...BP and the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill: Individual Case Analysis of Organizational Culture Introduction There are many issues that can be observed and assessed in the case which has come to be known as the largest oil spill in History. BP’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill incident brought attention to the kind of culture that U.S. government officials, industry regulatory agencies, and all oil-drilling firms created and fostered. With an industry climate that cared more about production rather than safety and environmental protective efforts, it was easier for drilling companies to make a great deal of flawed decisions in their business practices. If efforts to change the industry culture and implement better standards of operations do not come into play, the likelihood of such a similar event could happen again. As we look in to BP’s earlier years and identify their decision making pattern that were established while adapting to endless changes in their external environments, we will be able to better assess what the organizational culture was like at BP. Looking at the industry as a whole, we can assess how the actions of political parties and regulatory agencies influenced and shaped the culture for many firms operating in that industry. BP was always trying to cut costs wherever possible, worked hard to meet demands, and continuously exploring deeper water drilling opportunities. This type of behavior allowed BP to be an industry leader. With new environmental issues arising...
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...BP Case and The Gulf of Mexico Jorge Salazar Hawaii Pacific University MGMT 6000 September 23, 2015 BP Case and The Gulf of Mexico Introduction The BP case concerning the Gulf of Mexico dealt with the second largest company in the world at that time (2010), it was founded in 1908 and it had more than 92,000 employees. Deepwater Horizon had two main components, owned and operated by offshore oil drilling company (Transocean) and it was leased by BP Oil Company. The BP oil spill occurred in April 20, 2010, there were three major cracks that spilled the crude oil into the ocean. The blast occurred approximately 41 miles from the Louisiana coast. The leaked continued for about three months after the explosion from the Macondo well, it was estimated that anywhere between 35,000 to 60,000 barrels per day were leaked, it is estimated that after all was said and done, approximately 4.9 million barrels were spilled. It is also important to mention that 11 workers died when this explosion happened. When the spill happened it affected a lot more than BP was expecting; it wasn’t just the Gulf of Mexico sea life (sea turtles, marine mammals, coral and fisheries), but it also affected all of the shores of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. When it hit all of these states, it affected their tourism, fishing, food, and healthcare just to name a few of the things. President Barack Obama stated, “Already, this oil spill is the worst environmental disaster America has...
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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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...BP and The Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Jose Roberto Dominguez Dr. Ken Rossi MGMT 6000 A (CRN: 1535) September 20, 2015 Table of Contents Case Introduction and Background 3 BP or Industry Failure 4 Most Significant Flawed Decisions 5 Did BP lack the appropriate safety culture? 8 References 12 BP and The Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Case Introduction and Background This particular case study created an abundance of unanswered questions for me to consider and made me realize how poorly we are at regulating industries that continue to deplete our natural resources and yet don’t even prepare for when disasters strikes. The details of this case are alarming for a number of reasons and the most critical point that resonates throughout the entire paper, is that profit margins exceed any other concerns, to the point that even death could not convince them to make the changes to their company culture. The cycle of errors came to a complete pause, on the evening of April 20, 2010 when a “serious of explosions rocked the Deepwater Horizon, a mobile offshore drilling rig operated by BP in the Gulf of Mexico” according to (Roberto Pg.1) and one that saw a serious of catastrophically events, that would change the lives of many. That fateful night under the cover of darkness, eleven people died and several other encountered injuries that required medical attention and rescue. This occurred as direct fault of equipment, when the blowout preventer failed. The device is designed...
