The Gulf Oil Spill of the year 2010, which involved the explosion of BP's deepwater rig in the Gulf of Mexico, was the worst ever experienced sea spillage tragedies. The way in which the company responded to the situation has attracted a lot of debate and criticism. This paper reviews a few articles on the accident and evaluates the response of the chief executive as relates to corporate social responsibility.
The then chief executive of BP, Tony Hayward, received plenty of criticism over his slow response to the problem. Despite taking reparation measures, Ellen (2012) point out that the company took a whole three months to cap the deep sea oil spillage, a period too long if at all it cared for the ecosystem and if it held itself responsible for the mishap. Critics review the company’s response since the incident, and most are keen at noticing that BP is more inclined towards reclaiming its initial performance rather than giving more importance to mitigation efforts ( Ellen, 2012) . BP’s press releases since then have little but mostly no relationship to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico tragedy ( Ellen, 2012) . That makes the public certain about the company's center of attention ( Arora & Lodhia, 2017). Considering their major focus on stakeholder value, it is justifiable to conclude that the company conformed to Milton Friedman’s social responsibility of business, which states that it is the responsibility of a business to utilize its resources and engage in those activities that contribute to its profiting, so long as the process falls within the terms of free and open market competition.
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The company’s mitigative response also fell along the ethical theory of duty framework, which focuses on the ethical obligations that one holds in any particular situation ( Dempsey, 2017). BP was mandated by the sense of obligation to mitigate the impacts that the tragedy caused to the ecosystem. The company felt obligated to do something, but it did not take initiative out of free will. Perhaps that explains its late response to the tragedy.
References
Arora, M. P., & Lodhia, S. (2017). The BP gulf of Mexico oil spill: Exploring the link between social and environmental disclosures and reputation risk management. Journal of Cleaner Production, 140 , 1287-1297. doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.10.027
Dempsey, A. L. (2017). Evolutions in corporate governance: Towards an ethical framework for business conduct (First ed.). London: Taylor and Francis.
Ellen, F. (2012). The Gulf spill: BP Still Doesn't Get It. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/frederickallen/2012/04/20/the-gulf-spill-bp-still-doesnt-get-it/#394a92147e66
