Unit V Schorl Act BE

Beyond Legitimacy: A Case Study in BP’s ‘‘Green Lashing’’

Sabine Matejek • Tobias Gössling

Published online: 31 December 2013

� Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Abstract This paper discusses the issue of legitimacy and,

in particular the processes of building, losing, and repairing

environmental legitimacy in the context of the Deepwater

Horizon case. Following the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe

in 2010, BP plc. was accused of having set new records in the

degree of divergence between its actual operations and what

it had been communicating with regard to corporate

responsibility. Its legitimacy crisis is here to be appraised as a

case study in the discrepancy between symbolic and sub-

stantive strategies in corporate greening and its communi-

cation. A narrative analysis of BP’s ‘‘beyond petroleum’’-

rebranding and the ‘‘making this right’’-campaign issued in

response to the Gulf of Mexico disaster discusses their

respective implications for (green) corporate change. Fur-

ther, the question is addressed why BP’s green image

endeavors were so widely accepted at first, only to find

themselves dismissed as corporate greenwashing now. The

study concludes that where a corporation’s ‘‘green narra-

tive’’ consistently evokes established narratives, its legiti-

macy will be judged against narrative, rather than empirical

truth. Thus, the narrative will be more willingly accepted as

speaking for the issuing company’s legitimacy, irrespective

of whether it reflects substantive greening or not.

Keywords Corporate environmental responsibility � Impression management � Narrative analysis � Corporate communication � Image crisis � BP

Introduction

Legitimacy as a social construct that relates the impression

of the audience concerning the behavior and actions of

organizations with approval or disapproval is a central

topic in institutional organization theory (Suchman 1995).

In that context, two different discussions about legitimacy,

although highly related with each other, can be discerned:

On the one hand, research discusses the consequences of

legitimacy; on the other hand, the question is on the

antecedents of legitimacy, also translated to the managerial

perspective and related to the question what organizations

(can) do to build, maintain or lose and repair their legiti-

macy. Both perspectives are dealt with in the seminal work

by Mark Suchman (1995) who defines legitimacy as ‘‘a

generalized perception or assumption that the actions of an

entity are desirable, proper, or appropriate within some

socially constructed system of norms, values, beliefs, and

definitions’’ (ibid, p. 574). In his work, Suchman distin-

guishes between three essential types of legitimacy, i.e. (1)

pragmatic legitimacy, related to the products and services

that an organization offers and the perception of these to be

relevant for the society, (2) moral legitimacy, based upon

actions and behavior of the respective organization, and (3)

cognitive legitimacy, which refers to the comprehensibility

of an organization and its actions.

In the CSR debate, the concept of legitimacy is used to

understand and explain the business–society relationship

and, in particular, the business case in business ethics. In

this context, it is often argued that organizations that vio-

late societal rules lose legitimacy whereas those organi-

zations that contribute to the well-being of societies will be

rewarded accordingly. For instance, Palazzo and Scherer

(2006, p. 71) state the following: ‘‘In recent years, many

corporations have been involved in conflicts with civil

S. Matejek (&) International Business, DHBW Mannheim, Coblitzallee, 1-9,

68163 Mannheim, Germany

e-mail: matejek@dhbw-mannheim.de

T. Gössling

Organization Studies and Tilburg Sustainability Center, Tilburg

University, Tilburg, The Netherlands

123

J Bus Ethics (2014) 120:571–584

DOI 10.1007/s10551-013-2006-6

society and as a result their legitimacy has been chal-

lenged.’’ Even though it is often not made explicit, legiti-

macy in a CSR context is moral legitimacy: Companies

that contravene social institutions risk losing their legiti-

macy; consumers and investors can take economic action,

thus not buy the respective products or shares any more,

employees can take organizational behavior actions in the

sense of withdrawing commitment and losing motivation

(Gössling 2011).

Environmental legitimacy is part of moral legitimacy

(Bansal and Kistruck 2006). Corporate stakeholders, the

media, including social media, NGO watchdogs, and gov-

ernmental regulators have all been putting increased pres-

sure on companies to assume corporate environmental

responsibility (CER), i.e., to strategically consider and

manage the impact of their products and operations on the

natural environment. The objective of CER engagement is

for the company to build and sustain environmental

legitimacy.

Bansal and Clelland (2004, p. 94) define corporate

environmental legitimacy as ‘‘the generalized perception or

assumption that a firm’s corporate environmental perfor-

mance is desirable, proper or appropriate’’ and conse-

quently deserving of approval. This definition of the term

stresses that environmental legitimacy is assigned by

stakeholders in a process of perception, based primarily on

impressions. Companies faced with their stakeholders’

CER demands are thus drawn into the process of impres-

sion management, in which ‘‘the firm’s image is negotiated

between the organization and its audience’’ (Bansal and

Kistruck 2006, p. 166), as the company takes deliberate

influence on how it is perceived with regard to CER ‘‘by

controlling what is disclosed and how’’ (ibid). This man-

agement of impression is closely related with strategic

responses to institutional pressures (Oliver 1991). The key

argument in Olivers’s ideas is that organizations possess

different possible reactions on institutional pressure, and

compliance is just one possible strategy to satisfy stake-

holders. Compromising, avoiding, defying or manipulating

or other strategic responses (ibid, p. 152).

