Journal And Essay - Consumer Behavior

BP Oil Spill

[Name of the Writer]

[Name of the Institution]

Journal Entry

Despite the fact that there has been lot of discussion in this regard, Marijuana is banned in the United States. In the recent weeks, the government has again reiterated their commitment that the Marijuana is not going to be legalized in the United States. One of the reasons that there has been a reluctance on the part of the government is due to the fact that as compared to the country like Canada, where regulations are easier to implement due to the small size of the population, in the United States it is going to difficult to implement the control. There is negative impact of this legislation though as the people are still actively using the Marijuana and due to the fact that it is not legal, people are supposed to buy from the black market which has its fair share of the demerits. What is needed to be done is that the balanced approach is needed to be adopted in terms of the way this thing is going to be controlled. Most polls regarding Americans and their pot use hover around the 40% mark for having tried marijuana at least once. This is compared to the 16% of Americans who have tried cocaine, which is obviously a significantly lower percentage. Marijuana is becoming more and more ubiquitous every year despite being less addictive than coffee.

BP Oil Spill

Handling of the Situation by BP

Looking at the way BP handled this whole situation; it can be assumed that the response was rather lacklustre on their part. For the first few days, they were not willing to take enough responsibility of the incident and there was certain effort to ensure that they downplay the incident. When they realized that the situation is going overboard, they started to blame the external stakeholders for the whole situation. They started to blame their contractors as well as the other partners and showed that the safety and security protocols that are setup by them are adequate enough to take care of this situation.

When they realized that these actions are not doing any effect on their goodwill, their next step was to make sure that they opted for the PR campaign to show that how they are going to make it right. Even then there was lot of lip service and no concrete steps were taken to resolve the impending issues of the safety and security. In the hindsight, it can be said that their whole response was rather reactive to the whole situation and they could have handled in a much better manner. It was a good lesson in business ethics.

Handling of the Incident by The Environmental Agencies

The response that came from the environmental agencies was far from ideal in this situation. As a matter of fact, it reiterated the whole thing that how lacklustre their strategy is when it comes to making sure that they safeguard and raise concern about the situation. And again, they were also reactive when it comes to the way they handled the whole situation. So, this was another aspect that missed out by them during the course of the whole process. The other thing that the whole incident showed that these organizations and agencies are not doing anything more other than educate the stakeholders and they don’t have any control or authority over the way things are supposed to be handled at the broader level within the organization. The role of the environmental agencies was also criticized in a sense that they were not quite willing to make sure that blame the BP due to the huge business clout that it owns and instead there was an effort on their part to blame the other organizational partners for the whole incident. Again, the incident raised question mark about the security protocols that are needed to be followed at the organization end.

Reaction by the Federal and State Government

In some ways, one of the reasons that the damage was being controlled and the certain degree of hold was gained to the situation was the instance when the interventions by the government were carried out. They were the first one that had the resources and the will to make sure that not only the extent of the damage was being realized, but also to make sure that the solution that is being reached is such that should allow long term resolution of the issues. The resources were being used, some of the loopholes in the laws were being looked at and effort was being made to revaluate some of the business practices that is being carried out by these organizations. The Spill Response Fund was also setup to make sure that the consensus was developed among all the stakeholders how the situation was going to be handled at the particular point of time. Not only that, the other major aspect of the whole response from the government was the condemnation and efforts for the rehabilitation of these people at the particular point of time.

Change in the Public Opinion of the Company

At that time, due to the image that was created by BP, the initial reaction was such that BP is actually the victim of the whole situation and it is the partners and the other stakeholders who are causing such damage to the reputation to the organization. The other thing that was being done at that point of time. The strong media campaign also played its role in the whole situation. With the passage of time though, people started to realize the gravity of the situation and the extent to which the damage is being caused. In this day and age of the alternate media, it is quite hard for the organizations to completely hide the truth from the people, and due to that, people started to realize some of the issues that were happening with the organization and what are some of the possible strategies that can be devised to make sure that these long standing issues are being resolved. The other thing that is needed to be kept in mind is that is that, the environmental bodies and the reaction on the part of the United States Government showed that all was not right with BP and thus this incident played a major part in swaying the opinion of the people against them. BP also bought online ads that pop up when people search for information about the oil spill on Google and Yahoo. The ads, which link to BP's own oil-response sites, typically appear above or to the right of other search results. BP said the idea was to help people on the Gulf find the right forms to fill out quickly and effectively.

References

Bond, D. (2013). Governing disaster: the political life of the environment during the BP oil spill. Cultural Anthropology, 28(4), 694-715.

Horowitz, A. (2014). The BP oil spill and the end of Empire, Louisiana. Southern Cultures, 20(3), 6-23.