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...BP and accident waiting to happen: * Alwin Landry, the 41-year-old Cajun captain of the Damon B. Bankston. Oil transport ship. Using a big hose to load crude oil, uses a crane to move the hose. * Big fire at the oil rig. * Curt Kuchta, the 34-year-old captain of the Horizon. Other ship at the incident. * Anthony Gervasio, the Bankston’s engineer, was in the engine room when he heard what sounded like a “blown tire, times 100,” * Second larger explosion. * Captain Landry was still in the wheelhouse. He had just given the order to disconnect the hose, but now he wasn’t sure he could wait. Once he saw the crew giving thumbs up, he left. * Horizon crew members were abandoning ship — leaping from the main deck, plummeting 70 feet into the sea. * At 10:04 p.m., Landry banged out an e-mail to the BP control room in Houston * The giant rig would burn for two days, listing more and more until finally it tipped and sank. * Some 206 million gallons of oil would pour into the gulf before BP finally stanched the flow * Today the Macondo well, named for a cursed town in a Gabriel García Márquez novel, is sealed and abandoned. It’s a graveyard for 11 men, a dump for what remains of the Deepwater Horizon, and a haunting symbol of excessive faith in the safety of deep water drilling. It’s also an enduring mystery. * It’s not easy to blow up a rig. Too many mistakes both big and small have to be made. * Experts will debate the precise cause...
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...Assignment 3 Ivory Harris PharmaCARE Scenario Strayer University Prof. Campbell Stakeholders Describe the key characteristics of a stakeholder and determine all the stakeholders within the PharmaCARE scenario. The primary stakeholders in a typical corporation are its investors, employees, customers and suppliers. According to Project Management Tips (PMTips.net/blog/defining-stakeholders, n.d.), some of the key characteristics of a stakeholder is a) a person who stands to gain or lose through the success or failure of the project, a ROI b) provides funding for the project c) has invested resources in the project, d) is affected by the outputs of the project, e) is in the “chain of accountability”. The stakeholders within the PharmaCARE scenario would be the CEO, PharmaCARE’s executives and its Shareholders/stockholders of the company. Analyze the human rights issues presented by PharmaCARE’s treatment of the Colberia’s indigenous population versus that of its executives. Recommend at least three (3) changes PharmaCARE can make to be more ethical going forward. Corporations are expanding their business enterprise to less regulated poorer countries where they can violate human rights with the cooperation of that countries government, and make the officials rich. The corporations are setting up businesses in other countries where the indigenous people of that area are poor, often living in less than standard conditions and working for huge corporations...
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...The risk oversight function of the board has gained immense importance in the last few years, mainly due to the collapse of the financial sector in 2008. Today, risk management has become even more critical and challenging. Companies are now confronted with risks that are more complex, interconnected and potentially devastating than ever before. BP’s ostensible lack of consideration for the risks involved in exploration drilling contributed to large-scale disasters which, in turn, highlighted a catalogue of corporate governance failures. The repercussions have been multifold as liabilities in the form of cleanup costs and reimbursements for lost livelihoods continue to mount. Alongside this, shareholder confidence has waned considerably – BP share price suffered its lowest in fourteen years in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill in 2010. The 2010 explosion was...
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...the personal well-being of its customers.” (Richard Levick???) As product competition increases, it is necessary for a firm to acknowledge that it operates in a shared environment. A company’s success often depends on the perception of its consumers, shareholders, and employees; therefore, its top-leaders must build and shape the company’s reputation in a strategic manner by developing socially responsible practices. When consumers feel their needs and values are not taking into consideration, they will spend money with the competitor; unhappy shareholders will invest elsewhere, and employees will become unproductive or will quit if their needs fail to be met. Corporate negligence has caused several large businesses, like Nestlé, BP, and Dow Chemical to undergo intense scrutiny in the past and have suffered serious repercussions. For instance,...
