Thesis advisor: James E. Cronin / This dissertation examines British oil policy from the aftermath of the Suez Crisis in 1956-1957 until the Iranian Revolution and the electoral victory of Margaret Thatcher's Conservative Party in 1979. It was a period marked by major transitions within Britain's oil policy as well as broader changes within the international oil market. It argues that the story of Britain, and Britain's two domestically-based oil companies, BP and Shell, offers a valuable case study in the development of competing ideas about the reorganization of the international oil industry in the wake of the rise of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting countries and the companies' losing control over the production of oil. The emergence of OPEC, and the political and resource nationalism which provided it with its inspiration, proved to be a challenge for the companies. In their view, this had to be countered commercially through the maintenance of the role of the major oil companies as well as the further internationalization of the oil market; a process which they believed would help de-politicize oil production and distribution. Although the Governments which ruled Britain in this era were initially in favor of this laissez-faire approach, economic and political uncertainty in Britain, coupled with the game-changing potential of Britain's own North Sea oil resources led to a gradual process of state intervention into oil matters, both at home and abroad. Out of this emerged a different philosophy on the part of Cabinet and Whitehall officials, one which saw the future of oil being in the hands of the state and state-controlled companies. This growing divergence weakened the traditional partnership between BP, Shell and the British Government and limited cooperation until the defeat of the Labour Party in 1979 by Thatcher's Conservatives reversed the trend of growing state involvement. Together these inter-connected accounts provide an important counter-point to the idea that the emergence of a fully international oil market was inevitable and reveals that the reformation of the oil market in the post-1973 world was the result of political and as well as market forces. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2013. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: History.

When a disaster the magnitude of the Deepwater Horizon blowout and oil spill takes place, is it natural for the news media stories, investigative reports, and public deliberation to focus almost exclusively on finding the person or group responsible for such a horrendous scene. Rhetorically speaking, the discourse surrounding the event can be characterized as a reductive form of praise and blame rhetoric (epideixis). However, these efforts, while well-intentioned, are troublesome because searches for the one technical cause and the sole personal culpability are thwarted by the sheer complexity of the ecological, technological, scientific, institutional, and communicative network required for such a disaster to take place. Thus, to demonstrate the insufficiency of extant models of disaster in a variety of fields, which tend to privilege human-centered approaches, Dead Man's Switch: Disaster Rhetorics in a Posthuman Age explores the ontology, technical documentation, and rhetorical theory of disasters through a posthuman lens. To find a more critical approach to understanding the nature of disasters in the twenty-first century, I ask the following questions: How do rhetoricians and technical communicators account more fully for the human and nonhuman forces at work in the precipitation of disaster? How do rhetoricians and technical communicators find an approach to ecological catastrophe that goes beyond the mere "environmentalist rhetoric" characterizing the public response? Through the application of several posthumanist theories, my project develops an approach to disaster that complicates traditional ways of approaching causality and blame. I use accident reports, news media stories, and popular literature as data for this project. By examining these texts, my project has broad implications for technical communication, rhetorical theory, and philosophy of rhetoric.

Green marketing has been a main topic of discussion for several years. Most studies conducted in this area have focused on the benefits of green marketing for a normal company. However, no studies have considered the effectiveness of green marketing by a negative brand like BP. This study aims to reveal the effectiveness of green marketing after pollution. An experiment was conducted to evaluate participants’ attitudes toward the marketing strategy. Although the results were not significant, some interesting findings were revealed and are addressed at the end of the paper. They imply that individuals with green awareness are less influenced by both green marketing and an economic-assistance strategy in BP’s case, compared to individuals with lower green awareness. Overall, all participants in this study preferred the economic-assistance strategy, which means that green marketing is not effective for a corporation involved in pollution issues. / text

