Abu Dhabi National Oil Company

Executive Summary

The application of the Baldrige Model in Abu Dhabi National Oil Company is not only being viewed according to the way the organization is run but also with respect to personal past experiences and the biological properties of the employees and leaders involved within the organization. Therefore, the company has evolved to a different management status and has changed the employees’ lifestyles to revolve around the Baldrige Model principles and values. This means that ADNOC is able to resolve managerial problems and attributes which may affect its operations in the oil industry. The company understands that different cultures do not have the same guidelines under the basic principles of the Baldrige Model. However, the company’s unique identity comes from the individual managerial conditions, and the way it adapts to unique surroundings. Indeed, ADNOC uses the Baldrige Model in an exceptional way to promote the company’s core values and uniqueness of its products. This study reveals that organizational management environment and culture hold that with the mixture of breeding, past experiences, nature and human race, people are able to adapt to their own environment to the point where personal routines become almost automatic.

Introduction

This paper discusses the Baldrige Model as a business excellence model and its application at Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC). This model is important because it is influential and quite popular in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Understanding the application of the Baldrige Model and its benefits is important in leadership planning, strategic management, determining market forces affecting the company, workforce focus, process management, and knowledge management within the organization (Business Excellence 2014, p. 1).

Background of the Organization

Abu Dhabi National Oil Company is a dominant company in the UAE; it is owned by the state. The status of a state corporation ensures that the company benefits from state funding, which helps it in operating its major oil refineries within the UAE (Abu Dhabi National Oil Company 2014, p. 1). It has numerous subsidiaries, numbering 14 within the vertical and horizontal spectrums. Other than oil refinery, the company has developed major gas refineries in the UAE to produce enough liquid gas for domestic and organizational use (Abu Dhabi National Oil Company 2014, p. 1).

Literature Review

ADNOC has applied the Baldrige Model in its operations. The organizational environment and culture often entail assessing the successes or failures via the achievement of tangible deliverables, for example, the meeting of goals or profitability of an organization in the UAE. The issues concerning the leadership environment and cultural attributes in the organization borrow heavily from the Baldrige Model, and have a significant impact on the entity’s performance (Business Excellence 2014, p. 1). This means that ADNOC’s organizational environment and culture assess if the working behaviors of the professional groups in place adhere to the values of the Baldrige Model to influence the culture, and if indeed the environment and culture affect organizational performance.

The organizational policies, principles and ideologies that ADNOC adopts fall within the principles of the Baldrige Model and create its management culture, which adheres to the health and safety regulations. This means that the company performs the production of oil and other related products in a manner that does not affect the ecosystem. Furthermore, the organization’s management defines its productivity and cordial relationship among the management staff and employees to create a favorable working environment (Kreitner, Angelo & Nina 2007, p. 7). The workplace culture is dictated by the way individuals behave and interact with internal and external parties, especially those that champion for environmental safety. This is sometimes difficult to achieve, bearing in mind that companies face serious dilemmas when it comes to managing diversity and unprecedented oil spillages.

Organizational values also affect the culture that ADNOC adopts in manufacturing oil. Essentially, the values, thought processes and attitudes of the individuals working within the organization play an important role in defining the organizational adherence to the principles of the Baldrige Model. Therefore, the opinion of the organization’s leaders has the power to influence the culture within the workplace. If organizational values contradict those of the model and workers, conflicts might arise in the company. This is because the management might impose values that the workers do not subscribe to, thus causing tension among them (Kreitner, Angelo & Nina 2007, p. 4).

In addition, the assumed values in relation to the Baldrige Model are the inner aspects of the human nature, the beliefs and facts that cannot be measured; indeed, they do have an impact upon the organizational management environment and cultural practices (Robbins & Judge 2009, p. 17). For example, the company’s working environment features male dominance because of the nature of work. This state of affairs may have a more aggressive behavioral repercussion which might not impress the female workers. The notion that males are stronger than their female counterparts is mainly accepted by the company’s male workers due to chauvinism.