Public impressions of CER will usually be limited to

what is communicated by the company and the media,

including social media. Most stakeholders, and consumers

without NGO-clout or state legislation on their hands in

particular, are usually not privy to a company’s strategies

and activities in terms of its substantive actions, i.e., they

are not in a position to tell whether the greening activities

‘‘create real and material change in the organization’s

goals, structures, and processes’’ or not (Bansal and Ki-

struck 2006, p. 166; see also Brown 1994; Cole and Van

Orman 2008). Rather, corporate greening can be accessed

and evaluated only by proxy of the symbolic representa-

tions of substantive actions (Cherry and Sneirson 2011),

making external communication a vital aspect of corporate

environmental legitimacy. This aspect deserves particular

attention, given the rather complicated issue of corporate

communication as compared with third party communica-

tions. Transparency differs between organizations with

regard to the amount of information that is demanded and

provided (Holt and Barkemeyer 2012). Different types of

social and environmental audits and rankings aim at mak-

ing CER measurable and comparable; however, the amount

of information provided in such rankings is controversial,

ambiguous and too numerous for consumers to be workable

(ibid). Critical consumers, active in the blogsphere, point

particularly to problems caused by focal organizations

(Etter and Fieseler 2011). However, they do so in very

particular cases and are rather selective with pointing their

attention to organizations. Also as a consequence of this,

some organizations are more transparent than others, since

the pressure for transparency differs between sectors and

organizations. Hence, organizations that apply sophisti-

cated communication systems can manage to be the most

important source concerning information about themselves

for the majority of stakeholders.

Green narratives, i.e., the plots in which a company

structures environmental issues to communicate them, are a

decisive aspect of symbolic representations in this context.

Narratives make communicable what is considered valu-

able (Kearney 2002; Starkey and Crane 2003). They rep-

resent one of the rare means of access to corporate values

and culture, which are renowned for their evasive, implicit,

and abstract nature that makes them difficult to tackle

(Boje 2008), but also a crucial source of motivations and

restrictions on individual as well as corporate behavior

(Brown 1994).

Green narratives can possibly represent two different

things: First, they can be the explicit communication and

the representation of underlying substantive greening. On

the other hand, they may also be deployed deliberately ‘‘in

order to direct attention away from certain facts and

towards others’’ (Brown 1994, p. 166), taking any degree

of deviation from substantive activities in an organization.

In this case, symbolic actions may even eclipse substantive

activities entirely, a phenomenon generally referred to as

greenwashing, or window dressing. Hence, green narratives

‘‘serve as a form of deception to mislead critics of a firm’s

environmental record by merely embracing the narrative as

a rhetorical device, rather than as a reflection or impetus to

action’’ (Starkey and Crane 2003, p. 233). Symbolic

actions, then, ‘‘are acts to which meaning is attributed

beyond their substantive impact’’ (Brown 1994, p. 863) and

which replace, rather represent what they communicate.

Empirically, this study investigates the stark contrast in

BP’s public communications with regard to environmental

responsibility before and after the Gulf of Mexico crisis in

572 S. Matejek, T. Gössling

123

2010. By means of a narrative analysis, it offers an

explanation for the fast decline of corporate (environmen-

tal) legitimacy in the context of a crisis. It strives to answer

the questions of how BP’s symbolic commitment to cor-

porate greening could create an image of substantial

environmental responsibility, and, consequently, environ-

mental legitimacy, and to what extent its prior ‘‘green’’

differentiation aggravated the reputational, financial, and

operational crisis after the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe.

In 2010, BP plc. had to experience a severe loss of

legitimacy. After the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon

oil platform with its fatalities and the subsequent envi-

ronmental fallout, BP’s was caught in a corporate legiti-

macy crisis. The company was not only found to have

failed at fulfilling its responsibilities toward its employees,

the environment, its stakeholders, and its shareholders

(Reidel 2010; Rickens 2010; Steffy 2010). But, as it is to be

shown in the following, the media and environmental

NGOs also cast BP as a corporation willing to don a green

image for mere symbolic sake, without backing it up with

the necessary strategic and operational change which

would give it substance. The following overview of the

media response to the Gulf of Mexico crisis shows how

BP’s greening campaign set the stage for the dimensions to

its loss of legitimacy in 2010.

BP in Waters Too Deep

Through an elaborate, $200 Million rebranding campaign

driven by former CEO John Browne (Lowry 2010), BP had

turned itself into the first global player of the oil business to

find its strategic vision in a future ‘‘beyond petroleum.’’ BP

acknowledged the inevitably finite nature of its primary

product resource and, in deliberate contrast to its industry

competitors in general and market leader ExxonMobil in

particular, was also the first oil company to publically

accept the scientific reality of man-made climate change

(Cherry and Sneirson 2011; Heubaum 2010; Reidel 2010;

Vetter et al. 2010). BP declared it would proactively and

sustainably diversify its product portfolio, turning toward

alternative, renewable energy sources (Lowry 2010).

Claiming to take its business objectives beyond petro-

leum was a daring move, considering the intrinsic paradox

of a ‘‘green’’ extractor, refiner, and marketer of crude oil

products. Its greening campaign was consequently met

with equal measures of awed approval and cynical ridicule

within and outside the company from the very beginning

(Balmer 2010; Cherry and Sneirson 2011; Hicks 2010;

Frey 2002; Kenney 2006; Macalister 2002; Reidel 2010;

Krauss 2001; Lowry 2010; Rickens 2010; Vetter et al.

