This study investigates accountability and transparency issues in the management of oil and gas (O&G) revenues in Ghana through public discourse. It establishes the factors that influence accountability and investigates how accountability is discharged amongst stakeholders in the O&G industry in Ghana, with respect to contemporary accountability theories. The thesis develops a contextualised analytical framework drawing on Dhanani and Connolly’s (2012), and Gray et al.’s (1996) conceptualisations of accountability, in addition to other contemporary accountability concepts, mirrored through the ethical variant of stakeholder theory to classify, analyse and interpret the issues of transparency and accountability in revenue management in the O&G industry in Ghana. It uses this framework to analyse and interpret questionnaires and interviews of stakeholders in the O&G industry in Ghana; these include the government, civil society groups and upstream oil companies. The thesis establishes that the accountability relationships (strategic, financial, fiduciary and procedural) between accountees and accountors in the O&G industry in Ghana are hierarchical, bureaucratic and fussy, making the discharge of accountability unintelligent, ineffective and vulgate and only routinely given for cosmetic purposes. Consequently, the accountors in the O&G industry in Ghana employ the positive variant of the stakeholder theory, motivated by legitimisation practices to regularise their activities, contrary to the expected ethical variant of the theory. The outcome reflects the practices of for-profit organisations such as upstream O&G companies, but conflicts with the government’s fiduciary responsibilities towards citizens and the espoused communal values of the legal and regulatory framework of the industry. Current perspectives on positive stakeholder and legitimacy theory therefore appear to explain existing stakeholder relationships and how accountability is discharged in the O&G industry in Ghana. The thesis contributes to the public accountability and transparency literature in a number of ways: First, the study presents an empirical basis to advance discourse about accountability and transparency in natural resource management in developing countries, by developing a contextualised theoretical and analytical framework drawing on Dhanani and Connolly’s (2012) and Gray et al’s (1996) accountability concepts, and using the ethical stakeholder theory as a lens for interpretation. Second, it provides an empirical basis for rethinking the hierarchical managerialist approach to accountability suggested by the positive variant of the stakeholder theory and its legitimisation mechanisms between accountees and the accountors in the O&G industry in Ghana, and suggests the adoption of the ethical variant of the stakeholder theory with its moral imperatives. Third, the study provides significant insight into governance issues in Sub-Saharan Africa that could inform policy formulation for the region by international bodies, including the United Nations Development Fund (UNDP), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), by critically reviewing accountability and transparency issues in the oil sectors in Angola, Nigeria and the DRC and juxtaposing this evidence with empirical findings for Ghana. Finally, it advances understanding of the public accountability practices and transparency issues in the O&G industry in Ghana, while pointing out significant governance implications for policy-makers, civil society and advocacy groups, think-tanks, the O&G companies and academics.

This thesis describes the origins of the Scottish architectural iron founding industry. It also investigates the underpinning reasons for the proliferation of the Scottish industry in terms of the technological context and the complex inter–relationships of the key figures and firms involved. The founding of Carron in 1759, combined with the discovery of blackband ironstone and the means to smelt it, prompted the rapid growth of the iron founding industry at the start of the 19th century. The influence of Carron in propagating a broader industry and the evolution of the early architectural specialists are discussed. Accounts are given of the key Scottish firms and projects and structures are considered in detail. The Saracen Foundry of Walter Macfarlane and Co is identified as a firm of international importance. The comparative outputs of the key firms in relation to known structures are considered as well as the decline of the industry towards the end of the 20th century. Significant works of innovation are identified which have not previously been appreciated in early iron façade construction at Perth Waterworks, and possibly the earliest iron glasshouse at Fairfield House in Dalkeith.

