Human resource management assignment evaluating the influence of organisational culture and organisational changeon British Petroleum

Question

Task: Can you evaluate in your human resource management assignment, how organisational culture and organisational change has impacted British Petroleum?

Answer

Introduction
Organisational effectiveness is an important concept that helps in measuring the efficiency of a business enterprise by meeting the objectives with the help of available resources without creating any strain on its workforce. The effectiveness of a business enterprise also incorporates meeting the target quota of the services of the product without generating much waste in the process and providing it to the customers in due time. As per the findings of the human resource management assignment, British petroleum is one of the “supermajors” in the field of gas & oil and had also incorporated into all the major sector of gas and oil industry including marketing, extraction, distribution, exploration and refining. The main focus of this human resource management assignmentis to discuss the main characteristics of organisational culture and organisational change. Real life examples of British Petroleum will be provided regarding its organisational culture and organisational change for better understanding. Proper comparison between organisational change and organisational culture has been developed through different existing literature findings mentioned in this human resource management assignment.

Background of the organization
British Petroleum PLC or BP is a “Gas and oil Company” with headquarters in London and is the seven largest oil and gas companies in the world. The business enterprise is considered one of the seven supermajors in the field of oil and natural gas, including all of its operations of refining, extraction, explanation and marketing (Bp.com, 2022). According to the available data in the human resource management assignmentthe company has been operating in more than 80 countries across the world and is producing 3.7 million barrels of oil each day. BP has total oil reserves that are nearly equal to 19.945 billion barrels (Bp.com, 2020). The corporate governance structure of the company has a significant role in fulfilling the purpose of the company i.e reimagining the source of energy for the people of our planet and achieving net-zero ambition within the due time. All the important critical management decisions of the company are looked after by the board members who are involved in the formation of all the important policies including the organizational changes. According to the comments of Alpenidzeet al. (2019) in the human resource management assignment, the success or failure of a business enterprise depends on its organisational culture and the presence of effective change management practices within the business enterprise. The organisational culture and organizational changes of British petroleum have been able to look after all the important elements including the organisational change that are beneficial for the society as well as the company.

Explain the two concepts and introduce some relevant theories in the human resource management assignment
Organisational culture
Organisational culture is defined as the collection of expectations practises as well as values which guide as well as inform the all actions of all team members. It has been highlighted by Lee et al. (2019) in the human resource management assignment; organisational culture is recognised as the collection of different traits which make the identity of a business entity. There are major characteristics of organisational culture such as harmonious relationships, financial stability, continuous renewal and learning, high-performance, building internal community and making a difference. Organisational culture is simply a combination of shared belief, assumptions, values that gets reinforced by variable methods which ultimately shape employees perceptions and core competencies of an organisation. As argued by Upadhaya et al. (2018) in his human resource management assignment, culture of an organisational influence many parts of organisational changes including the workplace environment management style, expectations, ethical practices and values shared within the workforce.

Common people are the most important aspect of any type of business whether it is a B2B or B2C company. Hence the company can encourage people to criticise companies progress and come up with a better solution that promotes sustainability, innovation and action. On top of that, encouraging common people to take a part of companies' overall business properties can also create a powerful impact on the investor. It can establish a strong organisational culture.

Changing and existing organisation culture is pretty much linked to adaptation of a rich organisational leadership. According to Sukiennik and B?k (2019) in the human resource management assignment, transformational leadership principles not only encourage innovation but also encourage team members to recognise their ability of leadership. On top of that transformational leadership has been praised by several scholars and has been adopted by several business leaders in the real world. One example of such a leadership style can be seen for Google where most of the Google products such as gmail, Google keyboard, Google maps are examples of adaptation of transformational leadership and leaders encourage employees to come up with something unique on their own.

Organisational change
Organisational change indicates the specific actions required by a business organisation to alter major components like technological advancement, cultural characteristics and infrastructure in the way of its operating activities. It has been highlighted by González-Rodríguez et al. (2019) in his human resource management assignment, business organisations focus on continuous development as it is the main key of success to remain sustainable and competitive in the highly competitive business market. Organisational changes are the main element to develop continuous improvement within the organisational characteristics. Business organisations generally introduce changes based on external factors like current market trends, customer expectations, inflation rate, technological advancement, political factors and many others. Based on external factors business organisations generally adjust their internal characteristics through changing organisational infrastructure as well as culture.

