...Topic: An analysis of the corporate social responsibility demonstrated by BP in the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico | | | | | 9/15/2010 | | ------------------------------------------------- Topic: An analysis of the corporate social responsibility demonstrated by BP in the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico SECTION 1: Introduction The explosion on the Deepwater Horizontal rig on 20 April 2010 led to a serious consequence. A large area of oil spill spread through the Gulf of Mexico. Unfortunately, this accident killed 11 people. (BP Global, 2010) Generally speaking, BP on the surface achieve the highest level of CSR, the discretionary responsibility which is the highest level in the pyramid of CSR. It includes economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic (discretionary) responsibilities (From bottom to the top) (Carroll, 1999, as cited by Lindgreen, et al, 2009). However, comments from the public and the US government appear to be unsatisfactory to the action taken by BP in this case. This essay will analysis the social responsibility demonstrated by BP by first looking at three journal articles from 2000 to 2010 written by Bird, Hall, Momente and Reggiani (2007); Shen and Chang (2009); and Udayasankar (2008), to further elaborate the insights in the articles and the academic theories into the application of the oil spill case in the Gulf of Mexico SECTION 2: Corporate Social Responsibility Article one Bird, Hall, Momente and Reggiani (2007) examine in...
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...As we all know, the BP spill of 2010 was both catastrophic and costly. In April 2010, BP’s Transocean drilling rig Deep water Horizon sank in the Gulf of Mexico killing over 10 people and spewing more than 200 million gallons of oil into our ocean water. This historic and devastating spill is now labeled as worst in U.S. history due to its crippling economic factors throughout Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. It has taken us a year to restore our relationships and our strong presence in the energy sector so we must have a plan in place to get us back on track. In the presentation I will be discussing BP’s planning function of management as it relates to the organization’s goals and strategies. I will then discuss the influence that legal issues, ethics, and corporate social responsibility have had on management planning at BP. Last, I will analyze the influence that legal issues, ethics, and corporate social responsibility have had on management planning at BP. Global demand for energy is expected to increase by 50% between now and 2030. Eighty-five percent of the energy to meet this demand is expected to come from fossil fuels (BP.com, 2012). In order for BP to recover and tap into this 50% increase, we must first plan and analyze our current situation. In this unique industry, anticipating the future has become even more important than before. We must first create a plan that will not only guide the recovery process...
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...1. Introduction This report will identify a crisis facing BP company, the Gulf of Mexico spill, and investigate how the organization response to the society. In this report, it will use Legitimacy theory to explain BP’s response to this event. Legitimacy theory can be treated as a explanation for voluntary corporate disclosures in annual report. As (Dowling&Pfeffer, 1975) says a corporation must act in congruence with norms and society value. First of all, Legitimacy theory is based on the concept of substantive rationality and replies upon the notion of a social contract. This theory asserts that organizations seek to ensure that they operate within the bounds and norms of their respective societies (Ramon Mullerat, 2010) .It aims to conform to norms and value of society. As a company, it always use annual report to legitimize the ongoing operation, however, in common situations, it often discloses good news, but its actual behaviors decline which is called legitimacy gap. 2. The case 2.1 Context In April 20, 2010, a semi-submersible drilling platform belongs to BP occurred explosion in American Mexico gulf. It caused 11people die and 17 people injured after 36 hours (CBC News, 2010). BP Company announced that it wills to response for this event. The Gulf of Mexico spill has become the worst environmental crisis in America. Except the direct cost, it will also attack people’s life, such as air and water safe. At the same time, it is a huge disaster for seaside...
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...BP & Deepwater Horizon C. Nelson BP & Deepwater Horizon Every business, in some way, is affected by public and private criticism. One industry that is never too far away from criticism is the oil and gas industry. Over the course of this essay, we will explore BP, its stakeholders, some of their criticisms, and BP’s response to those criticisms. BP, formerly British Petroleum, is the fourth largest oil and gas companies in the world in terms of revenue and sixth based on production. (Statista, 2015) (Forbes, 2015) Although BP doesn’t have an official mission statement, the company does have a few statements entitled “Our Values”, “Clear Priorities”, and “Our strategy and sustainability”. BP (2015) states, “We have five values that express our shared understanding of what we believe, how we aim to behave and what we aspire to be as an organization.” Those five values include safety, respect, excellence, courage, and one team. “Clear Priorities” (2015) details three main topics that top the company’s interests including: safe, reliable and compliant operations; disciplined financial choices; and competitive project execution. Thirdly, BP has a commitment to sustainability and states (2015), “We believe that the best way for BP to achieve sustainable success is by acting in the long-term interests of our shareholders, our partners and society.” The three pillars augment the lack of a mission statement and express BP’s commitments and responsibilities....