Blendcor (Pty) Limited is a joint venture lubricants blending and grease manufacturing plant and equally owned by its shareholders, British Petroleum Southern Africa and Shell South Africa. BP purchased Castrol worldwide in March 2000. The merger of BP and Castrol has created opportunities for consolidation of production at Blendcor. The inclusion of the Castrol lubes portfolio would increase current production at Blendcor to approximately 150 million liters per annum. The purpose of this research is to establish if the merger between BP and Castrol would have a positive or negative effect on Blendcor. We begin this research by seeking an understanding of the strategy framework and its role in assisting a company to achieve its objectives. The framework starts by explaining how strategy is formulated, the development of a vision, mission statement, the examination of the company's external environment, the company's internal environment, the impact of globalisation, the company's long-term goals, and finally organizational structure and leadership. Emphasis is placed on companies that employ Joint Ventures, Mergers and Alliances as grand strategies. The history of the Oil industry in South Africa, the history of Blendcor's partners, a brief history and background of Blendcor, followed by a discussion on the merger of BP and Castrol, and its impact on Blendcor, is examined. Blendcor is then evaluated by conducting a SWOT analysis. It's strengths; weaknesses, opportunities and threats are discussed briefly. The current strategy employed by Blendcor is subsequently evaluated against the suitability criteria. The plant is benchmarked against other plants worldwide in terms of cost and production. The strategy development process at Blendcor is then evaluated to determine the synergies of the leadership team. The merger is then profiled using the PIMS model to determine whether the merger was a good or bad decision. Finally, various recommendations are made to improve the plant and its processes. The replacement of Blendcor's Information system is discussed in length and the lack of a suitable measurement system is highlighted. / Thesis (MBA) - University of Natal, 2003.

In order to survive in today's competition, organisations are faced with a challenge of continuous improvement. At the core of any improvement efforts in the production and marketing of goods and services there is. quality improvement. Product or service quality has become one of the elements that give an organisation a competitive edge over its competitors, since today's customers logically take purchasing decisions based on what they pay for versus the price paid. For businesses, a race to customer satisfaction is infinite, customer satisfaction is no longer a choice but the only means for survival for many organisations. Therefore, organisations do all that is in their powers to satisfy customers, retain or increase the market share, make profit and survive in the business. In view of such a tough business environment it has become necessary to study the two important business concepts namely product quality and customer satisfaction. The question is whether the efforts put on producing and supplying the best quality of products enhance customer satisfaction. In other words, are the two concepts related in some way? The aim of this study is to describe relationships between product quality and customers satisfaction in the aviation market of the oil industry, specifically Air BP market. Since customer satisfaction is also manifested through other ways like product demand and customer loyalty, the research also studies the relationships between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty, as well as' customer satisfaction and product demand. Finally the relationships between product quality, product demand and customer loyalty are studied as indications of customer satisfaction. While emphasising on relationships, the study also describes the significance and importance of various quality dimensions to Air BP customers. It explains various quality definitions and dimensions and determines the most significant ones to the aviation market. The study also looks at the importance of product quality in comparison with price and service given to customers. Finally conclusions are drawn on the hypotheses and recommendations are given to Air BP. While the study recommendations are not prescriptive, they provide necessary information relevant to Air BP Marketing in a pursuit for customer satisfaction, customer retention and market share. / Thesis (MBA)-University of Natal, Durban, 2003.

Purpose This thesis aims to provide guidelines for cosmetic companies on how to use social media in times of crisis. Background In today’s society, cosmetic companies can face crises that can vary according to their level of impact and their level of controllability. These crises can go viral and reach a huge amount of stakeholders since social media can take on many different forms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. It is important to know how to manage these different com-   munication tools and it is even more crucial in times of crisis. However, social media and the cosmetic industry have not been combined in previous studies. Therefore, it is beneficial for cosmetic companies to have guidelines on how to use social media in times of crisis. Method The method is based on an inductive approach. Benchmarking case studies reflect crises that occurred in industries other than the cosmetic industry. The findings from the case studies are then complemented with a chosen company representative from the cosmetic industry. Finally, a semi-structured interview has been conducted to balance the research and add new valuable information to the investigation. Conclusion Based on the results of the analysis, the authors of the thesis have been able to provide guidelines to cosmetic companies on how to use social media in times of crisis. These guidelines are divided into two parts: the first part advises guidelines to follow while the second part recommends factors to avoid on social media.