2010). Most decisively, however, assuming the role of a

green industry leader placed BP under increased scrutiny,

and the group was to be measured against different stan-

dards ever since (Cherry and Sneirson 2011). After having

raised itself to the heights of spearheading in CER and

profiting from the advantages of favorable visibility (Frey

2002; Hart and McGinn 2010; Macalister 2002; Cherry and

Sneirson 2011; Hicks 2010; Reidel 2010), BP had to take a

severe ‘‘green lashing’’ (Bansal and Clelland 2004) from

financial markets, government representatives, industry

regulators, environmental pressure groups, the media, and

those directly affected by the oil spill in 2010.

As lease owner, BP was legally responsible for opera-

tional safety on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig.

Although it was not the only responsible party involved in

the accident and its consequences, BP was confronted with

by far the most severe charges of fault or shortcomings in

congressional and legal investigations (Mufson and

Kornblut 2010; Chazan and Carlton 2010; Cline 2010). The

kind of operations it faced in response to the crisis ‘‘had

never been done before in 5,000 feet of water’’ (PR VII)

and BP had to concede that their success could not be

guaranteed since ‘‘[t]his will be the first time this proven

shallow water technology has been adapted for the deep-

water’’ (PR IV) or even ‘‘tested in these conditions’’ (PR

VII). Likewise, BP was facing the accusation that it had

been conducting deepwater drilling with technology

developed and proven reliable only under shallow water

conditions, and without adequate measures to either pre-

vent a blowout, or react to one (Chazan and Carlton 2010;

Mufson 2011). Even though BP was no exception to its

industry competitors in this regard, and even though it had

obtained the necessary permits from the US authorities, this

earned it no leniency with the public regarding its per-

ceived environmental irresponsibility (Eilperin 2010).

Only days after the accident, emails and internal com-

munications were leaked to the media which suggested, if not

documented, that BP had repeatedly ignored safety concerns

raised by its own and contracted engineers on the Deepwater

Horizon drilling rig (e.g., Steffy 2010). When investigations

into the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe exposed a clear lack

of substantive care for environmental and personnel safety

(Cline 2010; Eilperin 2010; Heubaum 2010; Mufson and

Kornblut 2010), BP was not only criticized for the risks they

had taken when operating the platform but also for their

efforts to let the company appear greener than it was. Critics

worldwide were launching ironical redesigns of the BP logo,

spoofed ad layouts, and rewritings of its former marketing

spins; wherever BP had positioned itself as beyond petro-

leum, environmentally friendly, or setting new standards in

sustainability, these communication artifacts were now

‘‘hijacked’’ and used to discredit BP (for examples see e.g.,

Balmer 2010), see as an example Fig. 1.

The loss of legitimacy was utterly expensive, costing the

group record amounts in cash (estimates of the total costs

Beyond Legitimacy 573

123

ran between $16 and $67 billion, depending on the degree

of negligence BP would be found guilty of; cf. Mufson

2011; Reidel 2010) and 50 % of its market capitalization in

2010 (see Fig. 2). This drastic drop was largely due to the

pending question of liability as, for months, it remained

unclear how much exactly BP would owe the US author-

ities and how much the courts would assign to those

affected on sea and at the shores (Hannam 2010; Hicks

2010; Reidel 2010). While the values lost in trust and

license to operate in and beyond the Gulf of Mexico states

may be less easy to quantify, the fact that BP has not

entirely recovered its pre-crisis market value (see Fig. 2)

indicates that the same company with the same assets may

considered to be worth less without as a consequence of its

loss in moral legitimacy. Effectively, the company had not

lost any of its pragmatic legitimacy, since it was still fully

able to operate its petrol business and provide all products

and services in the same quantity and quality as before the

accident happened.

Indeed, BP’s public image during and immediately

after the crisis took slightly varied tones of the same

judgment: that the group’s green differentiation had been

exposed as nothing but a means to an end—i.e., an end

other than accepting environmental responsibility (Cherry

and Sneirson 2011; Hannam 2010). The immense blow to

BP’s corporate image has been assigned to this ‘‘sense of

betrayal’’ (ibid). In different print media, BP was diag-

nosed with a ‘‘pervasive profit-orientation’’ which was

perceived as being in diametrical opposition to stake-

holder-oriented and safety-conscious, responsible busi-

ness conduct (Cline 2010; Reidel 2010; Rickens 2010;

Steffy 2010). Eventually, the Deepwater Horizon crisis

drew attention to this ‘‘gap that BP so effectively

exploited—taking advantage of the public relations upside

of CSR without actually expanding the time or money to

integrate or engage in it’’ (Cherry and Sneirson 2011,

p. 115).

