Search results

The social and environmental challenges facing our society, coupled with financial scandals and crises, have led to increased focus on and expectations for corporate social responsibility (CSR) (Ditlev-Simonsen, 2009; Knox, Maklan, & French, 2005; Midttun, 2007; Samuel & Ioanna, 2007). However, in order to meet this expectation, business students need education in the CSR field. The amount of attention to CSR in business education varies widely (Evans, Treviño, & Weaver, 2006) and the lack of a CSR curriculum in some countries has been severely criticised, with calls for more focus on the subject (Aronsen & Bue Olsen, 2009). In Norway, for example, propositions to the Parliament about CSR urge The Research Council for Norway to pursue and strengthen their programme for financing research in this field (Utenriksdepartementet, 2009). CSR addresses normative and ethical issues, and students’ self-awareness, attitudes and understandings of others are key elements (Banaji, Bazerman, & Chugh, 2003). CSR-related situations comprise a set of dilemmas with no absolute ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. In this sense CSR education is different from most of business school education format, and therefore requires different educational tools.

Using the case of the Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, I argue that the catastrophe was less an example of a low probability-high catastrophe event than an instance of socially produced risks and insecurities associated with deepwater oil and gas production during the neoliberal period after 1980. The disaster exposes the deadly intersection of the aggressive enclosure of a new technologically risky resource frontier (the deepwater continental shelf) with what I call a frontier of neoliberalized risk, a lethal product of cut-throat corporate cost-cutting, the collapse of government oversight and regulatory authority and the deepening financialization and securitization of the oil market. These two local pockets of socially produced risk and wrecklessness have come to exceed the capabilities of what passes as risk management and energy security. In this sense, the Deepwater Horizon disaster was produced by a set of structural conditions, a sort of rogue capitalism, not unlike those which precipitated the financial meltdown of 2008. The forms of accumulation unleashed in the Gulf of Mexico over three decades rendered a high-risk enterprise yet more risky, all the while accumulating insecurities and radical uncertainties which made the likelihood of a Deepwater Horizon type disaster highly overdetermined.

This study aims at identifying the consequences of adopting statutory rather than market basis in assessing damages due to contamination to land. Most valuations undertaken to assess compensation for damages due to contamination on land are done with valuation methods prescribed by law for the compulsory acquisition of land.

A total of 80 registered valuation firms with experience in both compulsory acquisition and damage assessment participated in a questionnaire survey to ascertain the methods adopted in valuing when determining the compensation payable as damages due to land contamination and the need for a framework for such valuations, in addition to some archival documents relating to the relevant laws and some purposively selected valuation reports, which were reviewed.

The results of the analysis indicate that the use of compulsory acquisition valuation methods results in inadequate damages, which engenders conflicts among the stakeholders. The absence of any framework for damage assessment is responsible for the current practice in the Niger Delta, and it is recommended that international best practices utilising market basis of valuation be adopted.

Most valuation methods available are useful for valuing commercial properties regularly traded in the market and not applicable to the Niger Delta, which is mostly rural with very few market transactions. It is expected that this study will enable oil and gas industry operators, professional valuers advising the land owners or operators in the industry and the government to differentiate compensation paid for compulsory acquisition and compensation required to placate those suffering losses due to contamination.

The findings will assist professional valuers to be more professional in valuing contaminated land devastated by oil spills.

Adopting the findings will engender a greater acceptability of the results of valuations undertaken in the wake of an oil spillage disaster and ensure a peaceful environment for the oil operators and the entire populace.

The findings of this study are expected to assist policymakers in emerging economies and professional valuers acting in these environments to avoid precipitating crises by adopting inappropriate valuation techniques when assessing damages due to contamination. This study is original and has not been published elsewhere.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the stock market reaction to the Gulf oil spill and determine if the markets exhibited rational pricing. On April 20, 2010, the US Coast Guard received a report of an explosion and fire aboard Transocean’s Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig. The resulting spill exceeded the Exxon Valdez oil spill as the worst in US history. With the total cost of the disaster reaching almost $54 billion for British Petroleum, clearly the spill had far-reaching effects on its market value. However, the more interesting question is what valuation effects might exist for other oil and gas firms, due to an increase in perceived risk for all offshore drilling and/or the likelihood of an increase in the regulation of the industry.

Because the new information was released piecemeal over time and has the potential to affect a number of firms simultaneously, Gibbon’s (1980) multivariate regression model methodology (MVRM) was used to examine share price reactions of firms in the oil and gas industry in the aftermath of the oil spill. This methodology allows one to test whether significant abnormal returns occur on days where new information is released. Further, one is able to test whether the market reaction was the same for each firm or whether the market differentiated between firms.

Evidence of abnormal returns was found for the majority of the information dates in our investigation. Further, the results reject the notion that the market reaction was the same for all oil and gas firms, leading to the conclusion that the market did differentiate between firms.