Data Collection

In this study, the researcher employed a combination of observation, interviews and peer-reviewed articles to collect data. These methods were found to be appropriate because of the reliability of the information discovered. For instance, observation facilitated the collection of primary data for the further analysis of the working conditions and adherence to the environmental safety concerns. Interview of the management and other sampled staff also helped in collecting firsthand information. Moreover, peer reviewed journals provided reliable and authentic information that the researcher needed.

Discussion

The study found out that understanding the organizational management environment and working culture of the company and its subsidiaries is essential if the management aims at introducing effective changes. This understanding provided managers with the ability to gauge how individuals may react to organizational change in terms of safety, identify any opportunities to engage and motivate individuals and tailor the change process to ensure maximum engagement. The management of ADNOC seems to understand the importance of organizational environment and production culture. They normally identify the existing culture and engage the staff to understand the organization’s strategic directions. Such an approach provides a fresh viewpoint and normality makes cultural characteristics invisible to established team members, thereby creating a favorable work environment.

Conventional approaches to the understanding of organizational environment, culture and change are inadequate, thus organizations use different strategies based on the immediate context (Robbins & Judge 2009, p. 15). The rationale behind this was that these approaches were based upon the models of organizational dynamics unique to this entity. The complexity theory brings a new paradigm to the understanding of organizational environment and culture. The introduction of this model at ADNOC brought a radical new concept in terms of the traditional change agents. Traditionally, the company regarded production culture as a state that was attributable to itself and ability without understanding that the oil industry had its regulations to protect workers and the physical environment. This concept was based on the assumptions that the organization had not responded to contemporary changes and that it had limited ability to make the production environment, its work environment and culture change (Hersey, Blanchard & Johnson 2012, p. 27). However, culture is an emergence, and it is the result of the individuals’ daily activities; the organization should strive to create a better work environment that does not compromise the company’s future operations. Therefore, the Baldrige Model is highly encouraged in the company and it is the result of continuous changes in values, meanings and proprieties of the individuals within the organization. Indeed, it has significant influence on the work environment and its sustainability.

According to Hersey, Blanchard & Johnson (2012), the Baldrige Model is one of the key drivers of the success or failure of the organization. This model indicates that strong aligned modern management attributes would propel success, while an ineffective management style would stifle the ability to thrive. They also identified two marketplace factors that impacted the central culture: the degree of risk associated with the organization’s key development activities and the speed at which organizations assess if actions and implementation of strategies are successful (Hersey, Blanchard & Johnson 2012, p. 33). The theory states that no cultural type is stronger as they all emerge because of different circumstances. However, the value in the model helps to understand how culture evolves and enables effective management of the influencing elements.

Recommendations

Following the adoption of the Baldrige Model in the company, Abu Dhabi National Oil Company should use survey instruments to allow it to boost its performance (Kreitner, Angelo & Nina 2007, p. 77). In addition, ADNOC’s leaders should understand the framework; this will help them make appropriate choices and efforts towards change so that they can add value within the organization and achieve their objectives. Culture should also be changed through a top-down powerful influence, meaning that the leaders decide what is not working, create a new vision, lead the changes by example and enlist the help of others to follow suit (Robbins & Judge 2009, p. 44). Any new action that provides a positive result is to be communicated widely and celebrated. If the new actions survive and are not squashed by the existing culture, they will be accepted as the new norm, thus forming new values within the culture.

The company management should use relevant survey instruments that help in deciding on the new culture; they should also adopt these tools within the organizational hierarchy. For the changes to be effective, key individual managers, workers and other stakeholders need to take a holistic approach and lead the changes by fully adopting them (Hersey, Blanchard & Johnson 2012. p. 109). Ideally, if this process is followed to the letter, the organization can avoid failure within the change management process by improving its ability to change. As a result, Abu Dhabi National Oil Company will increase its chances of success. Without these abilities, the organizations will be unable to thrive.

Conclusion

The significance of the application of the Baldrige Model within Abu Dhabi National Oil Company is immense and contributes to the effectiveness of organizational performance. Much of the research available indicates that an effective culture has the power to influence organizational performance and, by extension, its competitive advantage. Therefore, understanding the model, its industrial application and effect on the work environment is highly significant. Moreover, it details the impact of blending different working professionals and the impact that this may have on the Baldrige Model.