Thesis

Employee responsibility and virtuality during crisis decision-making

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Awarding institution
  • University of Strathclyde
Date of award
  • 2011
Thesis identifier
  • T13275
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Department, School or Faculty
Abstract
  • The purpose of the qualitative case study was to (a) explore crisis decision-making that occurs in a virtual environment such as the Ocean Ranger offshore oil rig by (a) assessing the official report of the incident, (b) conducting interviews with oil and gas industry workers, and based upon results, (c) developing a model for crisis decision-making in a distributed organization. The model includes a breakdown of sensemaking during a crisis, organizational structure, communication and collaboration, both virtual and face-to-face, during a crisis, as well as normalization. The model also includes definitions of responsibility and variables that can assist in determining whether or not a situation is a crisis, and the impact of this determination on the decision-making apparatus. The collection of data was implemented with interviews of 37 oil rig workers and examination of the official report of the Royal Commission for the Ocean Ranger Disaster. Interviewees ranged from oil rig workers to management workers. A semi-structured interview protocol taking 60 to 120 minutes was implemented with open-ended questions. Five main findings emerged. The first main finding was the higher the seriousness of the risk, the lower the clarity of the unfolding crisis situation. The second main finding was that workers alter their perception of an event after the crisis has been averted to make it seem less serious than it was. The third finding was that workers believe someone will always come along to solve an impending problem. The fourth finding was that workers who are experienced are more proactive, flexible, and less likely to be bound by rules. The fifth finding is that the rulebook is a double-edged sword. The first recommendation was to ensure that all rigs have secondary ballast control systems. The second recommendation was to ensure that employee training provides awareness to the components of the decision-making model, specifically, those that lead to a crisis. Recommended future studies could include testing the decision-making model in a crisis situation, such as the 2010 British Petroleum oil crisis in the Gulf of Mexico, to determine its fit with other crises in other industries. Also, it was recommended that a comparative study of oil and gas workers in the North Sea offshore oil industry take place.
Resource Type
DOI
Date Created
  • 2011
Former identifier
  • 948371

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