Beta Oil case study analysis

Beta Oil case study analysis

This case illustrates the culture-deciphering process in a project that did not initially involve the total corporate

culture directly but instead required that we clarify the culture to accomplish the goals of the project.Beta Oil

restructured its internal engineering operations by combining all of engineering into a single service group.

Previously, the eight hundred engineers involvedhad been working for various business units, refineries, and

exploration and production units as members of those organizations. In the new, centralized organization,

they would work as consultants to those organizations and charge for their services.The formal rules were that

all engineering services would be charged for, with the feesto the various internal customers sufficient to cover the costs of running the eight-hundred-person engineering unit. The business units that would “hire” engineers

tobuild and maintain the exploration, production, refining, and marketing activities couldeither use the internal central group or go outside for those services. However, the engineering services unit could only sell its services internally.

 

I learned all of this from the internal OD manager assigned to this central servicesgroup, whom we will call

Mary. She was charged by the manager of the unit with forming a “culture committee,” whose mission was to

define the so-called new culture ofthis unit as it evolved into its new role. It was recognized that the individual engineersfaced a major change, from being members of a business unit to being freelance consultants who now had to sell themselves and their services, and who had to bill fortheir time according to a preset rate. Mary

recognized that creating a new culture inthis unit was intimately connected to the existing culture in the larger

company, sinceboth the engineers and their customers were long-time employees of Beta Oil. It was

also recognized that the engineers were coming from subcultures, and one problemwas to create a single culturefor the new unit.

Beta Oil case study

After several hours of conversation with Mary to plan how the culture committee could function effectively and what kinds of intervention might be needed, wedecided that we had to do an assessment of Beta’s corporate

culture. I was to be thefacilitator, and she would bring together a group of fifteen or so engineers and

managers from the unit. The workshop devoted four hours to a discussion along the linesdescribed above

Beta Oil case study