Bp’s Ethical Culture That Could Have Contributed to the Gulf Coast Oil Spill Disaster
We will go through the BP business context and culture, safety aspect, organization capability, responsiveness and risk assessment aspects of their ethical culture, result from the management and caused the disaster.
BP Business Context and ethical culture:
From the BP management employer aspects, they are not follow some mechanical level, safety procedure over and ignored which required by Act (e.g. Clean Air Act) over 8 year for their production. At the end the huge explosion occurred in March 2005. Because of the hydrocarbon liquid leakage and vapor, the ignition explosion result of the accident. They failed to give the safeguards protection tools to protect employees, this accident killing employees and injured people in Texas oil refinery. And the other issue of the Alaskan oil pipelines leaked; their culture also reflect the safety negligence in their operation and management. Not check the pipelines by routine maintenance. BP management did not doing any corrective action on the contract worker discovered the first pipeline leak in March of 2006, (e.g. whole stop the pipelines operation for checking details), still waiting the leakage happen on August 2006. And in October 2007 another spill in Prudhoe Bay, once again showing that BP was ignored the maintenance equipment and the safety level of the production. In 2010, violations again at BP facilities (at Ohio factory), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) found that workers might be exposed to injury or death should explosive or flammable chemicals be released at an Ohio factory. The BP working environment have the characteristic that is resistance to change, lack of trust and motivation; unclear expectations about supervisory and management behaviors, led to rules not being followed consistently and no initiating improvements. Management did not set or consistently reinforce process safety, operations performance and systematic to reduce the risk. e.g. neglected the safety
BP Business Context and ethical culture:
From the BP management employer aspects, they are not follow some mechanical level, safety procedure over and ignored which required by Act (e.g. Clean Air Act) over 8 year for their production. At the end the huge explosion occurred in March 2005. Because of the hydrocarbon liquid leakage and vapor, the ignition explosion result of the accident. They failed to give the safeguards protection tools to protect employees, this accident killing employees and injured people in Texas oil refinery. And the other issue of the Alaskan oil pipelines leaked; their culture also reflect the safety negligence in their operation and management. Not check the pipelines by routine maintenance. BP management did not doing any corrective action on the contract worker discovered the first pipeline leak in March of 2006, (e.g. whole stop the pipelines operation for checking details), still waiting the leakage happen on August 2006. And in October 2007 another spill in Prudhoe Bay, once again showing that BP was ignored the maintenance equipment and the safety level of the production. In 2010, violations again at BP facilities (at Ohio factory), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) found that workers might be exposed to injury or death should explosive or flammable chemicals be released at an Ohio factory. The BP working environment have the characteristic that is resistance to change, lack of trust and motivation; unclear expectations about supervisory and management behaviors, led to rules not being followed consistently and no initiating improvements. Management did not set or consistently reinforce process safety, operations performance and systematic to reduce the risk. e.g. neglected the safety