Fig. 1 Cynical response to the BP logo by Greenpeace

Fig. 2 Stock chart for BP plc. (retrieved June 20th, 2012, from nasdaq.com) depicting BP’s stock price (top chart) and available shares on the public market (bottom chart) between July 2009 and June 2012

574 S. Matejek, T. Gössling

123

Besides the financial and reputational dimension, BP’s

crisis was also one of engineering capacity. For all the most

pressing tasks—stopping the spill, sealing the well, con-

taining the oil and its damages—BP seemed ill-prepared, if

not downright incapable (Chazan and Carlton 2010; Eil-

perin 2010; Vetter et al. 2010). As the crisis dragged on for

months, BP’s struggle was personified in its CEO Tony

Hayward (Balmer 2010; Vetter et al. 2010; Boldt and

Student 2010), who provided the already raging media

frenzy with a running list of ‘‘Haywardisms’’: remarks that

showed a lack of sensitivity for the situation, for example

‘‘There’s no one who wants this over more than I do. I

would like my life back.’’, ‘‘I think the environmental

impact of this disaster is likely to have been very, very

modest.’’ and ‘‘What the hell did we do to deserve this?’’

The CEO undermined the legitimacy of its company by

reacting perceivably inadequately throughout the crisis.

Damage control became the only thing left for BP, which

in consequence ‘‘raised the bar for themselves and any

other company in terms of throwing the weight of com-

munications resources at a crisis’’ (Bush 2010), coining the

term ‘‘crisis marketing’’ (ibid). BP’s CER impression

management credo turned from ‘‘beyond petroleum’’ to

‘‘Making this right.’’

Research Questions

Cherry and Sneirson (2011, p. 987) have recently discussed

the discrepancy of ‘‘the reality versus the myth of BP’’ and

the question at which degree of discrepancy between

communicated and substantive greening a company’s CER

communication attains the quality of fraud. Whether or not

BP will be held legally accountable for securities fraud or

false advertisement will be decided in court. Judging by the

rules of transparent business conduct, however, the public

and media have clearly reached their verdict, generally

agreeing that BP’s green impression management was

hardly more than a symbolic bubble. Admittedly, the media

was certainly more than a neutral observer. Certainly, the

government and media themselves engaged in blame

shifting and scape goating. But whether justified or not, the

impression left is one for which BP now has to account.

As Bansal and Kistruck (2006, p. 166) have pointed out,

‘‘scholars […] are interested in the ethics of using symbolic impressions that deliberately diverge from substantive

actions.’’ After all, a corporation willing to ‘‘involve pre-

tense and deceit’’ (ibid) in their impression management is

expected to make similarly questionable concessions on

integrity in other matters of corporate conduct as well

(Bansal and Clelland 2004; Rickens 2010). However,

deliberation is hard to prove with regard to false impres-

sions. The challenge, then, is to provide an evaluative

framework which allows for corporate responsibility

communications to be analyzed with regard to the symbolic

versus substantive nature of their impression management

effects. Therefore, this paper asks:

RQ 1: How can we explain that BP’s green narrative

aggravated the company’s loss of legitimacy through the

Gulf of Mexico crisis, when its public impression reversed

from BP as oil industry leader in CER to BP as a deceptive

greenwasher?

This paper builds on such an evaluative framework

through narrative analysis, addressing two matters of par-

ticular interest for corporate responsibility research:

On a practical level, we need to study in greater

detail how management develops and embraces green

narrative and how such narrative actually reflects or

stimulates changes in management practices. On a

conceptual level, we need to be aware of the seduc-

tive and deceptive (including self-deceptive) power

of language and reflect upon how better to connect

green word/narrative with deeds that are consistent

with the spirit of such narrative.

(Starkey and Crane 2003, p. 234; emphasis added)

Addressing the practical level, the BP case will be analyzed

as a study in corporate narratives and their implications for

substantive greening.

RQ 2: Were the ‘‘beyond petroleum’’ and ‘‘Making this

right’’ narratives consistent with reflecting or reinforcing

substantive green change at BP?

(De-)familiarization Narratives and Corporate Greening

The analysis of green narratives on the practical level of

substantive and symbolic greening as cited above presup-

poses that they are relevant for either (Brown 1994). While

corporate narratives might be intuitively considered as

symbolic representations only, they can also have a con-

siderable impact on substantive actions, since they may

‘‘influence and control decision premises, processes and

outcomes’’ (ibid, p. 863). Green narratives enable a com-

pany to accept or, where necessary, limit its corporate

environmental responsibilities; especially in a change

process, they can generate and foster a company’s com-

mitment to its change toward greener management and

operations (Preuss and Dawson 2009).

Starkey and Crane (2003, p. 227) introduced the distinction

of familiarization and defamiliarization narratives because

they had found that ‘‘where firms actively engage in envi-

ronmental programs, they are likely to mobilize existing

organizational narratives to frame the process of change,

rather than develop new ones.’’ Such familiarization

Beyond Legitimacy 575

123

narratives are more readily accepted as part of the organiza-

tion, because they plot its greening ‘‘in terms of company

traditions, such as a history of product quality, cost control,

customercare’’etc.(ibid), and are thusbuildingonestablished

aspects of corporate strategy and identity.

Familiarizing new corporate objectives and strategies

via such narratives is a facilitative condition for corporate

change, since it provides the ‘‘acceptable and uncontro-

versial frames of reference’’ (Starkey and Crane 2003,

p. 227) required to engage an organization’s internal and

external agents of change. However, it is not a sufficient

condition where the change process requires ‘‘a significant

shift in the values and normative systems underpinning

management theory and practice’’ (ibid). We argue that a

company’s clear renunciation from its core business would

represent such a significant shift in values and norms.