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Thesis (MPH) --University of Limpopo, 2014 / Topic An investigation of the visual and systemic symptoms experienced by computer users at the National Home Builders’ Registration Council (NHBRC) and British Petroleum (BP) in Johannesburg, Gauteng Province, South Africa. Background The repetitive use of computers in the working places results in the visual and ergonomic disorders that affect the computer users adversely. The computer users experience fatigue which causes visual symptoms such as eyestrain, blurred vision, heaviness of the eyelids or forehead, dry eyes, sensitivity to light and irritatedeyes. The ergonomic disorders like neck pain, backache and wrist pain are also experienced by computer users. These conditions are collectively called Computer Vision Syndrome which is considered as an occupational hazard. Uncorrected refractive errors and binocular anomalies can contribute to these symptoms. The visual and systemic symptoms that affect the computer users in the workplace need to be investigated. Purpose The purpose of the study was to subjectively investigate the visual and systemic symptoms experienced by computer users in the two selected companies in Gauteng Province South Africa. Methodology Structured questions, (open and close ended) were used to obtain information needed for this study. The questions covered demographic as well as information relating to the use of the computer such as the duration of working on computer, the offices/working environment, the appearance and the distance of the screen to the eyes, the working station and visual devices et cetera. Results Participants included 47 (72.3%) females and 17 (26.2%) males and their ages ranged from 20 to 59 years with the mean of 39.5 and the standard deviation of ± 13.1years. Many (80%) of the participants between the ages of 20 to 29 years reported experiencing eye strain. The highest (75%) percentage of slow refocus was reported by the participants that were between the ages of 30 to 39 years. Most males (58.8%) reported experiencing eye strain, slow refocus and headaches associated with computer use. The majority of the females (63.8%) reported experiencing eye strain, while (59.6%) experienced slow refocus and (51.1%) suffered from headaches. A higher percentage of males (23.5%) experienced wrist pain while lower (14.9%) of females experienced wrist pain. No males (0.0%) reported back pain and only a small (8.5%) of females reported back pain. Conclusion Based on the above findings, it is concluded that visual and the systemic symptoms associated with the use of the computer affected most of the workers from the two companies. The factors that may lead to the various symptoms experienced may be ergonomic (environmental) or visual or a combination of these. The environmental factors can be the angle of gaze to the computer screen or the illumination of the working area, while visual factors could be uncorrected refractive error or binocular anomaly. Other factors may include age and working for prolonged time looking at the computer monitor. These factors may then leads to symptoms like eye strain, slow refocus, blurred vision, headaches, dry eyes and systemic symptoms such as neck pain.

