...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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...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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...Stephanie Angulo AC1408307 SC260.2.1 Introduction to Ecology Assignment 8: Ecological Crisis of the BP Oil Spill April 25th 2015 On April 20th, 2010, a massive offshore drilling rig, formal known as the Deepwater Horizon, exploded and set fire. The explosion caused oil pipes to burst and spill thousands of barrels of oil into the Golf of Mexico. According to Do Something, an environmental website, have reported the death and injury of 28, more than 8,000 animals dead within six months, and 16,000 miles of coastline pollution (11 facts about BP oil spill). The BP oil spill has since became one of the worst ecological disaster in America's history. People living near the coast line has been affected due to polluted air and water. Many children had been sick and they had problem breathing fresh air. There were several issues with this oil spill: professional issues, ethics and new technology issues, legal, regulatory and political, safety issues, and environmental issues. If BP would have taken care of all these issues there had been no oil spill. The oil spill is the result of a series of events that eventually led to tens of thousands of barrels of petroleum to be leaked into the gulf. In September, BP released a report that analyzed the events leading up to the incident. The report shows that the fire was caused by a release of hydrocarbons from the well, and them onto the oil rig (BP internal investgation team) The Deepwater horizon was equipped with fail-safe mechanisms in case...
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...Leeds BP Oil Spill In this essay I will discuss one of the largest class-action settlements ever. It was also the nations worst offshore oil spill in history. Lastly, everyone in the region was directly affected by BP negligence . The Deepwater Horizon oil spill, also known as the BP Oil spill started on April 20th , 2010. It began when pressure from a well a mile below the ocean blew up a massive drilling rig. Unfortunately, the oil spill killed 11 men and left 17 injured and many others were affected by the spewing oil that was in the sea for over 85 days. It was successfully sealed when engineers finally closed the cap on July 15th stopping the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The spill was running across the Northern Gulf of Mexico between the mouth of the Mississippi River and Florida. The Deepwater Horizon well was leaking 5,000 barrels per day, 13,000 feet under the seabed. This threatened the coastlines, shut down fishing across the affected areas, and was damaging habitats and animals were in jeopardy. This was a major problem because the majority of the community where the spill was affecting rely off of the revenue from the water and fishing. Many people in these communities have lost their jobs due to the spill, many business that have been passed down generation to generation are gone and may never come back to this region. People in these areas are really affected by BP negligence. So many people have lost their only way of surviving. BP has made...
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...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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...During April 2010, BP was involved in the largest oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry. The spill brought about plenty of pollution to the marine wildlife and destroyed Gulf’s fishing and tourism industries. Accordingly, the government established a panel to look into the accident. The investigation result indicated that the accident was unavoidable because of serious of blunders involved in drilling the well. In this essay, I will examine the communication problem that occurred and explore key causes and symptoms related to the problem. Bad management and communication breakdown by BP and its partners are partly to blame for the oil disaster. However, it was BP who was the main culprit for failing to ensure its cost cutting measures did not further increase risks in a dangerous environment. All involved companies were struggling with poor communication between each other, as they failed to share important information. One of the major questions being asked was who was in charge of the command portion of the operations. Some assumed it was BP and its partners while others concluded it to be the government. This confusion lead to all parties pointing the finger at each other rather than finding a plan to control the situation. One of the causes for the oil spill was an engineering one, as many equipments were failed to be inspected on schedule. Poor communication was another cause, as no one had a big picture of what was going on. No structure or plan was put in...
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...British Petroleum’s Deep Water Horizon rig explosion infested the Gulf of Mexico, its surrounding coastline, and its inhabitants. The U.S. officials have labeled this incident as an accident. However, preceding events suggest otherwise. A causal argument attempts to demonstrate the believed relationship between actions and certain results. Due to neglect and financial greed, the livelihood of thousands was threatened. Transocean Ltd is the world's largest offshore drilling contractor. It rents floating mobile drill rigs, equipment, and personnel to oil and gas companies. The Deep Water Horizon oilrig was owned by Transocean and leased to BP when the explosion occurred. For three months oil gushed into the Gulf of Mexico. Remote causes are events in the past that link to the future. An example of this in the case of the BP oil spill was the diminished work level of the organization that looks over the proper management of oilrigs. Due to the continual persuasion by profit-driven US corporate and financial elite, US government made it acceptable for the required work level of Mineral Management Service (MMS) to dwindle between 2005 and 2009. As a result, the safety regulations for workers and the environment were left up to drilling organizations. The lack of a constraining factor to stabilize safety resulted in negligence as the drilling companies found it cheaper and more convenient to assume that all operations were going well. As a result, the effectiveness of the rig blow...
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...The Unsafe Culture of BP The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has been called the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history. The British Petroleum Company (BP) gulf spill started in April of 2010, and was first contained in July of 2010; it took the company 2 months to actually start the process of containing the spill. The Associated Press and The New York Times, reported that a total of 94 to 184 million gallons of oil were unleashed on the shores off the Gulf. This disaster has caused controversial topics to arise as to what the BP company is doing in preventing these disasters or if they are even taking any precaution to that notion. Critics say that BP has had a very bad track record when it comes to safety. It is a risky company that has grown too fast. They have had accidents like the one of BP’s most troubled refineries, which lies, in the State of Texas, which also had its fair share of explosions. BP now faces the largest liabilities in corporate history. All of what BP seems to be doing is shutting their workers mouths with money they cannot refuse but money that has no affect on the company’s profits. BP must change their culture of deadly accidents, disastrous oil spills, and countless safety violations. The Texas BP refinery had an “accident” in 2005 where 15 people died in an explosion and fire, 170 others where injured. Afterwards there were charges that BP management valued profits more than safety. BP acquired the 12,000-acre refinery in 1999 as part of...