Defamiliarization narratives, by contrast, create ‘‘para-

digmatic tension and ideological conflict’’ (Starkey and

Crane 2003, p. 222) by introducing narrative patterns

diverting from or even opposed to the prevailing narratives.

Yet it is exactly their initial lack of acceptability which

results in their possible impetus for substantial change:

alternative narratives draw attention to the ultimately con-

structive and selective nature of the prevalent narrative,

showing that it can be replaced. Thus, defamiliarization

narratives are considered facilitators of corporate change and

substantive greening. In BP’s case, we therefore suggest that

a green narrative capable of reflecting or reinforcing sub-

stantive greening would have to be a defamiliarizing one.

Narrative Analysis as Evaluative Framework

When addressing narratives on the conceptual level of

legitimacy, a vital precondition is to be aware of the dis-

tinction which is intuitively made between fictional and non-

fictional narratives. Narratives may either be evaluated

based on their accuracy of recounting events as they are

claimed to have happened (empirical truth), or evaluated

with regard to how plausible they make that their recounted

events could have happened as described within the world as

narrated (narrative truth). Narrative truth is fulfilled, where

a given plot is rendered likely, convincing, and appropriate

within its (fictional) framework (Kearney 2002; Koutsoubou

2010), while non-fictional narratives are expected to refer

truthfully to an empirical reality ‘‘outside’’ their plot.

The audience is usually content to accept narrative truth

when it comes to narratives which do not refute their fic-

tionality. Where a narrative lays emphasis on its non-fic-

tional nature, such as in corporate impression management,

however, narrative truth is generally considered as

diverging from, inferior and even contrary to empirical

truth. Here, the intuitive dichotomy is between narrative or

truth. Thus, the distinction between narrative and empirical

truth is of great relevance when developing an evaluative

framework for narrative impression management: a narra-

tive fulfilling the criteria of narrative truth can create

impressions of corporate environmental legitimacy as

defined above, even if it would fail a test against ‘‘empir-

ical truth’’ or substantive CER.

Approach

Based on prior efforts toward that end (Starkey and Crane

2003; Preuss and Dawson 2009), this case study has been

conducted by means of a narratological research method

(Barthes and Duisit 1975) which has recently been trans-

ferred to the analysis of narratives in CER as ‘‘an alter-

native approach to judging the quality and, ultimately, the

legitimacy of narratives about business and the environ-

ment’’ (Preuss and Dawson 2009, p. 139).

Data Basis

The empirical data of a narrative analysis are the narrative

texts under scrutiny (Humphreys and Brown 2008). In this

case, they are selected CER communications by BP pre-

dating the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe as well as taken

from its ‘‘crisis marketing’’-campaign in 2010. They were

chosen as data resources for this study based on the selection

criteria of free accessibility to external stakeholders, direct

topical relation to BP’s CER or the Deepwater Horizon

crisis response, and a diversity of communication channels

through which BP could spread ‘‘its own story’’ (i.e., with

little interference by the media or others), because such

communications were considered most likely to have an

impression management effect on public stakeholders.

As a result, the selection is clustered into press releases

(shortened PR), homepage information texts (shortened HP),

print advertisements (shortened PA), and corporate sustain-

ability reports (shortened SR). Twelve press releases were

selected and successively numbered by date of release; they

all relate to the crisis response after the Deepwater Horizon

explosion. Nine information texts from the BP webpage are

quoted here for the analysis, numbered successively. Ten

successively numbered print advertisements and three reports

are also referred to: the sustainability report (SR 1) and the

environmental report (SR 2) of the year 2009 as well as the

Gulf of Mexico response report (SR 3) from 2010.

Beyond Petroleum

The following discussion will put the main findings of the

narrative analysis of BP’s ‘‘beyond petroleum’’ communi-

cations in relation to the media response in 2010 as a proxy

576 S. Matejek, T. Gössling

123

of BP’s moral legitimacy during and after the Gulf of

Mexico crisis. It will evaluate them with regard to in how

far they represent (de-)familiarization narratives and how

this affected BP’s perceived corporate CER. We show how

it can be explained that the green narrative was accepted

widely (though not completely) as legitimate and what

caused it to eventually ‘‘erode, rather than build, legiti-

macy’’ (Bansal and Kistruck 2006, p. 178) for BP in 2010

(RQ 1).

To start with the slogan itself, the truncated and highly

abstract brand statement ‘‘beyond petroleum’’ functions as

a kind of ubiquitous headline to BP’s green narrative,

evoking implications of a wider picture (the unspecified

‘‘beyond’’). Read against the context of the oil industry’s

stereotypical image as dirty, greedy, and ruthless (Bonini

et al. 2010), it carries the positive associations generally

assigned to a wider horizon, as well as tentative implica-

tions of a moral higher ground. Setting itself beyond its

peers’ target-fixation on petroleum, BP tagged itself as

‘‘being different (read: better) than traditional oil compa-

nies’’ (Cherry and Sneirson 2011, p. 1025; see also Vetter

et al. 2010).

Deprived of temporality, the ‘‘beyond petroleum’’ signet

stands to be taken either as a mission and vision for the

future, or as an evaluation of the current state of operations.

