MULTINATIONAL MANAGEMENT

Multinational Management: British Petroleum

Multinational Management: British Petroleum

Introduction

British Petroleum (BP) is one of the world's leading oil companies, and one of the United Kingdom's largest corporations. The company, which was the pioneer of the Middle Eastern oil industry, having found out oil in Iran before World War I, is now committed in all aspects of oil exploration, production, refining, transport, and marketing. It has significant interest in chemicals and plastics, encompassing a variety of specialty goods- mostly detergents, sophisticated composite materials, and advanced ceramic engineered materials. The new BP has a long and stimulating history that goes back more than a century. The company is made up of four companies, each with its own proud history: BP, Amoco, ARCO and Castrol. These histories are so often intertwined, that coming together as one company makes a great deal of sense. It's the power of one.

Management

The board's governance policies regulate its relationship with shareholders, the conduct of board affairs and its relationship with the group chief executive. The policies recognize that the board has a separate and BP Logounique role as the link in the chain of authority between the shareholders and the group chief executive. In addition, they acknowledge the dual role played by the group chief executive and executive directors as both members of the board and leaders of the executive management. The policies therefore require a majority of the board to be composed of non-executive directors and delegate all aspects of the relationship between the board and the group chief executive to the non-executive directors. The policies also require the chairman and deputy chairman to be non-executive directors; throughout 2002 the posts were held by Mr Sutherland and Sir Ian Prosser respectively. Sir Ian Prosser acts as the senior independent non-executive director as required by the Combined ...