...Ethical Issues Affecting Bp Operations Management Essay For a company to become a good corporate citizen it must follow the rules put in place by the government to where the company's operations activities are taking place, this also include protecting the environment and local people in the community from any harm from noise or water or air pollution. This report will explore more about the responsibilities BP have for making moral judgement and how their employees are involved and empowered. Also will have information on ethical issues affecting their operational activities and how do they ensure good relationship of employer and employee. Ending part there will be a summary about ethical code for oil industry. INTRODUCTION Considering ethics, a corporations' responsibility for taking actions that are morally sound needs to change. Reviewing the role of the individual, corporations are being subjected to the role of moral agent. The question is, can a corporation, composed of people, be held responsible for its own action as a moral agent? The answer is complexed from an individual's viewpoint with that of the corporation. Werhane (1989:821) viewed that corporation by law is identified as a person that is frequently held responsible for business practises. However, Werhane continues, if firms are not moral agents, they do not become morally liable and thus the onus is passed onto the individual person. [1] This becomes complicated because how can individuals become solely...
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...of conduct. In the recent past the oil firms have been in the international focus for their major role in the pollution of the environment as they produce and distribute their product and even as the products are consume. One of the major casualties for this problem is BP Oil Company that has been in wrong books with the international community for its growing unethical standards that emerged in the twenty-first century. To save its tainted reputation and restore its public image, BP management has been working on various strategic plans to improve the firm’s code of conduct. This came into light with the 2005 publication on code of conduct that was entitled “our commitment to integrity.” Due to the multinational status of the BP Company it has geographically dispersed operational regions across the world and this meant that they were to circulate this message to all its employees across the globe. The debate over the position of BP on the issue of risks stands out as a much asked question by many people. It is understood that the oil production from the sea is a contractual co-operation between BP and Transocean as the driller. However, the risk need to be absorbed by both of the as the primary stakeholders. BP is the major shareholder in the risk management and safety regulations target in its business goals. It was evident from the vast oil spill tragedy that swept the larger part of the shore with insignificant efforts from the firms to reduce this environmental...
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...An ethical Perspective can be seen as a Moral standpoint in which we choose to view/consider something. The lack of both external and internal regulations as well as a management philosophy that encourages cost cutting and risk-taking ultimately caused the Deepwater Horizon explosion and subsequent gas leak. While talking about ethics, it can be argued that, “The individualistic business theory states that the only obligation for a company is to make a profit.” This means that a company can do whatever it takes to make a profit, as long as they stay within the legal boundaries. In this case, BP did not do anything unethical because the accident was a result of mechanical failure. If the employees knew of this and did not do anything to fix it, it would be considered unethical behavior. But since they had no knowledge of what was happening, they did not do anything unethical. Duty...
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...When asking someone about the top 3 oil companies in the world, it is almost always certain that BP will be named on that person’s list, accompanied by Exxon and Shell. The oil company is such a huge and necessary industry that our country depends on day in and day out. Governments and companies have all looked into different types of alternative energy but there are still none that are near as effective as oil. Oil is a highly flammable, high combustion, fuel that gives high effectiveness. The problem with oil is that it is messy, in many different ways, when burned it sends damaging emissions into our atmosphere, when leaked it kills basically anything in it’s path from animals to plants. The riskiness of oil has caused an uproar around the world recently with the recent “going green phase” and environmentally friendly movement. These largely point towards oil because oil when burned sends large amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere, which does damage to our atmosphere and lets in more Gama radiation from the sun, which heats up the Earth. This causes a large problem for oil companies and their initiative to make money. In this case we will be focusing on BP, a very well known company if not the most well known. The largest problem with BP is, most of us when hearing that name think straight to April, 2010 when a BP oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico leaking out millions of gallons of petroleum. For a company and it’s stakeholders, this is one thing that you don’t want to...