With its atemporality, BP’s motto blurs the line between

what the company is striving for and to what it is sub-

stantially committing. The tag line ‘‘It’s a start’’ initially

added to the beyond petroleum PR and marketing com-

munications (e.g., PA 1–3, 4–6) mirrors this vagueness,

deploying it in BP’s favor (Cherry and Sneirson 2011; Frey

2002). This way, BP profited from an enhanced green

image even when its core business in petroleum still

eclipsed its tentative investments in renewable energy by

far (Frey 2002).

As the slogan was gaining ground, it was highly suc-

cessful in setting BP apart from its industry as ‘‘the com-

pany that goes beyond what you expect from an oil

company—frank, open, honest and unapologetic’’ (Frey

2002, unpublished). Today, BP still narrates its environ-

mental responsibility as unusual, in the sense of ‘‘beyond’’

usual expectations toward an oil company, introduced as

‘‘surprisingly for some’’ and something that ‘‘[a] skeptic

may have wondered’’ about (HP 4). Explicitly including

this unusual quality is a familiarizing technique, involving

addressees by including them as a ‘‘role’’ in the narrative,

offering points of identification. It also adds emphasis to

how extraordinary BP’s steps were, i.e., even as they are

played down as a mere ‘‘start,’’ they still represented a

clear mark of distinction for BP and by implication

deserved respect for their progressive and idealistic nature.

One of the most telling examples of BP’s plotlines in

this context is found in the ‘‘beyond petroleum’’ print ad

campaign. Here, BP declared that it was ‘‘time to go on a

low-carbon diet’’ (PA 6), advertising its investment efforts

in natural gas, solar energy, and ‘‘cleaner’’ power stations.

Once again, the narrative remains conveniently vague, this

time by leaving its subject obscure and merely implying

that it is BP who is (or should be) going on a diet which

cuts out high-carbon energy. This implication arises by

showing that BP has at least started to abstain from the lure

of the highly profitable (i.e., to say ‘‘tasty’’) but harmful (or

‘‘fattening’’) oil market, with its products increasing the

risk of environmental side-effects and deprivation (carbon

‘‘obesity’’). Instead, it engages in ‘‘healthier’’ choices

which, following the diet metaphor, are associated with the

less pleasurable but more disciplined way to go.

BP’s use of the dietary metaphor is a good example of

how certain plot structures endow what is narrated with

evaluative meaning: the company’s commitment to envi-

ronmental responsibility is subtly cast in terms of resist-

ibility and the character strengths of knowing (and doing)

what is best in the long run, even if it requires sacrifices

and self-control in the present. It reinforces the differenti-

ation from BP’s industry competitors who kept indulging in

their unsustainable carbon ‘‘binge.’’

A different one of the ‘‘beyond petroleum’’ ads evokes

another metaphorical imagery by proclaiming that ‘‘It’s

time to think outside the barrel’’ (PA 7), also elevating BP

as the one who does from those competitors who don’t.

This attribution of an ‘‘out of the box’’ corporate strategy is

widely supported in BP’s CER communications by refer-

ring to its former CEO Lord Browne as the personification

of ‘‘green leadership.’’ Indeed, when BP first started out

beyond petroleum, it was in a context of tackling climate

change, with CEO Lord Browne lecturing on global

warming at Stanford University (Heubaum 2010). Till date,

Browne’s persona as a ‘‘green leader’’ is conflated with

BP’s corporate identity in its communications on CER,

switching within sentences between him as atypical oil

industry visionary thinking outside the barrel and ‘‘BP’s

willingness to confront environmental issues’’ (HP 1).

Browne’s career path in BP’s crisis-prone Alaska division,

for example, is appropriated as a ‘‘long learning process’’

for the business as a whole (ibid), implying that through the

‘‘beyond petroleum’’ campaign, BP was turned into ‘‘the

public face of Browne’s convictions’’ (Frey 2002,

unpublished).

In its brand and logo history, we are still reminded that

when British Petroleum rebranded itself as BP, the acro-

nym used to stand ‘‘for the new company’s aspirations:

‘better people, better products, big picture, beyond petro-

leum’’’ (HP 3). These days, however, BP is a little more

restrained as to its brand statement, declaring ‘‘beyond

petroleum’’ to designate ‘‘going beyond in our business

activities’’ (HP 1). Here, steps toward ‘‘a material transition

Beyond Legitimacy 577

123

to a lower carbon future’’ (ibid) are overborn by the

imperative of pressing for progress within the lines of

current markets. ‘‘Going beyond’’ is re-contextualized,

from diversifying into new and developing fields to

squeezing the utmost out of prevalent energy sources.

In the aftermath of BP’s crisis in 2010, the environ-

mental aspect of diversifying away from non-renewable

high-carbon fossil fuels is dropped from its green narrative.

While the symbolic impressions evoked by the ‘‘beyond

petroleum’’-campaign had been one thing, it seems as if BP

was now adjusting them closer to the substantial under-

standing of sustainability within the company. To what

extent this understanding had already been part of BP’s

corporate culture in 2009 is apparent in the descriptions

concerning its values and strategies with regard to sus-

tainability, where BP phrases its commitment as follows:

We push boundaries today and create tomorrow’s

breakthroughs through our people and technology.