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...by Fred Sand Professor Newcomb, Legal – 500 February 27, 2014 compared The remainder of the document will discuss and examine law suites held against PharmaCARE and various ethical dilemmas the company may encounter. On August 17, 1997, executives around northern New Jersey’s drug corridor, where most of the international Pharmaceutical companies have their headquarters, mobilized for action” (Aitken & Holt, 2000, p. 82). According to Aitken and Holt (2000), this was the day that the US Food and Drug Administration issued temporary guidelines the, for the first time, permitting the drug makers to specify the uses of their prescription remedies in their radio and television advertisements (p. 82). Marketing and advertisement has been around almost since the beginning of time. One of the ethical dilemmas concerning television and radio advertisements for prescription drugs is the potential for the consumer to self-prescribe or evaluate their symptoms. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (2013), doctors believe that patients understand that they need to consult a health care professional about appropriate treatment (p.1). On the other hand, it could be possible for the patient to adapt their own symptoms for the sake of obtaining a desired medication. “Intellectual property (IP) is the work product of the human mind. Novels, paintings, computer programs, songs and inventions are all examples” (Halbert & Ingulli, 2012, p. 316). “Activist...
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...Brief 1. Advance Operations * 90 % behavior and 10% what you know, that’s why the teacher tells us that in businesses, machines are very easy to learn inside out but when the people comes in the picture is when we have a problem. Behavior has a massive content in respect to success. * A sense of leadership combined with strong authority causes people to lift their spirit up and wakes up a sense of fellowship. * In Shackleton’s time there wasn't a lot of knowledge on those technologies being used. That combined with the pressure of the countries competing with each other to discover places around the world. * These competition kind of resembles todays fight in the automobile industry.Efficient use of time , as explained and used in operations is a very important way to find improvement. * Gravity waves: These waves are generated in a fluid medium or at the interface between two media when the force of gravity. An example of such an interface is that between the atmosphere and the ocean, which gives rise to wind waves. * Examples of leadership in Shackleton’s: He Invented the power bar ( found the right logistics for food), as a leader you have to seek informal contact at times which is more important at times that formal contact. * As a leader you can never extinguish HOPE . Is a vital element to lift up the spirit. * Competitiveness in...
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...companies must manage b oth. 68 HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW by Douglas B. Holt, John A. Quelch, and Earl LTaylor I More than two decades ago, Harvard Business School professor Theodore Levitt provocatively declared in a 1983 HBR article, "The Globalization of Markets" that a global market for uniform products and services had emerged. He argued that corporations should exploit the "economics of simplicity" and grow by selling standardized products all over the world. Although Levitt did not explicitly discuss branding, managers interpreted his ideas to mean that transnational companies should standardize products, packaging, and communication to achieve a leastcommon denominator positioning that would be effective across cultures. From that commonsense standpoint, global branding was only about saving costs and ensuring consistent customer communication. The idea proved popular in the 1980s, when several countries opened up to foreign competition and American and Japanese corporations tried to penetrate those markets with global brands and marketing programs. T'S TIME TO RETHINK GLOBAL BRANDING. While the world economy continued to integrate, experiments with global branding soon slowed. Consumers SEPTEMBER 2004 in most countries had trouble relating to the generic products and communications that resulted from companies' least-common-denominator thinking. Executives therefore rushed to fashion hybrid strategies. They strove for global scale on...
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...Final Report on the Investigation of the Macondo Well Blowout Deepwater Horizon Study Group March 1, 2011 The Deepwater Horizon Study Group (DHSG) was formed by members of the Center for Catastrophic Risk Management (CCRM) in May 2010 in response to the blowout of the Macondo well on April 20, 2010. A fundamental premise in the DHSG work is: we look back to understand the why‘s and how‘s of this disaster so we can better understand how best to go forward. The goal of the DHSG work is defining how to best move forward – assessing what major steps are needed to develop our national oil and gas resources in a reliable, responsible, and accountable manner. Deepwater Horizon Study Group Investigation of the Macondo Well Blowout Disaster This Page Intentionally Left Blank Deepwater Horizon Study Group Investigation of the Macondo Well Blowout Disaster In Memoriam Jason Anderson Senior tool pusher Dewey Revette Driller Stephen Curtis Assistant driller Donald Clark Assistant driller Dale Burkeen Crane operator Karl Kleppinger Roughneck Adam Weise Roughneck Shane Roshto Roughneck Wyatt Kemp Derrick man Gordon Jones Mud engineer Blair Manuel Mud engineer 1 Deepwater Horizon Study Group Investigation of the Macondo Well Blowout Disaster In Memoriam The Environment 2 Deepwater Horizon Study Group Investigation of the Macondo Well Blowout Disaster Table of Contents In Memoriam....................................................................