It has been mentioned several times in this human resource management assignmentthat organisational change is more than doing something more from a classical business. Organisational change became a fundamental aspect in many companies and several companies had been developed based on organisational principles. However, for the British Petroleum company change management is only related to the profitability of the entity.

Theoretical application of human resource management assignment
Lewin's change management model
Change is a common element and it is widely acceptable throughout all business organisations regardless of industry, age and size. It has been highlighted by Harrison et al. (2021), change management is a common term across the corporate world but the management process of a particular change is totally dependent on the overall nature of the business and the people who are involved in the change management process. According to the change management model of Lewin discussed in the human resource management assignmentit can be understood that there are three different stages within a change management process such as unfreeze, change and refreeze. The first stage is unfreezing and it is related to preparing the organisation for accepting the required changes. As stated by Galli (2019) in his human resource management assignment, it is crucial to break down the existing status quo before building a new way of operating.

Figure 1: Lewin's change management model
(Source: Based on Harrison et al. 2021)

Change is the second stage of this theory and it is related to resolving the uncertainties which are created in the first stage. Based on the findings of Liu and Lin (2020), the transition from unfreeze to change stage is not a quick method as individuals or employees take comparatively longer time to embrace the new way of working. Influencing the employees to participate actively within the change management process is the primary concern of the stage and communicating clearly with the employees is the major responsibility of business leaders as well as managers. The last stage mentioned in the human resource management assignmentis rephrasing and it generally comes after employees have embraced the new approach of working. This stage is crucial to assist the business organisation or the employees to institutionalise the required changes (Miller, 2022). It indicates that it is the responsibility of business leaders to ensure that the identified changes are utilised on a daily basis and incorporated within the day to day business operations.

Deal & Kennedy model for corporate culture
According to this theory in the human resource management assignmentthere are six elements that come together to provide a picture of corporate culture. By examining these cultural elements across a variety of organisations there are mainly four types of culture that can be formed with six elements in a company. According to Chaabane (2019), deals and Kennedy identify two possible factors that create four types of culture which are feedback speed and degree of risk. Culture contains a world of individuals who enjoy this and who get quick feedback on their decision and search culture is considered to be macho organisational culture. On the other hand another organisation culture is called work hard play hard which consist of lower degree of risk but higher feedback speed.

Handy’s dimensions of organisational culture
While the previous theory mostly identifies types of culture Best of external environment handy dimension of organisation culture identifies four internal aspects that create an organisational culture. According to this theory the four types of cultures are power, role, task and person. For the selected company the rule culture can mostly be seen so out the company’s management, regulation, interaction with external entities. According to Neculaesei et al. (2019) in his human resource management assignment, role culture is a formalised culture which focuses on jobs with clear rules and procedures. Because it is an energy production company the company follows strict guidelines due to maintenance of different international standards, hazardous activities, environmental predictions and others. Individual or both to work on tasks as and when they are required with sharing ideas across the organisation.

Review the literature about the relationship between organisational culture and organisational change
Organisational culture can both hinder and help the change management approaches as it is recognised as both accounts as well as blessings while successfully undergoing a change management approach. As stated by Rosenbaum et al. (2018) in his human resource management assignment, on the one hand, organisational culture provides the employees consistency as well as certainty which the employees desire. On the other hand, change management approaches might be recognised as a specific threat to the organisational culture as well as the identity of the employees. A change agent should utilise organisational culture as an advantage to be successful. Business organisations generally tied organisational values especially how the required changes can respect the overall values of the business organisation stronger and deeper. Business organisations generally strengthen the values and it helps the change agent to make the culture comparatively higher robust. For instance in this human resource management assignment, providing high quality products might be an organisational culture of a popular brand. Introducing more technological advancement within the working approach can improve the overall productivity and final outcomes of an organisation. Business managers generally influence employees by ensuring that the technological adaptation will ensure comparatively higher success within the encountered business market. It helps to make changes within the working process as well as the technological adaptation sector. The sagas are an important element of organisational culture and it is a valuable element of a change management approach. According to the findings of Kucharska and Kowalczyk (2019) in their human resource management assignment, most of the sagas generally start with towers in organisation and describe the story of overcoming multiple milestones as well as competitions. It emphasises how the business organisation was successful to overcome comparatively greater difficulties in the past time period and it influences the employees to make positive contributions within the recent required changes. Based on the findings of Haneltet al. (2021), different organisations have different rituals for celebrating their success like weekly meetings, weekend lunch and many others. The responsibility of a change agent is to utilise the time for creating a sense associated with safety. Organisational culture influences employees to communicate among each other. Open communication is the key to success in a change management process.

