Reference no: EM133187575

For this assignment, please read Case 2.7 - "BP and the Deepwater Horizon Explosion: Safety First" in your Jennings textbook (pages 66-78). After you have read the case, please document a brief summary of the overall case, identifying key organizational concerns. In your analysis of the case, please make sure to highlight the key ethical issues faced and the negative outcomes of those unethical behaviors or decisions. Make sure to incorporate insights you have gained from your readings, specifically highlighting different ethical and/or management models. As possible, please relate these ethical challenges and/or outcomes to your own professional experience.

Case:

BP and the Deepwater Horizon Explosion: Safety First? Background and Nature of Market BP PLC is a holding company with three operating segments: Exploration and Production; Refining and Marketing; and Gas, Power, and Renewables. Exploration and Production's together with pipeline transportation and natural gas processing. Refining and Marketing includes oil supply and trading, as well as refining and petrochemicals manufacturing and marketing, including the marketing and trading of natural gas. BP is also involved in low- carbon power development, including solar and wholesale marketing and trading (BP Alter- native Energy). BP has a presence in 100 countries and employs 96,000 people in these countries. It has nearly 24,000 retail service stations around the world, and its stations sell coffee made from fair-trade beans. It is the second largest oil company in the world and one of the world's ten largest corporations. Until 2007, BP had been a perennial favorite of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and environmental groups. For example, Business Ethics named BP the world's most admired company and one of its top corporate citizens. Green Investors named BP its top company because of BP's continuing commitment to investment in alternative energy sources. BP lists its social and community policy as follows: Objectives • • • • To earn and build our reputation as a responsible corporate citizen To promote and help the company achieve its business objectives To encourage and promote employee involvement in community upliftment To contribute to social and economic development BP has been recognized for its work in helping AIDS victims in Africa. BP Alternative Energy was launched in 2005 and anticipates investing some $8 billion in BP Alternative Energy over the next decade, reinforcing its determination to grow its businesses "beyond petroleum." In July 2006, BP and GE announced their intention to jointly develop and deploy hydrogen power projects that dramatically reduce emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from electricity generation. Vivienne Cox, BP's Chief Executive of Gas, Power, and Renewables, said, on announcing the joint venture, "The combination of our two compa- nies' skills and resources in this area is formidable, and is the latest example of our intent to make a real difference in the face of the challenge of climate change."8 There were issues that belied BP's good-citizen status. In 2001, BP admitted that it had hired private investigators to collect information on Greenpeace and The Body Shop. Also in 2001, its annual meeting created a stir when a shareholder proposal to stop the erection of a pipeline in mainline China was defeated when the board of direc- tors opposed the proposal. BP's political donations were also a controversial and newsworthy subject until it abandoned the practice with the following statement: In early 2002 the company Chairman, Lord Browne, announced that it will no longer make donations to political parties anywhere in the world. In a speech to the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Browne, [sic] said "we have to remember that however large our turnover might be, we still have no democratic legitimacy anywhere in the world.... We've decided, as a global policy, that from now on we will make no political contributions from corporate funds anywhere in the world." However, BP will continue to parti- cipate in industry lobbying campaigns and the funding of think-tanks. "We will engage in the policy debate, stating our views and encouraging the development of ideas-but we won't fund any political activity or any political party," he said. In response to a question, Browne said that over the long term donations to political parties were not effective.