This thesis investigates the relationship between oil revenue and macroeconomic policies and performance in Oman. The thesis contains five empirical chapters along with introduction, literature review and conclusion. The first empirical chapter looks into the dynamic relationship between oil revenue, government spending and economic activities. The results indicate oil revenue has immediate and significant impact on both the country s GDP and the government expenditure. The government expenditure also has significant impact on the GDP. The second empirical chapter examines the validity of the Wagner s Law and the Keynesian hypothesis in regards to the relationship between the government spending and economic performance. The chapter uses both aggregated and disaggregated government expenditure where the data are divided into recurrent and capital investment. The findings show that there is a long run-relationship between the government spending and the GDP for the period covered. The causality analysis suggests that public investment causes economic growth, but the recurrent expenditure is insignificant. The third empirical chapter investigates the impact of government spending on economic performance where the government spending was decomposed into health, education and militaryexpenditure. The results of these components of the government expenditure and along with an index of openness have long-run relationship with GDP. The short-run coefficient on military spending is insignificant and that of health is negative and significant. However, the long-run coefficients are all positive and significant, except that of military. The fourth empirical chapter analyses the relationship between government expenditure and oil revenue in Oman. The disaggregated government expenditure of health, education and military are used for the analysis in order to see the response of each component to oil revenue changes. The results show that, although all the components responded positively to a positive oils revenue shock, it is the military component that has recorded highest response with more persistence. The fifth chapter investigates the relationship between the current account and the fiscal deficits in Oman. The chapter uses a threshold cointegration technique that is capable of capturing non-linearity and asymmetric adjustment between the series. The estimated results show that there is a long-run relationship between the current account and fiscal deficits in Oman and that adjustment between the series is asymmetric. It is found that upward adjustment is much faster than downward adjustment.

The established approach to safety management has failed to handle socio-technical systems that have become more complex. The main argument is this approach is based on assumptions that systems are protected against accidents by barriers (well-trained people, redundant mechanisms and safety devices, and procedures and safe systems of work). Complex systems, such as maintenance, are actually labour intensive; maintenance staff often works under pressure to finish tasks as rapidly as possible. They continuously adapt and make adjustments using available resources, time, knowledge, and competence to achieve success. Thus, they are accidents prone. Human factors inherent to maintenance accidents are most times difficult to identify. Research in this area in the oil and gas industry in maintenance management is limited in comparison to the aviation and nuclear sectors. Therefore, it has been suggested to overcome this lack by exploring the maintenance system and identifying appropriate methods and tools that lead a system to safety excellence. Resilience engineering (RE) approach has been found the suitable solution. Moreover, four system abilities (cornerstones of RE: ability to respond, to monitor, to anticipate, and to learn) have been identified to characterise the resilience of a system; if these abilities are known and increased, it will make the system As High Resilient As Possible (AHRAP). However, there is a need to bridge between RE theory and practice. Particularly, a tool that measures these abilities lacks in the oil and gas industry, specifically within the maintenance system. In doing so, a framework based on a Gap Analysis (GA) was outlined. A tool, the MAintenance System Resilience Assessment Tool- MASRAT, was developed to assess current system resilience and identify strategies for improvement to achieve safety excellence. The maintenance system of SONATRACH was explored by the analysis of the system documentation and processes, interviews with maintenance staff, questionnaires, field observations, storytelling, and functional analysis. MASRAT has been validated by means of congruency and principal components analysis, PCA (content validity), and Cronbach’s alpha (reliability). An expert panel testing was carried out to test its usability. The exploration of the system came up with a snapshot of daily activities as well as a better understanding of the maintenance system. The study identified the most significant human factors (resources, time pressure, and supervision/coordination) and their probable impact on plant safety. The elements of the system were found tightly coupled, hence the system complex. Stories describing the continuous adaptations of people to achieve assigned objectives were collected. On the other hand, MASRAT was validated. All items were rated above 0.75 in congruency test. The results of PCA for the three selected factors confirmed the items may be clustered after extraction into four components which interpretation represents the four cornerstones of RE. The analysis showed MASRAT is reproducible. Cronbach’s alpha results were found higher than what is required (0.7). MASRAT was found usable by maintenance expert panel. It was used to measure the maintenance department resilience. Strategies that may lead the system from current maturity level to excellence were identified. Eventually, recommendations were made to management to be implemented both at corporate and department levels. For the first time, the maintenance department resilience of petroleum assets was measured to fill in the gap between RE theory and practice. Besides, this can be of benefit to the petroleum industry by a better knowledge of the maintenance working environment and human factors impact on safety and by profiles determination and improvement strategies identification.