However for the selected company the relation between organizational changes and corporate culture can be well understood as it had been written in the company’s manifesto as CSR responsibilities included relationships of the employees, performance of environmental health and safety, financial aspect, code of conduct of ethics and control (Bp.com, 2022). Hence it can be said in this human resource management assignment, adaptation and practising organizational change practices can directly mean being socially accountable to employees, shareholders, customers, suppliers and investors. While developing or initiating corporate social responsibility goals if a company aligns their corporate cultures such as beliefs, assumptions, values it creates an additional frame or supports CSR Progress.

Analyse how BP manages its organizational culture and its change using the theories introduced at the beginning
Discussing change and culture in BP in human resource management assignment Organizational Culture
The common attitude, behaviours, practices, values and beliefs that are shared between the workforces of a business enterprise incorporate the organisational culture. The organisational culture of British petroleum incorporates the well-being of its employees by bringing out policies and practices for them. BP has officially been accredited as a “living wage employer” which makes it one of the first energy companies to provide a minimum hourly wage of £10.75 in the city of London and £9.30 in other parts of the UK to its employees (Bp.com, 2021). Considering this specific aspect mentioned in the human resource management assignmentBP has been ranked 7th by the corporate Human rights benchmark 20 out of 199 major companies at the global level for recognising various levels of Human rights within the organisation (Bp.com, 2021). This information indicates that BP values its employees and it is an integral part of its organisational culture.

Change management in BP
BP is trying to transform into a “net-zero company” by the end of the year 2050. It would significantly improve the brand value of the company.This organisation has to adopt many changes to shift away from the base of fossil fuels and improve the overall infrastructure of renewable energy. Active participation of the employees is required to achieve this aim. The employees have to change their working process as the fossil fuel-based energy resources are completely different from renewable energy resources. Based on the guidelines of Lewin’s change management model mentioned in the human resource management assignmentit can be understood the management team has utilised the existing value of the organisation to improve positivizes among the employees regarding the required changes. It is the main feature associated with the unfreezing stage. Similarly the taken initiatives such as providing proper benefit to the employees regarding financial allowance helps to gain their positive contribution within the change management process. It is one of the main elements of the change stage and the activities of this business organisation indicate that the managers have followed the three step change management model to establish a concrete organisational approach towards change management.Business leaders and managers of BP generally develop a compelling message to show that the existing approach of working cannot continue. AS per the human resource management assignment, business analysts generally determine the required changes through serving different teams or employees. It helps to establish a clear concept regarding the current state and it helps to identify the major reason for the required changes. Remaining open and communicative to the concern of employees and addressing them as an important element for the change management approach are the two major success factors while introducing a change.It indicates that utilising the cultural value of this organisation has helped the managers to influence employees to participate practically within the change management process.

Managers of BP have introduced change managements strategies to improve its organisational culture
Challenges in existing organisational culture mentioned in the human resource management assignment The Gulf of Mexico oil spill is a remarkable incident within the history of BP. It was accused of violating business law, corporate social responsibility, principles, governance and ethical characteristics. The overall mistakes as well as safety programmes of the organisation became noticeable due to the tragedy as most of the safety concerns were ignored by the higher authority. BP has invested $200 million within the advertisement campaign to promote its CSR strategies for maintaining its brand image after the incident (Bp.com, 2022). However it can be said in the human resource management assignment, a change was required within the working structure of BP to overcome the future issues like this incident. The whole working structure and well as organisational culture of BP was criticised as vision maintenance record and training performance of the organisation were critically analysed after the incident.