This research is important because the results support rational pricing of the US stock markets following this unexpected and catastrophic event. The market was examined over the period following the oil spill on multiple dates when important new information is provided. This study contributes to financial and economic research on market efficiency and reactions to major risk events.

The purpose of the paper is to extend prior research on the psychological effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster by developing and testing a conceptual model in which exposure to the oil spill through clean-up activity, physical symptoms, worry about the impact of the oil spill on health, and the disruption of the gulf/ocean-related lifestyle were hypothesized as predictors of depressive symptoms.

The analysis included a randomly selected sample of 354 subjects from the three most Southern Mississippi counties. The Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale was used to measure depressive symptoms.

Results indicated that physical symptoms since the oil spill were related to depressive symptoms directly and indirectly through worry about the impact of the oil spill on health and the disruption of the gulf/ocean-related lifestyle. Worry about the impact of the oil spill on health was related to depressive symptoms directly and indirectly through the disruption of the gulf/ocean-related lifestyle.

Study results highlight that uncertainty and worry about the impact of the disaster played a critical role in understanding the psychological effects of the oil spill disaster, especially among coastal residents whose lifestyles were bound up with the gulf/ocean.

Despite their salience as tools for understanding society–environment relationships, coupled natural and human (CNH) systems approaches have consistently failed to offer realistic pictures of the political processes that shape efforts to create sustainable societies. Engagement with William R. Freudenburg’s work on political inequalities in the regulation of natural resources and its incorporation into CNH work would address this source of weakness. Over the course of two decades, Freudenburg introduced a set of concepts that describe the political mechanisms through which politically powerful polluters prevent environmental policy reforms. Freudenburg and Gramling’s last book, about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, integrates Freudenburg’s political concepts into a CNH analysis and produces an explanation for the oil spill that is exceptional in its empirically accurate treatment of the role of political inequalities in shaping environmental outcomes. Future progress in CNH systems analyses hinges to a great degree on its ability to portray power dynamics in realistic ways. The Freudenburg–Gramling book on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill shows us how to do so. It represents an intellectual legacy which Bill Freudenburg would have been proud of.

The psychological and behavioral consequences of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster were among the most widespread, long term, and costly of all oil spill-related disasters. However, many people were resilient, and understanding the factors associated with resilience in the immediate aftermath of this disaster are needed to guide early interventions. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

In total, 133 adults from the Northeast Gulf Coast participated in a study of mental health outcomes during the oil spill and one year later. Participants completed a battery of measures that assessed their basic demographics, income status, perceived environmental risk (i.e. characteristic way people think about and interpret environmental risks), self-reported resilience (i.e. ability to “bounce back” after a disaster), and mental health status.

Results of univariate analyses indicated similar, elevated levels of mental health problems at both time points; however, environmental risk perception was higher one year post-spill than during the spill. In multivariate analyses, income stability, increased time, higher self-reported resilience, and lower environmental risk perception were associated with better mental health outcomes while age and gender had no association.

Oil spills are protracted disasters, and better mental health outcomes are linked to financial stability, as well as a belief in environmental restoration and one’s own capacity for resilience. Since resilience and environmental worry are potentially modifiable processes, they might be targeted in prevention and early intervention efforts in order to create more robust, prepared individuals in the face of an oil spill disaster.

The paper aims to examine BP’s communications response to the Deepwater Horizon disaster, which caused 11 deaths and a huge oil spillage in the Gulf of Mexico.

It draws on such secondary sources as newspapers, audiovisual material and social-network sites.

It claims that BP lacked some of the tools needed for an effective communications response to the disaster and that the company made mistakes in, for example, putting out a series of advertisements during the clean-up operation.

It puts forward the view that companies ought to have a well-rehearsed crisis-communication strategy that they can easily adapt to the particular circumstances of a given disaster.

It looks at some of the things that BP got right, including its Internet response to the crisis.

It emphasizes the importance of good communication strategies when disaster strikes.

The purpose of this study is to use a sample of oil and gas firms and examine the relationship between environmental disclosure in the USA Form 10-K and the stock market reaction after the BP oil spill.

The study focused on three important time periods associated with the oil spill: the time period beginning with the explosion on April 20, 2010 and ending August 5, 2010, one day after BP permanently sealed the oil leak; the period beginning with the explosion on April 20 and ending with the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig on April 22; and the period associated with President Obama’s first public comments on the oil spill and his administration’s ban on oil drilling, i.e. April 29-30 and May 3.

The results show a negative relationship between environmental disclosure and stock market reaction.

The findings of a negative association could be the result of higher disclosure by firms with more environmental risk because they indeed are riskier and/or they engage in “window dressing” to legitimize their operations and practices and maintain acceptance by society.

The results in this study run counter to a positive association documented in prior research studying the effects of environmental disasters.