The aim of this thesis is to explain and analyse Britain's policy with regard to oil and the control of oil sources in the Middle East during the period 1919 to 1932. A great many books, articles, and some theses have been written on Middle Eastern oil, dealing with various aspects of the subject, but none has specifically aimed to explain in detail British oil policy between 1919 and 1932. The nearest approach to it is probably to be found in B. Shwadran's "The Middle East, Oil and the Great Powers" (New York, 1955), which was written, however, from an American point of view, and without access to British Government archives. It is hoped, therefore, that this present work may help to fill this gap and, also, that it may help to dispel the many inaccurate (and often wildly fanciful) notions about Britain's Middle Eastern oil policy which have long been current. The term "Middle East" in this context includes Persia, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Transjordan, the Arabian Peninsula, and Egypt, but most attention has been given to Iraq, since it was on Iraq that the main international oil controversies of the period centred. The Persian oil situation has been discussed in some detail, but no attempt at an exhaustive account has been made, since there is already a great deal of well-informed literature written on the subject. It has been found necessary to restrict the scope of the thesis to the main theme of British oil policy, avoiding any detailed treatment of the wider issues with which British oil policy was interwoven. Thus the purely diplomatic aspects of the many issues with which the oil questions were involved are not covered in any detail. In particular, no systematic attempt has been made to place Britain's oil policy in the context of its foreign policy as a whole, either in the Middle East or elsewhere, nor has any attempt been made to examine in full the oil policies (or general strategies in the Middle East) of countries other than Britain. There are several reasons for these limitations of scope. Firstly, the practical reason that, for reasons of space, no single thesis could deal adequately with all the diplomatic and other issues which were connected with British oil policy during the period under consideration. Secondly, adequate treatment of these peripheral issues would necessitate a full programme of research into the archives of the several different countries concerned, in particular those of the French Government and of the United States Government. Apart from the fact that such a programme of work would hardly be practicable in the time available, there is the added consideration that, in particular, French Government archives for the period are still closed. Of relevance to this aspect of the matter, too, is the fact that published works which might be expected to yield much information on, for example, French Middle Eastern oil policy, simply do not contain sufficient relevant information to fill satisfactorily the gap left by the non-availability of French Government archives. A third reason for restricting the scope of the thesis is the need for lucidity. In order to keep what is itself a highly complicated theme reasonably clear, much pruning of materials not absolutely central to the main theme has had to be done, sometimes with the result that issues of great importance in themselves, but having only an indirect link with the central theme, have been given only scant treatment.

This study analyses the impact of oil-related developments on output, incomes and employment in Shetland. An Input-Output approach is adopted based on a Shetland transactions table constructed by the author. Using this, the pre-oil Shetland economy is analysed as base for assessing oil impact. Three major oil activities are identified and their local effects estimated: Supply Bases, the Sullom Voe Tanker Terminal, and Oil-related Construction. Estimates of the impact of these on local activity are given in aggregate and on an individual industry basis. Appropriate oil sector 'multipliers' are derived. Attempts are made to modify the basic estimates by allowing for 'negative multiplier' effects, induced investment and other elements of impact excluded in the basic model. Finally, the possibility of oil-induced changes in local technology is considered and its implications for the preceding impact estimates discussed. In the conclusions the results of the previous analysis are drawn together and some policy implications suggested by them are considered briefly.