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...Ethical Responsibility with Oil Companies Lisa Dauwen National American University Abstract There are processes that oil companies need to go through to make sure that they are operating ethically. They include protecting the environment, researching alternative sustainable energies, and making sure that they are allowing for economic growth. This paper will look at 3 oil companies that are familiar to the United States. The paper will also look at the recent Gulf of Mexico oil spill and look at any ethical concerns. It will discuss how an oil company can follow corporate social responsibility (CSR) tools to lessen their environmental footprint. Ethical Responsibility with Oil Companies All companies in the world have the responsibility to operate in a manner that follows the laws of the government. All of these companies also have a social responsibility to follow ethical laws. Along with all the other types of companies, oil companies have the social responsibilities to protect the environment, to research sustainable energies, to safely explore and produce in new areas, and they also have responsibility of fostering economic growth. It is important for oil companies, perhaps more important than other companies, to hold up to these social responsibilities because if they don’t find new ways to produce energy, future generations could run out. There has been much talk in the last few months regarding oil companies and if they are being ethical when making decisions...
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...company in the world because of its international markets activities is considered as a multinational Oil company Headquartered in London and as a largest producer of oil and gas in the North of America. (BP) The company has huge market impact, which gives it notable trading performance in the global energy industry. (BP). Their structure is set up through two main operating segments, Upstream and Downstream, in which BP finds, develops and produces vital sources of energy, turning them into products that we need. BP also buys and sells at each stage of the hydrocarbon value chain which is a series of processes to transform hydrocarbons from a basic natural resource into the complex fuels and materials which our modern world depends on. They also have stake in renewable energy that include biofuels and wind. The products and services they provide customers with vary form fuel for transportation, energy for heat and light, all way to lubricants to keep engines running, and the petrochemicals products used to make everyday items as different as paints, clothes and packaging (BP). The first of two key factors that can and have affected the success of BP is one we all probably have heard of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. According National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling report it was the largest offshore oil spill in US history. This...
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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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...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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...largest oil and gas company which has its headquarter in London, England. The initial name of BP is the Anglo-Persian Oil Company in 1909; in 1954 it changed to its present name British Petroleum. It is combined and reconstructed by the former British Petroleum, Amoco and ARCO (Atlantic Richfield Company). BP’s business has spread to many fields including oil and natural gas, alternative fuels, the production of petroleum based product, aviation fuels and its business about the solar electric power generation is also growing very fast. Since 1981, BP has set up 12 branch companies successively in many fields such as mineral, food, ship, international finance, international detergent with its business spread to more than a hundred countries all over the world. BP has nearly 110,000 employees work all over the world. In 2003, BP is ranked on the FORTUNE as the first five global top 500 companies. Deepwater horizon oil spill and deepwater horizon explosion On 20th April, 2010, the Gulf of Mexico suffered a lot from a great catastrophe of oil spill. The drilling platform of the British Petroleum Corporation exploded in the deepwater horizon in the Gulf of Mexico which led to 11 workers death and very severe environment pollution. This event is regarded as the most severe oil spill incident in the history of America.。 Many people are curious about this catastrophe and people did not know what cause it and what actions would BP take. According to the inspection report BP made on...
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...BP Deep-water Horizon Oil Spill Public Relations BP Deep-water Horizon Oil Spill: Executive Summary The Deepwater Horizon oil spill or the BP oil spill was a disaster in the Gulf of Mexico that took place in the Macondo Prospect. Macondo Prospect was a BP operated project, and one of the oil spill disasters that has been considered to be one of the most destructive accidents on marine environment. In fact, it has been considered the most expensive and life threatening accident in the petroleum industry. The disaster was an explosion in a deep-sea oil drilling facility owned by BP Company, in which the resultant explosion caused the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon oilrig, killing 11 people in the incident. The disaster let free a gush of oil from under the seabed, flowing for an estimated three months. The result of the BP oil disaster was indeed catastrophic not just too marine life, but also to all other sectors of the economy that depended either directly or indirectly on marine environment (Alexander, 2010). In what remained to be a disaster, the wellhead had continued to gush oil for up to 87 days before a team finally succeeded in July 2010. By this time, it was estimated that the oil spill had discharged approximately 4.9 million barrels, a quantity estimated to be 780,000 cubic meters. By this time, marine life had been put in jeopardy while a lot others had died, or been seriously affected. Apart from marine and wildlife habitats...
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...British Petroleum Communication Problems inside BP Submitted by: Date: December 4, 2014 Memo 12/4/14 Jeff Lewis Metropolitan State University of Denver 890 Auraria Parkway Denver, CO 80204 Dear Jeff: Enclosed is my report on British Petroleum and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. This report shows how BP cut corners to expedite construction and save millions of dollars. As a result, the biggest oil spill in United States occurred. Due to the reckless conduct of BP, the corners cut by the people in charge ended up costing them billions of dollars as well as endangering the habitat and wildlife in the area. After reading this report you will realize BP’s CEO Tony Hayward, all the way down to the engineers in charge of everyday operations were to blame for the worse oil tragedy in our history. Sincerely, Executive Summary This is a report on how British Petroleum has failed in many areas of business communications. It’s going to include 3 main points that will explain in detail on how British Petroleum had bad communication and how it ended up creating history’s biggest oil spill in the United States in the Gulf of Mexico. The 3 main points include: 1. Pre-Event Planning a. Anticipate, Prepare, Practice b. “Safety” Not a Core Value c. Responsibility of Employees 2. Expressing Concern and Wrongful Focus a. Slow in Expressing Concern b. Lack of Sympathy to...