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...Ethics Case Analysis BP BP Struggles to Resolve Sustainability Disaster Case Summary: The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010 is the worst oil spill in US history. Initial claims on the scope of the spill, as released by BP, was that 5,000 barrels per day were being released into the water, although they stated they had no way of precisely measuring the spill. Outside analysts have stated that between 54,000 and 84,000 barrels per day were leaking into the area. This estimate has been largely supported and accepted. The spill lasted for 87 days before workers finally sealed the leak, but by that time, more than 4 million barrels of oil had been released into the gulf. The BP oilrig, owned by Transocean, Deepwater Horizon had been in operation in the Gulf of Mexico since February 2001. The rig was valued at more than $560 million dollars and worked on many different wells in the gulf. The last well it operated on was the Macondo well. It was this well that the oil spill came from and was brought about by several preventable errors on the part of BP and Transocean management and employees. The Deepwater Horizon vessel was an exploratory rig assigned the duty of finding oil, reporting it, and capping the well for another extracting type rig to come in and harvest the oil. While drilling the well, the rig encountered pockets of natural gas buildups where it was drilling. A week prior to the fatal explosion, Horizon encountered one of these pockets and the natural...
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...dilemma facing BP is how to balance profit maximization and at the same time be responsible for the environment and society. Several events have affected BP in recent years but none has challenged the balance between profit and environment responsibility like the Gulf oil spill. This event, recognized as the worst oil spill in the History of the United States, occurred on April 20th of 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico and was characterized by an explosion following an integrity failure of a well and a consequent 87 day spill of oil into the sea (BP, 2010). Eleven people were killed in the explosion and it is estimated that almost 5 million barrels of crude oil dispersed into the Gulf Sea (The Ocean Portal Team, 2010). Tony Hayward, the CEO of BP at the time of the oil spill incident, downplayed the effects of the oil leak in the environment and society, stating, “The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean“ (Webb, 2010). Previous events had caused concerns among authorities on the possibility of BP not doing the appropriate maintenance of its old system of wells. In fact, in 2004 the company was fined for $1.2 million by state regulators (Barringer, 2006) and in 2006 for $2.4 million by the labor department also because of unsafe practices (Pulham, Hilaire, & Fenn, 2010). In addition, reports from a longtime employee stated that the company had received repeated warnings on the possible effects of cutbacks in maintenance and inspection routines (Barringer, 2006). It seems like BP had been struggling...
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...Image creation-BP is in the mature stage of its life cycle, has been involved in multiple mishaps over the years. They have lost focus of their duty to the environment, the public, and its shareholders. 1) SWOT analysis Strengths-they have alot of money that can be reinvested in enhancing/repairing their image and focusing on the environment, their connections (with the British government and Navy), alternative energy (wind, solar, biofuels), infrastructure, carbon footprint toolkit, they were the first energy company to acknowledge global warming/environmental awareness Weaknesses-image, oil spills, poor ethics (price gouging,wire/mail fraud, etc.) Opportunities-technological opportunities (alternative energies, improved drilling capabilities, jumping onto the environmentally sustainable movement-and is also a threat to their original business model) Threats-politics (policies/regulations), economics (supply and demand fluctuation, improved commodities markets), competition, natural disasters 2) Problem Analysis (this should be clear and to the point-a few sentences is all that is necessary): Their image is tarnished, so they are concentrating on rebuilding this. They started this process by changing their name from British Petroleum to simply BP (Beyond Petroleum-suggesting that they will focus their efforts on multiple energy sources). Why is their image tarnished? What led to this occurring? What measures have they taken to address this issue? 3)...
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...Ethics William, Scott Ethics In the case of BP oil the internal factors that “affect” ethics within management started at the very top of BP. In, the beginning its handling of the deepwater horizon spill was a disaster. Bp was involved in a number of projects at the outset of this disaster in an effort to save; money However at the start there was a lack of adequate communication between top level management and the front office. Bp planned to use cement that was much lighter to cap the well and therefore cost less in a cost saving measure greed became a factor. That is an act of poor judgment on any individual in a managerial capacity. Bp from the start did not have a plan on how to go about organizing the cleanup of the spill even after they had been informed that if they would have used the right cement the first time the disaster could have been avoided. Management made many calls that compromised their ethics right from the start not only within the company but also on the jobsite in the way that they went about organizing the cleanup put employs at risk in efforts to make the company look more favorable. In similar incidents BP had been cited in the pass for safety issues. After the clean up BP lead the way in helping the fisherman affected by the spill a subcontractor for BP oil is hiring unemployed fishermen for boom deployment off the cost of Louisiana as part of the response to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill (Kelly May 2010). BP oil also set up a fund to help...
