Table 23. Business Model – Oil & Gas Company

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Practices supported in aforementioned capabilities correspond to the development of closed loops in plants and fields for gas and water recirculation, use of rainwater for domestic and firefighting systems and wastewater injection in wells as a discharge measure. Finally, business model has supported the Company in the identification of opportunities for business growth, the upgrade of infrastructure, the strengthening of human talent, advance in a positive work environment and the improvement of the CSR model.

Table 23 presents a summary of the main features observed at the business model of the Oil & Gas Company.

Table 23. Business Model - Oil & Gas Company.

esa factor category

main features Business model Stable * Operational efficiency and processes improvement to increase productivity and oil refining efficiency. * Stakeholder management to prevent grievances that can potentially undermine business performance. * Pollution compensation through forest plantations. *Use of environmental indicators for process monitoring. * Technical know-how for the implementation of close loops for gas, water and wastewater. * Improvement of operations to achieve efficiency in resource management.

c) Manager’s perspective

The CEO of the Oil & Gas Company was the head of the firm for 8 years, which has become one of a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering and a Master’s degree in Industrial Engineering. The CEO is Colombian and started to work in the company as the CEO. His previous work experience during more than 40 years in the power sector focused on the power distribution business and the Oil & Gas sector and constituted a leverage to become the president of the Company.

Under his presidency, oil production, oil reserves and transportation of crude oil almost doubled. Besides, the company’s assets more than doubled and went from a single owner, (i.e. the Nation), to 397 thousand minority shareholders with the largest issuance of shares in the history of the Colombian Stock Exchange (Rojas, 2015).

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Below are the main features of the manager`s perspective associated with his personal values in conjunction with a favorable attitude towards compliance and his inspirational leadership style.

- Personal values

The CEO talks about integrity, responsibility, transparency, honesty and respect for employees when asked about the most important features in a leader:

… “Something of great importance are our values in terms of respect, integrity and responsibility […] the most important features in business leaders have to do with transparency and honesty …”

The CEO explains that he promotes respect in the workplace when it comes to religion, sex orientation differences:

… “We seek to respect all kinds of people ... there has been progress [in the company] in this regard ... “to count on with different kinds of people’s attitudes enriches the capabilities of the organization to face new challenges”…

Additionally, he adds in relation to the notion of diversity at the workplace:

… “If you do not have a fully diverse workforce it will be difficult to be more Competitive” … (PWC, 2015)

Finally, the president of the Board states, in relation to the values of CEO of the Oil & Gas Company:

… “He has been a great business creator throughout his life and a wonderful human being who combines integrity, humility and joy. I see in him unusual qualities for an executive of his stature: optimism, closeness to people, strength, transparency ”… (Rojas, 2015)

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In acknowledging his concern about honesty and responsibility, understanding and tolerance, the President exhibits benevolence and universalism as his main personal values.

The former statement by the CEO fulfills the motivational goals of benevolence and universalism exposed by Schwartz (1992) such as honesty (e.g., being transparent), responsibility (e.g., awareness of environmental issues) and acceptance (e.g., inclusion and respect for human rights).

Benevolence and universalism become expressions of the CEO’s focus on society, taking the form of concern about the welfare of his personnel.

The practices supported by the president of the company relate with the increase of environmental sustainability awareness. For example, the president has coined the concept of cleaner barrels related to the perform of efficient and profitable operations without occupational accidents and no environmental incidents (Periódico Portafolio, 2013). Besides, in relation to the support given by the CEO for biodiversity conservation programs, company co-financed a project in offshore zones for the protection of the humpback whale in alliance with a biodiversity conservation institute and its main competitors (Trujillo, 2017).

-Perspective towards ESA

The CEO states: “it is undeniable that social and environmental issues are becoming more important, as well as the management of the relationships with stakeholders, the labor force, the authorities ... and this aspect has an impact on the type of management that one has to carry out”. The CEO adds: “We have adapted our work practices to the GRI practice […]” “[…] Besides, we can show significant progress in our relationships with the different stakeholders and we can show that we have increased the amount of our social activities as well as in environmental and social investments.”

The former statement suggests that the CEO’s perspective toward ESA focuses on compliance with different stakeholders through a dialogue with them for the mitigation of reputational and operational risks and the implementation of a brand positioning strategy as a cleaner, sustainable and social industry. Besides, during the CEO’s presidency “the improvement in the quality of fuels registered a great advance for the country in relation to the Sulphur content in diesel and gasoline” (Económica, 2018b), which allowed the Company to develop biodiesel with lesser amounts of hazardous materials.

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-Leadership style

The leadership style of the CEO corresponds to a transformational one. A transformational leadership style is one which relationships are organized around a collective purpose involving charisma and the stimulation of subordinates’ ideas and values (Bass et al., 1987; Burns, 1978). His leadership style has inspired the employees to strongly commit with their work.

Furthermore, his employees have categorized the CEO as a transformational leader:

… “CEO is a charismatic person and has a good managerial management in terms for carrying out concrete actions…Having a challenging leader in the presidency drives a higher commitment in his employees” ... “For those who know him closely, the main aptitude of the CEO is consistency, which in simple words means leading by example, to which is added his high degree of commitment and the close and special relationship he has with God, especially when it is about facing with serenity and calm the most complex situations” (Periódico Portafolio, 2011)

Furthermore, the adoption of environmental strategies has been influenced by the leadership style of the CEO of the company:

“The improvement of the quality of fuels is recorded as a great advance for the country: the sulfur content in the Diesel (-50 ppm sulfur) and gasoline (-300 ppm sulfur) is one of the lowest on the continent “(Económica, 2018a).

Finally, the president of the Board adds that the CEO is supportive of sustainable development projects (Periódico Portafolio, 2011). It is palpable that the leadership style of the president of the company was one of the manager’s features to inspire his employees to work to achieve an environmentally responsible company focused on pollution control and environmental conservation. The transformational leadership style was the mechanism to promote the development of the company in terms of greener energy solutions.

Recently, the company has had a change in its top leader in order to focus on the management of the company after the oil price crash in order to maintain their economic indicators in good conditions.

Table 24 presents a summary of the main features of the manager´s perspective at the Oil & Gas Company.