Adopted changeswithin organisational cultureand linking with Handy’s dimensions of organisational culture theory
The new directors of this organisation have decided to introduce changes within the whole working process such as upstream operations, single division branches and different small departments. BP used to be a market leader and the working culture of this organisation is to lead by an example. It can be seen in this human resource management assignment that the leaders of this organisation have taken the first initiative within the change management process as they have utilised the concept of transformational leadership approach during the change management process. This organisation has introduced its advanced model legitimacy within its daily activities and leaders have started to introduce empathy as well as emotional intelligence while communicating with team members. It has helped to establish a clear concept regarding the importance of ethics within organisational management characteristics among the general employees (D’Acuntoet al. 2020). BP has introduced new ethical standards which were supported by ethical philosophy as well as distinctiveness.According to the guidelines of Handy’s dimensions of organisational culture theory mentioned in the human resource management assignmentit can be understood that task role power and person at the four types of culture in a business organisation. Leaders are the people who are at the top of the hierarchy of BP and they have the role to influence others through their personal characteristics and working process. The leaders have adopted the ethical guidelines within their working process and it has influenced the general employees to adopt the ethical guidelines within their daily tasks. The training approaches have been improved and it indicates the task culture of the business entity in a structural manner.General employees are familiar with the intention of BP to be the best brand in the world due to its existing organisational culture. It has helped to influence general employees for adopting the newly designed ethical standards within the daily operations of the business entity.

Impact of Organisational culture and the changemanagement on British petroleum
Organisational culture as defined by Hofstede is the “collective programming of the mind of the work force of a company” working for a specific business enterprise. According to the views of Adisaet al. (2020) in the human resource management assignment, the “collective programming of the minds” of the workforce in a business enterprise portrays the organisational culture and the way business operations are managed within the organisation. It is a well-known fact that organisational culture creates a direct impact on the management and the functioning of a company. The manifestation of the organisational culture for BP comprises certain important factors such as values, symbols, honesty, excellence, diversity, norms, mottos and teamwork. As stated by Fernandhytia and Muslichah (2020), the presence of moral purposes when it comes to the management of the stakeholders is considered a positive factor for a company in terms of the corporate culture. On the other hand, stakeholders are often not treated in an appropriate manner in most the corporate organisations that are functioning at the international level.

The selected company that is British Petroleum falls under work hard play hard risk where the company is addressing different international standards to provide a report of their sustainability properties along with following least part of risk to avoid any catastrophic hazards in their production chain. It is one of the main feature of Deal & Kennedy model for corporate culture as per the findings of human resource management assignment. Being an energy production company, companies face several challenges throughout their production line that can create catastrophic disasters. Hence the company takes part in a lower degree of reduced generation while providing faster feedback about their progress.

The best moral practice that can be pursued by a business enterprise is the availability of one of the best services for its stakeholders. The basis of treatment of the stakeholders is a matter of trust which can be related to the mutual interest of them and the company. According to the views of Norman et al. (2018) in the human resource management assignment, there are three different levels of culture that can be identified within a business enterprise consisting of surface manifestations, values and basic assumptions. These factors significantly create an impact on the overall management practices of British petroleum. The company is well known for productively providing solutions to the problems faced by its stakeholders. Over the years the leadership and management of the company have shared decision-making and avoided any practices which might create situations of moral hazard between the stakeholders and the company. These factors have created a positive image of the company in front of the stakeholders which has significantly increased the investment coming into British petroleum. Furthermore it can be stated in this human resource management assignment, the company has also identified the imminent symptoms of failure for a company such as lowering of employee morale, lowering of employee retention rates and managerial misconduct to name a few. These crucial factors have been taken care of by the positive organisational culture which can be seen in the management practices of British petroleum as well.

Conclusion
It can be concluded in this human resource management assignmentthat organisational effectiveness is an important concept that helps business enterprises to measure the ability of a company to meet the objectives with the available resources in hand. British petroleum has been quite productive in maintaining its organisational culture. It was further found out in the human resource management assignmentthat there has been a major impact on the change management practices of the company due to the internal culture of the business enterprise. There has been a significant connection between organisational culture and organizational changes which has been aptly provided with the help of theoretical perspectives. As per the human resource management assignment, it can be said that the management practices of the company have been formulated with these policies by the board members of BP.

References
Adisa, T.A., Oruh, E.S. and Akanji, B., 2020. A critical discourse analysis of the link between professional culture and organisational culture in human resource management assignment. Employee Relations: The International Journal.

