To understand communication issues and trends, I must be able to identify poor communication practices within an organizational culture and process what went wrong. One example of a communication trend is when an organization practices poor ethical decision-making due to groupthink or bounded rationality. The attached document is a journal entry reflection to a case study of the Deepwater Horizon Disaster that I completed in my workplace communication course, COM 350, as part of an ethical communication project. During the Deepwater Horizon Disaster, a massive amount of oil was spilled into the ocean, and the organizations involved did not facilitate an ethical or communicatively open culture. In the reflection, I discuss the topics blame, decision-making, and ethics under the case study theme of accountability. In the entry, I analyze the communication issues that lead to the disaster and attribute bounded rationality as a disciplinary idea that hindered the companies' decision-making. I consider the ethical responsibility of large companies to hold themselves accountable and the consequences that a lack of ethical decision-making in communication may bring. In doing so, I recognize current ethical communication faults of the organization that go beyond the scope of the course.
Kennan Martin
COM 350
Case study 17: The Deepwater Horizon Disaster
Theme: Accountability
Topics: The blowout and its aftermath, who is to blame? What went wrong? The complexities of
decision-making, ethics: an integral part of decision-making
Blame
A significant portion of the chapter discusses the key players in the decision-making that lead to the oil spill disaster. Multiple organizations had a part in leading up to the blunder. People have tried to make the argument that different companies should have been held accountable. Most blame is put on BP for who owned a majority of the lease in drilling the well. BP contracted Transocean’s drilling rig in order to drill the well, thus creating a complex interorganizational structure in who to hold responsible. I found it interesting that BP claimed that since it was Transocean’s responsibility to maintain safety processes and use equipment properly, they were accountable for the blowout. However, the contract between BP and Transocean clearly states that Transocean would not be liable for any kind of issue such as a blowout and that BP would protect and defend Transocean from these claims. I think in situations that concern safety, blame should be placed in the background and those players involved should focus on solving the problem at hand.
Decision-making
I think it is rare to hear about a company in the news that makes as drastic or harmful as a mistake as the Deepwater Horizon disaster. These large companies seem to understand their industry and the safety precautions they must take to avoid such disaster. It surprises me that BP and other companies would neglect such risks and overlook any discrepancy in design quality. The author references how companies focus on costs vs benefits when making a decision and how “decision makers are “bounded- they cannot be perfectly rational because of a number of factors, not least of which are the limitations of time and information” (May, 241). This connects to bounded rationality, a concept I learned in my organizational communication class. These decision makers were restrained by a lack of resources such as time or information that hindered their decision making.
Ethics
In the chapter, ethics are cited as an integral part in decision making. Whether a company acts ethically or unethically, its decisions can have a large impact in the world. Brown emphasizes that “In order to make better, more ethical decisions, communication must be improved and common understandings inherent in an organization’s culture must be challenged” (May, 243). This is a recurring theme in our workplace communication course. We have read the NCA Credo for ethical communication which outlines values that organizations and individuals should uphold when communicating with others. Companies such as BP would have benefitted from understanding ethical communication practices and implementing them when reflecting on the blowout. In decision-making, values such as honesty, respect, and integrity must be upheld by an organization to be deemed ethical.
References
May, S. (Ed.) (2013). Case studies in organizational communication: Ethical perspectives and practicesThousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc. doi: 10.4135/9781452240572