: ANUE Press. Crandall, W., Parnell, J. A.,& Spillan J. E (2009), Crisis Management in the New Strategy Landscape, Chicago: SAGE Publisher Ray S.J. (1999). Strategic communication in crisis management: lessons from the airline industry. Vancouver: Greenwood Publishing Group, Coombs, T. (2011). Ongoing Crisis Communication: Planning, Managing, and Responding. New York: SAGE Publishers Read More