This thesis, which addresses an innovation studies audience, deals with a neglected topic in the study of socio-technical transitions: the destabilisation and decline of established industries. While most of the transitions literature focuses on the emergence of novelty, this thesis investigates the productive role of destabilisation and processes of unlocking of existing regimes. The research question is: How can we understand the unfolding of industry destabilisation processes? To answer this question, this thesis aims to make theoretical contributions by developing an integrative framework that overcomes shortcomings in existing views of destabilisation. Insights from a number of different approaches are mobilised as ‘building blocks' for theoretical elaboration. Destabilisation is understood as a process involving: 1) multiple interacting pressures, 2) industry strategies and responses to (economic and legitimacy) challenges, and 3) decreasing commitment to industry regime rules. The theoretical perspective addresses: a) destabilisation as a long-term unfolding process, b) the multi-dimensional and co-evolutionary nature of destabilisation, and c) the role of normative problems in destabilisation. To assess the robustness of the conceptual perspective, the thesis studies three cases of destabilisation: - The destabilisation of the British coal industry in the transition from the omnipresence of coal to a four-fuel economy (1880-1967) - The destabilisation and decline of British deep coal mining in the electricity sector (1967-1997) - The destabilisation of coal use in the transition towards low-carbon electricity (1990-2011). Possible revival? The case studies show the usefulness of the conceptual framework. The analysis of patterns and causal mechanisms further identifies similarities and differences of destabilisation pathways in the cases. Specificities in the kinds, rates, interaction and timing of these dynamics produce different destabilisation patterns.

The thesis is submitted under the alternative format, comprising three papers. The key theoretical contribution of the thesis can be found in each of these papers. First, the thesis explores the relationship between national and sectoral systems of innovation, and emphasises the need for governmental policies at each level to be both coordinated and complementary. Second, it offers an examination of the emerging role of universities in innovation systems, which far exceeds the traditional perspective of universities as ‘knowledge suppliers’ and the more recent notion of the ‘entrepreneurial university’. Finally, it offers insight into the strategies of foreign MNEs under the context of industry clusters. The thesis discusses the development of the Brazilian petroleum innovation system following one of the largest oil and gas discoveries in the Americas for decades. The pre-salt oil reserves were discovered in 2007 and are estimated to amount to at least the 60 billion barrels of oil in the North Sea. They are located off the south-eastern coast of Brazil in ultra-deep water (i.e. depths greater than 1500m) and are named as such because they reside under a thick layer of salt (up to two kilometres in depth). The location of the reserves adds great complexity to the challenge of their extraction. It also offers opportunities for competitive advantage to those actors within the innovation system who successfully innovate in addressing this challenge. The study draws upon an empirical investigation that included forty-two in-depth interviews, conducted in 2014 and 2015, and is supplemented by documentary analysis. These interviews were largely held with governmental agencies, public universities and petroleum-focussed enterprises (both domestic SMEs and global MNEs). Each group of actors are discussed in a different empirical paper: the efforts of governmental regulatory agencies in creating innovation in Brazil’s national petroleum industry; the evolving role of public universities in pursuit of technology transfer and academic entrepreneurship; and the R&D strategies of several global oil and gas MNEs that have taken residence in the recently-established industry cluster in Rio de Janeiro. The thesis also offers much to practitioners: guidance for the enactors of innovation policy following a large natural resource discovery; a model for universities wishing to develop a portfolio of entrepreneurial support, which has been shown to greatly support a university’s own technology transfer objectives; and direction for foreign MNEs in how to adapt to changes in industry clusters. The need for and challenge of achieving cooperation between diverse actors in an innovation system are apparent throughout the thesis. This cooperation is even more important in emerging economies such of Brazil, which often suffer from a lack of coordination between actors.

Exploration, production and marketing of oil and gas by listed Nigerian oil and gas companies are fraught with lots of negative social and environmental impacts. Corporate social disclosure is a medium employed by corporations to communicate their impacts and commitments to the society and environment. Therefore, the main aim of this study is to describe and explain social and environmental disclosure practices by listed Nigerian oil and gas companies as gauged with disclosure by listed UK oil and gas companies for the period 2004-2013. The objectives are to determine the nature of disclosures by sampled companies, measure and analyse quantity and quality of the disclosures, analyse trends of the disclosures, find out differences in the disclosures and to explore the effects of corporate characteristics on the disclosures. Content analysis of annual reports and accounts and sustainability reports, scoring quality of disclosures based on Global Reporting Initiative disclosure guidelines, two samples t-tests and Panel Corrected Standard Errors (PCSE) regression analysis were employed to achieve the aim and objectives of the study. Legitimacy debate and vulnerability and exploitability analytical framework were espoused to develop a theoretical framework to underpin the study. Results indicate Nigerian companies making disclosure on fewer social and environmental aspects than UK companies. Quantity and quality of disclosure by Nigerian companies are low compared to UK companies. While quantity of disclosure by both showed increasing trends, quality of disclosure depicted decreasing trends. Sampled companies are found complying with mandatory social disclosure. Corporate size, leverage, efficiency and liquidity are found significant in explaining disclosures by sampled companies. Low quantity and quality of disclosure by listed Nigerian oil and gas companies is indicating low social accountability. This result may be useful to policy makers in the industry to dialogue with managers of the companies on the importance of their social accountability to overall national sustainable development efforts. Likewise, policy makers may put in place regulatory and enforcement mechanisms on social disclosures as mandating disclosure is found effective. Disclosure practices by listed Nigerian oil and gas companies portrayed the significance of colonial relationship between Nigeria and the UK. The use of modified words counts content analysis, and the theoretical framework that underpins the study might be of significance in this study in particular and social disclosure studies in general.

