Work

Drilling their Own Graves: How the European Oil and Gas Supermajors Avoid Sustainability Tensions Through Mythmaking

Year: 2017

Type: article

Abstract: This study explores how paradoxical tensions between economic growth and environmental protection are avoided through organizational mythmaking. By examining the European oil and gas supermajors’ “CEO-speak” about climate change, we show how mythmaking facilitates the disregarding, diverting, and/or displacing of sustainability tensions. In doing so, our findings further illustrate how certain defensive responses are employed: (1) regression , or retreating to the comforts of past familiarities, (2) fantasy , or escaping the harsh reality that fossil fuels and climate change are indeed irreconcilable, and (3) projecting , or shifting blame to external actors for failing to address climate change. By highlighting the discursive effects of enacting these responses, we illustrate how the European oil and gas supermajors self-determine their inability to substantively address the complexities of climate change. We thus argue that defensive responses are not merely a form of mismanagement as the paradox and corporate sustainability literature commonly suggests, but a strategic resource that poses serious ethical concerns given the imminent danger of issues such as climate change.

Source: Journal of Business Ethics

DOI: 10.1007/s10551-017-3733-x

Authors: George Ferns, Kenneth Amaeshi, Aliette Lambert

Institutions: Cardiff University, University of Edinburgh, University of Exeter

Language: English

Topic: Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability

Subfield: Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management

Field: Business, Management and Accounting

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Climate action

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $3,790