Business Ethics

The report discusses about a ‘snapshot’ of organization’s business ethics for British Petroleum (BP). BP was founded by William Knox D’Arcy in 1997. It was the world’s leading international oil and gas organization with its headquarters based in London, United Kingdom. The report starts with an introduction and followed by the identification of BP three main ethical dilemmas and the ways that BP has dealt with these ethical dilemmas. The first ethical dilemma of BP was poor management of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill which caused the death of 11 workers and injured 17 workers. Next, the Texas City refinery explosion had killed 15 workers and injured 180 people. Both accidents had not only affected BP’s employees, but also damaged the company’s reputation as well as the other stakeholders. In order to resolve this problem, BP had compensated to individual and businesses such as tourism business, organize cleanup action, settle all the criminal liabilities, fund the scientific studies about the effect of oil spill and fund the project for saving wildlife and restoration of the habitats. The disciplinary action and third party review were carried out to resolve the explosion of Texas City refinery. Additionally, BP also paid penalty to Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and improved the safety in Texas City refinery as well as the infrastructure. The report was followed by the second ethical dilemma which is poor quality product. BP had sold around 2.1 billion gallons of tainted gasoline to thousands of customers. In these circumstances, customers had to face hefty car repair bills and it harmed the company’s reputation in the society. Besides, it also affected the gasoline market where the price of gasoline increased as much as 21.9 cents per gallon in 2012. In order to resolve the poor quality product, BP had recalled 5 million gallons of tainted gasoline and set up two hotlines to deal with customers complaints. BP also set up electronic claims systems and paid $1.5 in claims to victims of the multi-state recall of tainted gasoline. Last but not