This thesis explores two themes on upstream oil and gas economics centred on offshore safety economics and third party access to infrastructure in the United Kingdom Continental Shelf (UKCS). The first part involves work that explores the nexus between the offshore safety regime and safety outcomes. It contributes to the literature by explaining the post-Piper Alpha safety regime changes with regard to our understanding, framing of safety decision making and benchmarking of safety outcomes. The second part investigates third party access to infrastructure issues in the UKCS. It contributes to our understanding of how different third party access to infrastructure arrangements can be utilised to maximise economic recovery. Each chapter addresses fundamental issues of North Sea oil and gas operations through the application of microeconomic, operations research and econometric methods within a formal analytical framework. The results provide insights into decision-making complexities in the upstream oil and gas industry by guiding policy makers. Specifically, part one of this thesis looks at safety performance in the post-Piper Alpha era in the UKCS. It investigates ways through which a more comprehensive and theoretically informed framework can be used to understand the linkages that arise when dealing with safety regulations and their impacts on the offshore oil and gas industry. Our objective is to empirically ascertain the determinants of offshore hydrocarbon releases within the context of the post-Piper Alpha offshore safety regime regulations. This is done using an observed number of hydrocarbon releases linked to a population denominator data of the number of the installations present in the UKCS. Three research problems are examined: (1) the transmission mechanisms through which safety regulation influence firm and industry productivity; (2) the assessment methods utilised in measuring and benchmarking regulatory outcomes in terms of safety compliance; and (3) the extent to which safety policies contribute to enhancing safety levels in the oil and gas industry. We initially review the background and literature on offshore safety with a particular emphasis on the UKCS in Chapter 2. We also frame our research questions and underlying hypothesis here. In Chapter 3, we present our underlying empirical framework and model specifications followed by some descriptive analysis of the hydrocarbon releases data. The results of the various econometric model specifications are analysed in Chapter 4. The second part of the thesis explores how possible different ownership patterns (including access arrangements) might affect the economic viability of exploiting remaining resources in the UKCS. This section attempts to answer two critical questions namely how the impact of the separation of infrastructure and field ownership affect economic recovery and the impact of taxation on field and hub economics in a mature oil basin. We explore how possible different ownership structures and access arrangements might affect the economic viability of remaining UKCS reserves. We apply a mixed integer programming (MIP) model to field data from the Northern North Sea. Specifically, we examine how the unbundling of infrastructure and field ownership, as well as different cost sharing and tariff arrangements, affect the long-term economics of hubs and their user fields. Regarding the layout, Chapter 5 talks about access to infrastructure issues in the UKCS namely the regulatory framework for access and related legislation. It leads to the development of a conceptual framework and model based upon which extractions are made to capture the various potential market outcomes. In Chapter 6, the empirical model, which utilises the mixed integer programming approach, is discussed. The data sources and characterization, as well as the presentation of the results from the Baseline Model, are presented in Chapter 7. The analysis of the Tax Model and the Cost Sharing plus Tax Model including structure and simulated results with underlying assumptions are presented in Chapter 8. Finally, Chapter 9 leads to a thorough discussion of the results followed by conclusions and policy recommendations.