[…] We intend to sustainably drive cost and capital efficiency in accessing, finding, developing and pro-

ducing resources, enabled by deep technical ability

and a culture of continuous improvement. (SR 1)

Indeed, BP’s communications under the heading of

‘‘beyond petroleum’’ were characterized by a pervasive

dominance of ‘‘techno-rationalist’’ language (Starkey and

Crane 2003). Dealing pre-dominantly with ‘‘the policy and

science of environmental issues’’ (HP 4; emphasis added),

as BP tells of ‘‘[l]everaging our technical expertise,’’

‘‘specialists,’’ ‘‘official documents,’’ ‘‘systems of gover-

nance and management,’’ ‘‘internal control,’’ ‘‘certifica-

tions,’’ ‘‘rationalizing,’’ and ‘‘regulatory requirements’’ (SR

1; HP 4).

Meanwhile, BP’s ‘‘beyond petroleum’’-narratives are to

a large extent devoid of the environment. Its greening

communications are for the most part framed ‘‘in

Enlightenment assumptions of a detached and denatured

science and in the belief of technological development and

unlimited progress’’ (Starkey and Crane 2003, p. 226) and

the only role that nature plays—where it is part of the

narrative at all—is that of an impediment to (more) busi-

ness. As such, it poses ‘‘challenges including cost, engi-

neering and regulation’’ and ‘‘sustainability concerns’’ for

BP’s risk management (SR 1).

Describing the environment as such a detached, alien-

ated challenge to be mastered, i.e., succumbed by tech-

nology, controlled and managed effectively, situates BP’s

green narrative in the anthropocentric ‘‘progress narrative’’

(Starkey and Crane 2003). It is strongly influenced by the

metaphors of Social Darwinism. They translate the concept

of ‘‘survival of the fittest’’ into an imperative of having to

constantly push limits, take risks (Starkey and Crane 2003),

and place self-interest on the same level with self-

preservation. Thereby, it renders any ‘‘fitness’’-enhancing

measures as prudent management. From an ethical point of

view, it also displaces responsibility for the interests of

others (ibid), as the narrative’s concept of environmental

responsibility is neatly isolated from and subordinated to

core business activities (Gladwin et al. 1995). Framed as

such, striving for progress takes precedence over its con-

sequences and justifies its means.

Overcoming ‘‘boundaries’’ and ‘‘challenges’’ are cer-

tainly the most dominant keywords in the ‘‘beyond petro-

leum’’-communications. For BP, rising to the challenge

‘‘requires working at the industry’s frontiers and continuing

to innovate in our technology and processes’’ (SR 1). When

it is mentioned that the dwindling reserves of oil are

extracted from ‘‘a geological layer […] which we are only now starting to map and understand’’ (SR 1), for example,

then this is laden with pride of ‘‘pioneering new technol-

ogies’’ to capture what was ‘‘locked away’’ from human

access before (ibid).

Technology is (necessarily) at the heart of BP’s CER

narrative and presented as the answer to ‘‘improving effi-

ciency and minimizing impact […] as well as lowering variable costs’’ (ibid) in its operations. Especially BP’s

deepwater explorations are framed in plotlines of frontier

spirit and conquest by ‘‘cutting-edge skills and technology

to undertake complex oil and gas projects in many of the

world’s most technically challenging and hostile environ-

ments, such as the Arctic and ultra deepwater’’ (SR 1).

Thus, ‘‘specialist expertise’’ and ‘‘efficiency’’ (SR 1) are

valued most highly in BP’s green narratives, making them

prime examples of familiarization narratives for a company

centered on engineering operations.

However, BP also conveys a belief that the environment

and the impact of BP’s operations on it can be kept under

control and predictable. Examples include descriptions of

how the ‘‘climate challenge demands a clear, predictable

way forward’’ (SR 1) and new projects are secured against

unpleasant surprises by means of ‘‘a thorough review of the

environmental issues and opportunities associated with any

investment’’ (ibid). BP is confident to minimize its envi-

ronmental impact on sites of operation ‘‘by taking a sys-

tematic and disciplined approach to operations, using

sophisticated risk assessment techniques that directly affect

our business plans’’ (ibid).

Underlying these arguments is the implication that

preventing accidents and avoiding harmful environmental

impact is merely a question of having ‘‘the right people in

the right places with the right skills’’ (SR 1) for BP. Its

operations are thereby detached from their environmental

context, with the latter being presented as just another

technical challenge to be managed (Preuss and Dawson

2009). Restraint for the sake of pre-emptive caution or

prudence in the face of unknown consequences of the

578 S. Matejek, T. Gössling

123

operations’ intrusion on ecosystems (Dawson 2005) are not

part of the narration. Also, there is no mention of possible

scenarios in which technology itself can pose risks. It is

presented solely as serving the ends of efficiency and

precision, minimizing BP’s environmental impact.

