Type, Scope, and Environment of Business Assignment

BUSINESS AND BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT
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Business and Business Environment
Task 1
Type, Scope, and Environment of Business
BP is a corporation, which means that it has separate legal entity from its owners (Pride et al., 2009). In addition, the business enjoys advantages that come with being a corporation including ease exchange of ownership, specialised management, guaranteed continuity, ease in raising capital among others (Gupta, 2007). BP is headquartered in the UK, but its operations are distributed all over the world. Therefore, it operates in the international business environment. In this regards, therefore, its operations are influenced by forces such as the culture, currency fluctuations, political temperatures, among other challenges that come with having a global presence. The company has 74,500 employees who help it in carrying out is operations in 72 countries around the world (BP, n.d.). The company deals primarily with the exploration of oil and natural gas. Other segments of the organisation deal with the trading and marketing of natural gas (Reuters, n.d). As seen, BP is a large organisation whose operations are globally distributed.
Stakeholders
BP has many stakeholders, and it ensures it takes care of their interest. As informed by Ferrell (2004), businesses have stakeholders, and they have different interests in the organisation. BP recognises this and ensures it engages with its stakeholders in a productive way. The employees, analysts, and shareholders are among the major stakeholders whose interests are considered by the company. The government and regulators also form another group of stakeholders that PB engages with through consultations. Other stakeholders that BP takes into consideration their interests include customers, local communities, partners and contractors, and NGOs. These stakeholders are part of the operations of the business, and the company takes care of their needs to ensure continuity.
Responsibilities of BP towards Stakeholders
As for employees, the community, and the government, BP ensures the respect for human rights in its operations. It also strives to ensure there is no harm that occurs to employees. In regards to the environment, it seeks to see to it that its operations have minimal impact on the environment. It is important to note that organisations nowadays have to engage in practices that are environmentally friendly to improve their success chances (Carroll & Shabana, 2010). The company also publishes annual sustainability reports documenting its stance on the pertinent societal issues. Through this, it is able to meet the demands of the community, the government, and the customers. Employees expect regular communication from the business and BP goes further than this by engaging with their unions (BP Global, 2014). As for analysts and shareholders, BP engages with them through events such as events such as AGMs. In addition, the company has investor site that has relevant information for them. As for customers, research programmes are conducted to gather insight into customer satisfaction.
Task 2
Organisational structure determines the sharing, control, and assignment of roles, responsibilities, and power within the organisation (Aquinas, 2008). As such, having a clear organisational structure is important for any organisation as it stipulates authority and communication lines. Aquinas (2008) points out that organisational structure plays an immense role in preventing chaos as orderly communication channels and reporting relationships are created.
As a large global company with complex processes and activities, it is vital for tasks to be organised in a structured manner. With hierarchical structure being left in the past, BP employs a decentralised structure in order to manage its operations (Grant & Jordan, 2015). According to Grant & Jordan (2015), the decentralised structure of the company is aimed at instilling entrepreneurial spirit, initiative, and focus among its unit managers. The structure also enables the transfer of best practices and knowledge sharing (Grant & Jordan, 2015). Therefore, as seen, a decentralised system enables BP to achieve its objectives.
According to Brown (2012), workers with different skills are employed by the company to perform duties in its different segments. Brown (2012) notes that the workers are divided into different levels according to their responsibilities. As shown in the appendix, the operations of the company are divided into three segments namely exploration and production, alternative energy, and refining and marketing. The exploration and production segment focuses on how oil and gas are extracted. Alternative energy segment focuses on the management of other energy sources such as wind, natural gas, and solar. Finally, the refining and marketing segment deals with the creation of different oil and gas products and finding their markets.
The decentralised structure employed by BP offers some advantages as well as drawbacks. A major advantage is that it allows prospective evaluation of each unit of the business. In addition, given the size of the BP, it is difficult for a centralised system to work since it is hard for to managers to focus on the details of operations (Flamholtz, 2012). The decentralised system in the firm also allows for faster decision making. The drawbacks associated with the decentralised system include easy loss of control by management, power struggle, and less motivation as it is difficult for employees to climb the corporate ladder (Jain, 2005). Therefore, the organisational structure of BP has advantages as well as drawbacks as seen.
Task 3
The organisational behaviour affects the operations of BP to a great extent. The company relies on its members in order to achieve its goals. Employees form an important asset to the firm (Rees & Edwards, 2009). The company, therefore, has to promote right behaviours that are consistent with its core activities. This can only be achieved through documentation and implementation of practices that impact positively the performance of employees. From the website of the compan...