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...KENSINGTON COLLEG OF BUSINESS AND UNIVERSITY OF WALES BP Market Analysis and Strategic Marketing Recommendations In the USA after the Gulf of Mexico Oil spill Nahid Mohsen Pour 2/28/2011 Contains: 2962 words Without charts, content, references, tables In this essay, I am performing Macro environmental analysis of BP business in the USA, after the gulf of Mexico oil spill, and also try to give Strategic Marketing recommendations to recover from the so called “Marketing disaster in the USA market” Nahid Mohsen Pour Table of Contents Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 4 Approach ............................................................................................................................................. 4 Importance of Marketing ..................................................................................................................... 4 Part I: Macro Environmental Analysis of BP business in the USA after the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill ............ 5 Political Analysis .............................................................................................................................. 5 Economical Analysis ......................................................................................................................... 5 Social Analysis..........................................................................
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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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...profit-maximising and cost-minimisation objectives have raised ethical concerns, such as pollution, child labour, workers’ salary below minimum wage, over working hours, welfare discrimination, etc. This essay is going to discuss the recent case of “BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico” in 2010 that has got many attentions of countries and international actors including some INGOs and WTO. The US president Barrack Obama has compared the Gulf of Mexico oil spill to the September 11 terrorist attacks as he began a tour of the region: "In the same way that our view of our vulnerabilities and our foreign policy was shaped profoundly by 9/11, I think this disaster is going to shape how we think about the environment and energy for many years to come”, said Obama (Telegraph, 2010). We will use the four well-known moral frameworks discussed throughout the semester (utilitarianism, contractualism, ethics of virtue and deontology) to analyse why and how heavy the impact that disaster had on society under different points of view across international actors and the BP company itself. I. The Facts On April 20, 2010, the methane gas from the well, under high pressure, shot all the way up and out of the drill column, expanded onto the platform, and exploded. According to the global views, BP’s oil spill in Mexico was the biggest and the worst environmental disaster in the petroleum industry (even worse than 1989 Exxon Valdez Case). The explosion polluted hundreds of miles of coast, seriously...
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...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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...Emily Jesulaitis POL201a Seminar Six Essay Test Dr. Jane Bryant Baker College Domestic policy has always been a part of public debates in our nation. These policies range from simple laws such as what should be the speed limit, to complex ones involving how to protect the environment or how to regulate healthcare. There are several types of domestic policies. There are regulatory policies that seek to explain what is legal and what is not legal. Promotional policy seeks to raise or discourage many economic or social activities through tax breaks. There is a redistributive policy that transfers income from certain individuals or groups to others; this is grounded on the certainty that these transfers will develop fairness. All in all these policies are created in response to public demand for government action. (Bardes, Shelley, and Schmidt. Page 449) In 2010, about 49 million Americans did not have health insurance. This was partly due to many small businesses not providing health care through work. Health care insurance has high costs and many could simply not afford it. The Affordable Care Act of 2009 was put in form to give people health care that needs security in case of a sudden illness or to get medications. The matters Congress sought to address in this law were the rising healthcare costs for individuals and businesses, the inability of individuals to obtain affordable, quality coverage, a broken healthcare delivery system and abuses by the insurance industry...
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...Prepared for: Mr. Jubred A. Peñano BP Course no: BE F06 International Training Program, Banking Academy Prepared by: Dương Thị Mỹ Hạnh – Class F06B Registration No: ITP F06-039 No of word: Submission Date: 7th November 2013 Executive summary In recent year, the world economic is being stressful; all of economy activities are difficult. A lot of big and small companies fall into bankruptcy. Therefore, in order to maintain and develop the business, companies need to have reasonable strategy and also consider about the internal factors, external factors around the company. British Petroleum is one of the biggest oil companies in the world, it is also affected by the economic crisis. Hence, Bp should understand about the current situation of company to give more strategy which help develop the firm in the future. This report was carried out through the BP website, books and newspapers what relate to the BP’s information. Moreover, the report also provides more information of BP such as vision, mission, goal, value, objectives, BP's environmental and economic situation in the UK. Besides that, this information what was given in this report: * Evaluate the extent BP what it has achieved the objectives of stakeholders * Responsibility of Bp with the factors around the company * Analyst policies in UK what influence to run business * Evaluate economy system allocation of resources and way to use. Introduction British Petroleum- England’...
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...A Study of Shell Oil and its Stakeholders in Nigeria Part 1 (Week Six) A Review of Basic Issues Regarding the Background and Interests of Stakeholders of Shell Oil Company in Nigeria Chapter 1 Introduction The complexity of understanding the Shell Nigeria oil spill and applying critical analysis and leadership theories to the problem is a challenging debate. A reader would tend to assume that Shell is at fault and should take all the blame for this corporate and ecological mess. Therefore, the introduction needs to provide the reader with sufficient historical information and background of stakeholders such as Royal Dutch Shell Company, Nigeria (country), Niger Delta (province of Nigeria) and its directly affected tribal communities of the oil spill. The introduction is thorough as to avoid explaining in other key elements of this research paper. The Royal Dutch Shell was ranked No1 as the largest organisation in the world in 2012 by Global 500. Shell has boosted its first quarter earnings of 2012 by 11% compared to that of 2011. Shells long term projects that have just commenced creating; a gas to liquids plant in Qatar and further projects in Canadian oil sands, have in part contributed to these revenues. Royal Dutch Shell has 87000 employees globally (Global 500, 2012) The first Shell Company in Nigeria was started in 1936 by The Royal Dutch/Shell Group. The Royal Dutch/Shell Group then founded Shell D’Arcy. Two years later in November 1928...
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