Research Proposal
Table of Contents
.docx#_Toc92303821″>Research Title.3
.docx#_Toc92303822″>Background Information.3
.docx#_Toc92303823″>Aim & Objectives.3
.docx#_Toc92303824″>Aim of the Research:3
.docx#_Toc92303825″>Research Question:3
.docx#_Toc92303826″>Research Objectives:4
.docx#_Toc92303827″>Research Justification.4
.docx#_Toc92303828″>Feasibility of Research.4
.docx#_Toc92303829″>Literature Review..5
.docx#_Toc92303830″>Research Methodology.6
.docx#_Toc92303831″>Action Plan.6
.docx#_Toc92303832″>References.8
Research Title
The topic area of this research will be to examine the importance of risk management practices in projects of oil & gas industry: in context of Perenco.
Background Information
It is essential for the firms to manage the risks in their business at regular level to sustain their market position significantly. Generally, oil and gas industry also faced various risks ranging from volatile commodity prices, changes in exchange rate and safety issues that have a negative influence on the success of projects. At the same time, other risks such as pollutions, worker injury, damage to properties and plants, asset damage, business interruption are risks at internal level of the oil & gas firms. Due to complex business environment and resulted project risk, it is difficult for the oil and gas companies to implement the projects successfully and achieve the desired outcomes to fulfill the stakeholders expectations (Skogdalen & Vinnem, 2012). Therefore, now, the oil and gas companies are focusing on the risk management practices to manage the all project risks efficiently in exploration and production of oil and gases.
Aim & Objectives
Aim of the Research:
The main aim of the research is to investigate the risk in project management of UK oil & gas industry and examine the significance of risk management practices in Perenco to overcome these risks.
Research Question:
How risk management approaches are effective to manage the identified risks in projects associated to oil & gas firms?
Research Objectives:
· To identify the various risks and determine their impact in projects related to oil & gas industry.
· To assess the role of risk management practices in projects of oil & gas industry: in context of Perenco.
· To determine the challenges regarding implementation of risk management practices in projects of oil & gas industry.
· To recommend the effective ways to execute risk management approaches to handle the project risks in oil & gas industry.
Research Justification
In academic perspective, this research would be effective for the researcher to fulfill the professional degree in management. It is because risk management is integral part of the management and study on this topic would be valuable for the researcher to make a career as project manager. Researchers willingness to become a project manager in oil & gas industry motivates him to conduct the research on this topic. Apart from this, the outcomes of this research would be beneficial for the oil & gas industry including Perenco, which is an independent oil & gas company, with a balanced portfolio of producing fields, development projects and exploration prospects in UK. In current, the oil and gas industry is facing risk related to costs and regulatory issues due to uncertainties in oil prices and new regulations. Therefore, study on this topic would be effective for the firm to develop effective risk management framework to preserve the bottom line and make the projects successful to achieve the desired outcomes.
Feasibility of Research
This research study would be feasible because researcher has all needed resources including fund for travelling and access information from internet, library and subjects, access to requisite data from the university library and consent of management of Perenco to conduct study and support from the subjects to be questioned. Access of all these resources would enable the researcher to complete this study in 7 months.
Literature Review
According to Salazar-Aramayo, et al. (2013), execution of risk management practices is effective for the firms to maintain the safety and security of employees and involved stakeholders effectively in oil and gas projects. They further state that risk management practices helps to eliminate the socio-economic and environmental risks and ensure health and safety at risky projects. In similar way,Skogdalen & Vinnem (2012)also depict that the use of risk management practices is significant for the oil and gas organizations to reduce the impact of greenhouse gas emissions. On the other hand, Shuen, Feiler & Teece, (2014) portray that by adopting risk management practices, firms are capable to reduce wastages of the used resources effectively including water, land, people, capital, etc.Mikes (2009) describes that firms use risk management practices to avoid legal and social costs by eliminating the chances of accident and any casualty during the project.
But at the same time,Badiru & Osisanya (2013)argue that various challenges such as lack of harmonization in risk management practices, unreliability of collected information, lack of management support, etc. reduce the effectiveness of risk management practices to mitigate the identified risk. As stated by Yusuf, et al. (2014), effective practices such as sound communication, better risk management planning, comprehensive research, etc. can be effective for the firms to successfully execute risk management practices in oil and gas industry.
Research Methodology
For this, researcher will use constructionist research approach over positivism and realism approaches to develop the current knowledge on the research topic. This research approach will be used to explore the research problem of risk management in projects at subjective level because of its usefulness in analysis of social phenomenon based on subjective nature. The use of constructionist research approach will enable the researcher to determine research design as for this research, mix research design including both quantitative and qualitative research designs would be used to develop comprehensive understanding about significance of risk management in mitigating project risks and analyze the numerical data statistically to gain valid and reliable research outcomes (Bougie & Sekaran, 2010).
In this research, the researcher will use several secondary data sources such as annual report, websites, online sources, text books, journals, articles, etc. to develop large database in limited time and budget. In addition, survey through questionnaire for 80 key executives and workers in Perenco would be conducted to collect primary data and increase validity and reliability of research outcomes (Collins, 2010). In survey, likert scale based questions related to research topic will be asked to participants to know their opinions regarding the importance of risk management in avoiding risks.
Action Plan
Milestone
Activities
Time scale
Remarks
1
Identify area of interest
2
Select specific topic
3
Refine topic to develop dissertation proposal
4
Prepare proposal and submit for conducting study
5
Collect primary and secondary data
6
Analyze and interpret collected data/information
7
Write up in draft with findings and conclusion
8
Prepare final draft and submitdissertation
References
Badiru, A., & Osisanya, S. (2013) Project management for the oil and gas Industry: a world system approach. Boca Raton: CRC Press.
Bougie, R. & Sekaran, U. (2010) Research Methods for Business: A Skill Building Approach. 5th ed. USA: John Wiley & Sons.
Collins, H. (2010) Creative Research: The Theory and Practice of Research for the Creative Industries.UK: AVA Publishing.
Mikes, A. (2009) Risk management and calculative cultures. Management Accounting Research, 20(1), pp.18-40.
Salazar-Aramayo, J. L., Rodrigues-da-Silveira, R., Rodrigues-de-Almeida, M., & de Castro Dantas, T. N. (2013) A conceptual model for project management of exploration and production in the oil and gas industry: the case of a Brazilian company. International Journal of Project Management, 31(4), pp.589-601.
Shuen, A., Feiler, P. F., & Teece, D. J. (2014) Dynamic capabilities in the upstream oil and gas sector: managing next generation competition. Energy Strategy Reviews, 3,pp.5-13.
Skogdalen, J. E., & Vinnem, J. E. (2012) Combining precursor incidents investigations and QRA in oil and gas industry. Reliability Engineering & System Safety, 101,pp.48-58.
Skogdalen, J. E., & Vinnem, J. E. (2012) Quantitative risk analysis of oil and gas drilling, using Deepwater Horizon as case study. Reliability Engineering & System Safety, 100,pp.58-66.
Yusuf, Y. Y., Gunasekaran, A., Musa, A., Dauda, M., El-Berishy, N. M., & Cang, S. (2014) A relational study of supply chain agility, competitiveness and business performance in the oil and gas industry. International Journal of Production Economics, 147,pp.531-543.