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...largest oil and gas company which has its headquarter in London, England. The initial name of BP is the Anglo-Persian Oil Company in 1909; in 1954 it changed to its present name British Petroleum. It is combined and reconstructed by the former British Petroleum, Amoco and ARCO (Atlantic Richfield Company). BP’s business has spread to many fields including oil and natural gas, alternative fuels, the production of petroleum based product, aviation fuels and its business about the solar electric power generation is also growing very fast. Since 1981, BP has set up 12 branch companies successively in many fields such as mineral, food, ship, international finance, international detergent with its business spread to more than a hundred countries all over the world. BP has nearly 110,000 employees work all over the world. In 2003, BP is ranked on the FORTUNE as the first five global top 500 companies. Deepwater horizon oil spill and deepwater horizon explosion On 20th April, 2010, the Gulf of Mexico suffered a lot from a great catastrophe of oil spill. The drilling platform of the British Petroleum Corporation exploded in the deepwater horizon in the Gulf of Mexico which led to 11 workers death and very severe environment pollution. This event is regarded as the most severe oil spill incident in the history of America.。 Many people are curious about this catastrophe and people did not know what cause it and what actions would BP take. According to the inspection report BP made on...
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...largest oil and gas company which has its headquarter in London, England. The initial name of BP is the Anglo-Persian Oil Company in 1909; in 1954 it changed to its present name British Petroleum. It is combined and reconstructed by the former British Petroleum, Amoco and ARCO (Atlantic Richfield Company). BP’s business has spread to many fields including oil and natural gas, alternative fuels, the production of petroleum based product, aviation fuels and its business about the solar electric power generation is also growing very fast. Since 1981, BP has set up 12 branch companies successively in many fields such as mineral, food, ship, international finance, international detergent with its business spread to more than a hundred countries all over the world. BP has nearly 110,000 employees work all over the world. In 2003, BP is ranked on the FORTUNE as the first five global top 500 companies. Deepwater horizon oil spill and deepwater horizon explosion On 20th April, 2010, the Gulf of Mexico suffered a lot from a great catastrophe of oil spill. The drilling platform of the British Petroleum Corporation exploded in the deepwater horizon in the Gulf of Mexico which led to 11 workers death and very severe environment pollution. This event is regarded as the most severe oil spill incident in the history of America.。 Many people are curious about this catastrophe and people did not know what cause it and what actions would BP take. According to the inspection report BP made on...
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...As oil continues to rise to the surface in the Gulf of Mexico, BP’s public reputation continues to fall. Its name is becoming synonymous with this environmental disaster much in the way that Exxon’s name was tainted in the wake of the Valdez tanker catastrophe in 1989. This is especially ironic given the recent effort that BP has made to brand itself as a “green” company that balances oil and gas exploration with the development of alternative energy technology. I believe that the problem BP is facing in the aftermath of this disaster is a result of a lack of strong ethical guidance. Instead of doing the right thing, it appears that BP’s management has resorted to arguing the issue of liability in the court of public opinion. BP’s C.E.O., Tony Hayward, has recently said, “This was not our accident.” He has pointed to Transocean, the rig owner, and Halliburton, the company that constructed the concrete encasement that sealed the well, as the true culprits. While company lawyers would be negligent if they failed to advise BP to avoid accepting legal responsibility for the disaster, this does not mean that BP should publicly blame others. It appears that the company’s public relations and legal positions have become entangled with BP resorting to finger pointing as its chief strategy. Such actions should be reserved for the courtroom, not the media. People are expecting BP to express sorrow and regret for the disaster, not cast blame and divert attention from its own actions...
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...Ethics in the Workplace Case Study: BP Oil Spill On April 20, 2010 off the Gulf of Mexico, there was a blowout of the Macondo well which is owned by British Petroleum also known as BP. When the blowout took place it got immediate media attention because aspects of the event were known over the world. Within events transpiring it was discovered how limited the resources and reaction to the disaster was going to be. This paper will detail aspects of the event from symptoms of the problem, the root cause, important unresolved issues, roles of the organization’s key players and stakeholders, and explain the focus of specific ethical systems. Also discussed in this paper are relevant strategies and alternatives, the effect of globalization on the choice of preferred alternatives, the most valid alternative and resolution recommendations, and an example of a successful implementation of the solution. Symptoms of the Problem Natural disasters or any disaster of any kind is hard to manage just for the purpose that these is no real planning for the situation and there is no real way to say who is in charge when a disaster happens. Concerning the oil spill with British Petroleum (BP) symptoms for the situation was that there was a delayed response, the impact on the environment and the citizens, federal regulations were lax, and the recovery efforts were not adequate. According to Griggs (2011), OPA 90 is a federal statute that holds all the responsible parties in containment, clean-up...
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