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...companies must manage both. 68 HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW by Douglas B. Holt, John A. Quelch, and Earl LTaylor I More than two decades ago, Harvard Business School professor Theodore Levitt provocatively declared in a 1983 HBR article, "The Globalization of Markets" that a global market for uniform products and services had emerged. He argued that corporations should exploit the "economics of simplicity" and grow by selling standardized products all over the world. Although Levitt did not explicitly discuss branding, managers interpreted his ideas to mean that transnational companies should standardize products, packaging, and communication to achieve a leastcommon denominator positioning tbat would be effective across cultures. From that commonsense standpoint, global branding was only about saving costs and ensuring consistent customer communication. The idea proved popular in the 1980s, wben several countries opened up to foreign competition and American and Japanese corporations tried to penetrate those markets with global brands and marketing programs. T'S TIME TO RETHINK GLOBAL BRANDING. While tbe world economy continued to integrate, experiments with global branding soon slowed. Consumers SEPTEMBER 2004 in most countries bad trouble relating to the generic products and communications tbat resulted from companies' least-common-denominator thinking. Executives therefore rushed to fashion hybrid strategies. They strove for global scale on...
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...companies must manage both. 68 HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW by Douglas B. Holt, John A. Quelch, and Earl LTaylor I More than two decades ago, Harvard Business School professor Theodore Levitt provocatively declared in a 1983 HBR article, "The Globalization of Markets" that a global market for uniform products and services had emerged. He argued that corporations should exploit the "economics of simplicity" and grow by selling standardized products all over the world. Although Levitt did not explicitly discuss branding, managers interpreted his ideas to mean that transnational companies should standardize products, packaging, and communication to achieve a leastcommon denominator positioning that would be effective across cultures. From that commonsense standpoint, global branding was only about saving costs and ensuring consistent customer communication. The idea proved popular in the 1980s, when several countries opened up to foreign competition and American and Japanese corporations tried to penetrate those markets with global brands and marketing programs. T'S TIME TO RETHINK GLOBAL BRANDING. While the world economy continued to integrate, experiments with global branding soon slowed. Consumers SEPTEMBER 2004 in most countries had trouble relating to the generic products and communications that resulted from companies' least-common-denominator thinking. Executives therefore rushed to fashion hybrid strategies. They strove for global scale on...
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...offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common. This type of work belongs to a category called affective labor. Types of Advertisement Slice of life advertising: This is an advertising-copy technique where a real life problem is presented in a dramatic situation and the item being advertised becomes the solution to the problem. Clips of people from different walks of life strung together with the flow of music – random emotions, religions and relations shown together is what we can call a slice of life. For eg; the ICICI ad – “bande achhe hain”, “Hamaara” Bajaj and Hero Splendor's “sago se bhi saga hai tu” are good examples of this type of advertisement. These advertisements have shown the unity, religion and culture of India. Slice of life can be topic based, for eg – Colas and Dairy milk ads during cricket world cups showing the passion of India. Montage: When we make a creative ad, we take stories and not situations and then we edit them to make the ad simple. For eg, “ TATA salt- Desh ka namak” . Mary Kom, who is a figure of strength, inspiration and courage for many Indians and who has proved her loyalty towards India has endorsed Tata Namak which depicts the qualities that Tata Namak also has and hence it has proved to be desh ka namak. All slice of life are montages but not all montages are slice of life. A full story is shown and then it is edited and broadcasted....
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