Alpenidze, O., Pauceanu, A.M. and Sanyal, S., 2019. Key success factors for business incubators in Europe: An empirical study. Academy of Entrepreneurship Journal, 25(1), pp.1-13. Bp.com, (2022). BP initiates response to Gulf of Mexico oil spill. avilable at: https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/news-and-insights/press-releases/bp-initiates-response-to-gulf-of-mexico-oil-spill.html [Accessed on 21.07.2022]

Bp.com, 2020.Oil. Available from: https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/statistical-review-of-world-energy/oil.html[Accessed on 15th June 2022] Bp.com, 2022. Sustainability. Available from: https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/sustainability.html [Accessed on 20/06/2022]

British petroleum (2021a).bp culture and community. Available from: https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/news-and-insights/reimagining-energy/bp-culture-and-community.html[Accessed on 15th June 2022]

British petroleum (2022b).bp at a glance. Available from: https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/what-we-do/bp-at-a-glance.html[Accessed on 15th June 2022]

Chaabane, Y., 2019. The influence of organizational culture on the integration of CSR activities in the human resource management assignment. Quantitative research within the Dutch oil and energy branch. 92, pp.1152

D’Acunto, D., Tuan, A., Dalli, D., Viglia, G. and Okumus, F., 2020. Do consumers care about CSR in their online reviews? An empirical analysis. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 85, pp.102342.

Fernandhytia, F. and Muslichah, M., 2020. The effect of internal control, individual morality and ethical value on accounting fraud tendency. Media Ekonomi Dan Manajemen, 35(1), pp.112-127.

Galli, B.J., (2019). Comparison of change management models: similarities, differences, and which is most effective in the human resource management assignment. In R&D Management in the Knowledge Era (pp. 605-624). Springer, Cham.
González-Rodríguez, M.R., Martín-Samper, R.C., Köseoglu, M.A. and Okumus, F., 2019. Hotels’ corporate social responsibility practices, organizational culture, firm reputation, and performance. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 27(3), pp.398-419.
Hanelt, A., Bohnsack, R., Marz, D. and Antunes Marante, C., (2021). A systematic review of the literature on digital transformation: Insights and implications for strategy and organizational change. Journal of Management Studies, 58(5), pp.1159-1197.
Harrison, R., Fischer, S., Walpola, R.L., Chauhan, A., Babalola, T., Mears, S. and Le-Dao, H., (2021). Where do models for change management, improvement and implementation meet in the human resource management assignment? A systematic review of the applications of change management models in healthcare. Journal of healthcare leadership, 13, p.85.
Kucharska, W. and Kowalczyk, R., 2019. How to achieve sustainability?—Employee's point of view on company's culture and CSR practice. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 26(2), pp.453-467.
Lee, Y., Howe, M. and Kreiser, P.M., 2019. Organisational culture and entrepreneurial orientation: An orthogonal perspective of individualism and collectivism. International Small Business Journal, 37(2), pp.125-152.
Liu, X. and Lin, K.L., 2020. Green organizational culture, corporate social responsibility implementation, and food safety. Frontiers in Psychology in the human resource management assignment, 11, p.585435.

Miller, K., 2022. THE TRIPLE BOTTOM LINE: WHAT IT IS & WHY IT’S IMPORTANT. Available at: https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/what-is-the-triple-bottom-line [Accessed on 20/06/2022] Neculaesei, A.N., Tatarusanu, M., Anastasiei, B., Dospinescu, N., BedruleGrigoruta, M.V. and Ionescu, A.M., (2019). A model of the relationship between organizational culture, social responsibility and performance. Transformations in Business & Economics, 18(2A), pp.42-59.
Norman, L., Rankin-Wright, A.J. and Allison, W., 2018. “It’sa concrete ceiling; It’s not even glass”: Understanding tenets of organizational culture that supports the progression of women as coaches and coach developers. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 42(5), pp.393-414.
Rosenbaum, D., More, E. and Steane, P., (2018). Planned organisational change management: Forward to the past? An exploratory literature review on human resource management assignment. Journal of Organizational Change Management.
Sukiennik, M. and B?k, P., 2019. Corporate culture versus CSR in Polish companies of the energy sector. In IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science (Vol. 214, No. 1, p. 012075). IOP Publishing. Upadhaya, B., Munir, R., Blount, Y. and Su, S., 2018. Does organizational culture mediate the CSR–strategy relationship? Evidence from a developing country in the human resource management assignment, Nepal. Journal of Business Research, 91, pp.108-122.