Notre étude relève d’une analyse exploratoire fondée sur une étude de cas. En partant d’un exemple de débat articulé autour d’un enjeu public, en l’occurrence la responsabilité sociale d’entreprise (RSE), nous appréhendons le discours comme un instrument de pouvoir déployé par des acteurs en position conflictuelle. Nous prenons comme un cas d’étude la crise écologique provoquée par British Petroleum (BP) au large du Golfe de Mexique le 20 avril 2010. Pour sélectionner notre corpus, nous avons désigné deux populations cibles de discours, en l’occurrence le discours tenu par le gouvernement américain (discours d’Obama) et le discours représentant l’avis officiel de BP (communiqués de presse de BP). Nous avons analysé les discours publics d’Obama et de BP datant du 20 avril 2010 jusqu’au 19 septembre 2010. Nous avons considéré tout discours produit dans un contexte conflictuel travaillé par une crise comme un instrument porteur symboliquement des signes de pouvoir et mobilisant des rapports de force entre les acteurs impliqués. Nous partons de l’hypothèse suivante : les discours organisationnel et gouvernemental étudiés et produits dans un contexte de crise, sont forcément des discours conflictuels au sens de Windisch (1987). Et nous avons utilisé la grille d’analyse élaborée par Windisch (1987) pour mettre en exergue le fonctionnement interne d’un discours conflictuel envisagé comme un vecteur du pouvoir et de légitimation. Nous avons précédé l’analyse de discours, méthode principale dans notre étude, par une analyse de contenu qualitative. Le recours à l’analyse de contenu se justifie par notre souci de déterminer les divers thèmes développés dans le discours, d’examiner comment les acteurs imprègnent de sens le thème de la RSE et de poser le corpus dans sa réalité propre, en ayant recours au logiciel d’analyse de contenu qualitative HYPERRESEARCH. En outre, en mobilisant les présupposés théoriques et les outils méthodologiques issus de l’analyse de discours, nous avons ausculté le potentiel performatif légitimateur des discours construits et élaborés dans un contexte de communication conflictuelle. Pour ce faire, nous avons utilisé le logiciel d’analyse textuelle TROPES reconnu comme un outil d’analyse textuelle capable de générer des modèles représentatifs de la structure du corpus et de son organisation thématique. NOTIONS-CLÉS Discours conflictuel, stratégies discursives, RSE, légitimité, pouvoir, tandem État/firme. / Our study is intended to be an exploratory analysis based on a case study. Starting from a sample debate articulated around a public issue, namely the corporate social responsibility (CSR), we apprehend the discourse as an instrument of power deployed by actors in a conflict position. We take the ecological crisis caused by British Petroleum (BP) in the Gulf of Mexico since April 20, 2010 as a case study, and the reaction of the U.S. administration to intervene and reassure the public opinion alarmed by this crisis. In order to select our corpus, we have identified two target populations of discourse, in this case the speech given by the U.S. government (Obama's speech) and discourses representing the official opinion of BP (BP's press releases) dated April 20, 2010 until September 19, 2010. We considered any discourse occurring in a context of conflict symbolically as a power signs carrier and a mobilizing instrument of power relations between the involved actors. We start from the hypothesis stating that organizational and governmental discourses, studied and produced in a crisis context, are necessarily conflictual discourses within the meaning of Windisch (1987). And we used the analytical framework developed by Windisch (1987) to highlight the internal functioning of a confrontational speech seen as a vector of power and legitimacy. In our research, we preceded the discourse analysis, the main method in our study, by a qualitative content analysis. The use of content analysis aims to determine the various themes developed in the discourse, examine how actors define the CSR topic and put the corpus in its own reality, by using the HYPERRESEARCH qualitative content analysis software. In addition, by implementing the theoretical assumptions and methodological tools from discourse analysis, we auscultated the performative legitimating potential of discourses constructed and developed in a conflict communication context. We used the TROPES text analysis software recognized as a textual analysis tool able to generate representative models of the corpus structure and its thematic organization. KEY CONCEPTS Confrontational discourse, discursive strategies, CSR, legitimacy, power, tandem of government and enterprise.

This diploma thesis is engaging in investing on international stock markets and the main objective was to analyze the profit potential with consideration of possible risks. At first I have characterized international stock market and the theory of effective markets. In the second chapter I was focusing on methods that are used for stock valuations. The third chapter is comparing particular investment strategies that proved to be profitable in a long term. The secondary objective of my diploma thesis was recognition of investment risks, thus the fourth chapter is engaging in market and exchange rate risks. The fifth chapter is focusing on the hedging of exchange rate risk. I was applying obtained theoretical knowledge on a case study about BP company. All the results of the analysis were included in the final investment recommendation. The thoughts of the investment recommendation were then generalized into common investment principles.