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...1. Introduction The company, BP is the third-largest energy company where produces approximately 3.8 million barrels of oil and gas per day and possesses 22,400 service stations over the world. However, the oil disaster called as BP oil spill or the deep water horizon oil spill was occurred on April 20th, 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico recording the greatest oil spill compared to other oil spill accidents in our history. The Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion caused deaths of 11 workers, 17 workers injured as well as a tremendous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. In fact, this case has been described as a complex accident including a variety of issues ranging from environmental to economic, politics and even ethical issues. The goal of our research is to find any ethical issues since this disaster happened is closely related to ethics which is concerned with moral obligation, social responsibility and justice (Carolyn Wiley, 1997) either individual (‘bad apples’) or organizational (‘bad barrels), which should be evaluated to verify this case. Firstly, the ethical issues can largely be divided into three categories, namely (1) technical design which has had some testing flaws before the actual usage and insufficient guidelines against the negative pressure test, (2) human factors including misjudgment, errors and a failure in duty, (3) organizational system such as taking risk procedures to save time and money and refusing the advice of staff and contractors as well as slowness to...
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...Cross-Cultural Perspectives ETH 316 BP is a global organization that has a multinational presence in the world. A cultural issue that can impact this organization outside of the United States is gender. In the United States and several other countries that BP works in, gender is not an issue as culturally it is acceptable for men and women to be in business together, but in some countries, especially in the Middle East this is tricky cultural difficulty. This can be a serious issue because women should be able to be equals in a corporation, but at the same time, BP has to be able to not offend someone that they are trying to do business with because they are culturally uncomfortable with women in business. This is a delicate balancing act between ethics, social responsibility and cultural awareness for the company. Legally and ethically a woman should be able to perform all the same tasks as a male counterpart, but it may be in the best interests of the company to respect the cultural differences that can occur in doing business in other countries. There are several ethical perspectives at BP when it comes to dealing with culture and gender. Consequence ethics and principle-based ethics can both be at play in this situation. Consequence ethics in that there can be consequences from both making business partners uncomfortable and in choosing a man over a woman for business dealings because of cultural differences. Principle-based ethics looks at this situation in that...
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...Petroleum, PLC (BP) has been thriving to satisfy the investors with legal, ethical, and social responsibility issues as a corporation while protecting employees and environment. The global economy has been fluctuating rapidly since the last tragic incident that happened in 2010; therefore, now is the time to evaluate the organization’s management planning function, analyze the influence that have had on management planning at BP, and analyze the factors that influence the company’s strategic, tactical, operational and contingency planning. Planning Function of Management The board of directors have played valuable role in both planning and decision making process at BP since the incident in 2010. Although BP had fully engaged to solve the issues from the incident by using top level skills and taking appropriate measures, the lesson BP learned was, in such a painful manner, that there are substantial financial risk accompany poor decisions and planning which was losing $30 billion, according to Marianne M. Jennings (Jennings, 2010). Therefore, BP plc is adopting a new basic planning process that was introduced by Bateman and Snell: situational analysis, alternative goals and plans, goal and plan evaluation, goal and plan selection, implementation, and monitor and control that moves not just in one direction, but in a cycle (Bateman & Snell, 2011). As top management of BP, board of directors should stand strong and have firm belief by using newly adopted method that BP will overcome...
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...Cross-Cultural Perspectives Takeema L. McCaskill ETH/316 September 29, 2014 Christy Vilavanh Cross-Cultural Perspectives Known to be one of the leading international oil, gas, and energy companies, BP has a worldwide reputation of providing consumers fuel for transportation purposes, energy towards heat and light; in addition to, creating petrochemical products and lubricants to keep engines especially in large machineries moving. With headquarters based in London, England, the multinational organization currently have operations in more than 80 countries throughout the world; in fact, has currently 83,900 employees in the United States as well as internationally. BP having a multinational presence since the organization conducts business operations out of countries; such as, Indonesia, West Africa, and Slovak Republic its open to possibly facing cultural issues which can in fact make an impact on the internal operations of the organization, or influence business decisions that effects the organization and its stakeholders. BP has experience more than one issue that could influence the interactions outside of the United States. In 2005 the Texas City Refinery explosion killed fifteen workers in which lead to the organization being fine by the OSHA, and the oil spill on Prudhoe Bay which happened in the Alaska North Slope back in 2006. However, one of the major environmental disasters that will go down in U.S. history is the Gulf Oil Spill of April, 2010. The Gulf...
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...covered ethics within some of the top oil companies in the world. The S&E ethical study was titled, “Ethics in the Oil Industry 2005” and upon it was BP at number three on the list. The only two oil companies ahead of BP were Royal Dutch Shell at number one and Exxon Mobil at number two. (Manage & Excellence, 2005) BP has displayed that they take ethics very seriously, at least enough to be recognized in the study. This will be our apex to the slippery slope in which the reputations of BP will start its decent. Also, in 2005, BP faced its worst disaster to date when one of BP’s refineries located in Texas City, Texas, exploded killing 15 people and injuring another 180 individuals and forced thousands of nearby residents to take up shelter within their homes. (Mauer & Tinsley, 2010) An Investigation lead by the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board found, “organizational and safety deficiencies at all levels of the BP corporation.” British Petroleum pleaded guilty to felony acts that violated the Clean Air Act and was fined $50 million while only receiving a three year probation sentence. The Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) issued the largest fine in OSHA history, $87 million, to BP after conducting their investigation. (Mauer & Tinsley, 2010) OSHA discovered over 270 violations that had been previously cited but not fixed and 439 new violations. Ethical problems can be seen with the 270 violations that were ignored and not fixed by BP. In...
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...Value Alignment Introduction British Petroleum (BP) is an oil company founded in 1909. They merged with Amoco Corporation in 1998 and became one of the largest oil companies in the world ("Encyclopedia Britannica", n.d.). Working in the oil industry for so long, BP has encountered many issues that have tested the organizations values. Analyzing those values and comparing them to personal values can lead to a better understanding of the organizations actions. Personal and Workplace Values Values are beliefs rooted deep in our subconscious that influence peoples actions and decisions (Gibb, 2010). During childhood, a beginning set of values are derived from interaction with parents, teachers, coaches, and other influential figures. As one matures, critical thinking, and life experiences may change some of these values. However, many of the values learned as a child stay in the subconscious and serve as the basis for many decisions as an adult. Many adults tend to live their lives according to their set of values. Decisions are made according to what feels right or whether it is “the right thing to do.” Some may think their values are universal, but it is important to understand the diversity in values and not become outraged or angry when values held sacred are challenged or violated. Companies establish a set of values or ethics to help ensure the company operates properly and is profitable. These values or ethics are guiding principles that help employees make important...
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...American Business Ethics a Modern Day Oxymoron The dictionary defines an oxymoron as a figure of speech that combines contradictory terms. Examples of this are dark light or living dead. This term is related with business because although most companies have a small book outlining ethics and guidelines that should be followed on a daily basis, many of them do not fully comply. The oxymoron “American Business Ethics” contradicts American Business with Ethics. The ethics of many American companies are not law but should be treated as such however these regulations are rarely followed and sometimes not followed at all. The risks that companies have been taking to increase profits and put more money into the CEO’s pockets use illegal actions. In recent times, companies such as Enron, Wal-Mart and BP have been guilty of multiple charges against ethical principles which have led to bankruptcies, housing market crashes and environmental disasters. The most famous case related to Enron and their aggressive accounting practices of reporting losses as profits to keep the stock price high. This act ultimately led to the bankruptcy of the company. Enron was founded in Omaha, Nebraska by Kenneth Lay in 1985. It was an American energy, commodities and services company based in Houston, Texas. Enron was once viewed as one of the best companies in America during its initial years of operation. Fortune magazine named Enron “America’s Most Innovative Company” for six consecutive years...
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