These implications are contrary to the environmentalist

tradition of the ‘‘evolutionary epic’’ (Livesey 2001; Starkey

and Crane 2003). In the meta-narrative frame of the evo-

lutionary epic, an intrinsic value is ascribed to the envi-

ronment; exuberant growth is replaced by the concept of

sustainable development (Preuss and Dawson 2009; Gla-

dwin et al. 1995) and nature introduced as a ‘‘character’’ in

its own right. This is hard to reconcile with an ‘‘instru-

mental approach to nature’’ as propagated by BP’s progress

narrative (ibid). Here, admitting limitations and restricting

what one would be able to do to what can be responsibly

done is considered a weakness, an admission of defeat,

rather than a desirable trait (Hebel 2010). Absent from it

are also counter-narratives which assign an intrinsic value

to nature, both as important in its own right and as provider

of the very resources which BP is striving to harvest—and

eventually to sell for profits. The only exception are a few

isolated paragraphs on the concept of ‘‘ecosystem services’’

as a new approach to CER (SR 2; SR 3), assigned explicitly

to sources outside BP (SR 2).

Instead, BP’s green narrative consistently evokes the

concept of unrelenting progress, as the primary role which

the environment plays is that of an obstacle to be overcome,

a problem to which superior technology or technological

innovations are the solution (Starkey and Crane 2003). What

can be pointed out in this analysis is why the ‘‘beyond

petroleum’’-narrative was widely accepted despite its unu-

sual and contradictory nature within the oil industry context

(RQ 1): it very successfully evokes the meta-narrative of

unlimited progress through technological superiority, an

objective familiar to BP. Applying Starkey and Crane’s

(2003) distinction between familiarization and de-familiar-

ization narratives discussed above to the ‘‘beyond petro-

leum’’-narrative can therefore explain both, its legitimacy

effect and its implications for substantive change at BP.

As to the first, a green narrative’s integrity is usually

taken to depend on the degree to which recipients can

identify with its values (Livesey 2001; Starkey and Crane

2003). 1 This paper suggests an additional explanation: that

a narrative will be accepted as legitimate when it answers

to the demands of narrative truth, and is thereby detached

from the question to which degree it fulfills the require-

ments of empirical truth as well. As its narrative analysis

has shown, BP’s ‘‘beyond petroleum’’-communications

consistently matched the progress narrative of exuberant

growth through technological pioneering. This rendered

alternative narratives of the environmental paradigm

irrelevant for its consistency and thereby excluded their

respective values from the evaluative framework against

which BP’s corporate environmental performance was to

be judged. As a result, the ‘‘beyond petroleum’’-narrative

first helped BP attain a CER impression as green industry

leader, before being turned against it as a testament of

perceived greenwashing, making BP appear more than

legally responsible.

The familiarization characteristics of ‘‘beyond petro-

leum’’ also point to ‘‘the role of green narrative in insti-

tuting a reconsideration of the values, beliefs, and

normative systems that underpin the predominant man-

agement narratives and that constitute barriers to paradig-

matic shift’’ (Starkey and Crane 2003, p. 222) as they

appear to have prevailed at BP. As a means of committing

substantially to the visionary strategy of thinking ‘‘outside

the barrel,’’ the ‘‘beyond petroleum’’-narrative as it was

told by BP was situated within an unfitting narrative par-

adigm, holding on to values and objectives that were

familiar to BP. Only a de-familiarization narrative, how-

ever, could have introduced ‘‘a newly emergent narrative of

nature [which] might challenge mental models regarding

the link between management and ecosystem, thus pro-

viding the basis for a shift in management thought and

action’’ (Starkey and Crane 2003, p. 221). In this regard,

the ‘‘beyond petroleum’’-campaign could not have trig-

gered or enhanced substantial greening at BP.

Still, BP’s impression management profited from a free-

riding effect of the moral dimensions and values associated

with the campaign’s vague but visionary headline and plot

structures. Here, the narrative frames resonate with such

metaphors as dietary self-control and a moral higher ground.

The values they allude to suggest substantial green change at

BP. Seeing how the reference to these implications of the

communication campaign has changed after the Gulf of

Mexico crisis, though, it can be argued that BP has

attempted to correct these impressions after its CER crisis.

When exposed, the gap between the image that BP had

evoked through its communications and its substantial

CER management made stakeholders aware of the con-

structed and interchangeable nature of the ‘‘beyond petro-

leum’’-narrative. Thus, its legitimacy enhancing effects

reversed into a sense of having been misled, resulting in

considerable green lashing, as it is to be described in the

following.

1 Cherry and Sneirson (2011, p. 1007), for instance, have argued that

BP’s green narrative was so ‘‘wildly successful’’ because its

cunningly added tagline ‘‘’It’s a start’ […] struck a nerve with American consumers’’ (ibid), who found their own environmental

irresponsibility dilemma mirrored in BP’s greening paradox, ‘‘[f]or

whatever their own carbon footprints might be, for whatever gas-

guzzling SUVs they or their neighbors might own, for however many

trips consumers made in their cars, they at least aspired to be kinder to

the environment,’’ too (ibid).

Beyond Legitimacy 579

123

Making This Right

As BP found itself in a full-blown crisis after the Deep-

water Horizon explosion, it engaged in a response com-

munication campaign of equal proportions (Chazan and

Carlton 2010). The main findings of the narrative analysis

of BP’s crisis response communications will be discussed

in the following.

Through all available channels (Boldt and Student 2010),

not only ranging from classic public and investor relations

over the company webpage to TV, radio, and print media

ads, but also pervading all social media hubs from Facebook

over YouTube to Twitter, BP sent out a persistent, uniform

message: ‘‘We will get this done. We will make this right’’

(e.g., PA I). ‘‘Making this right’’ was soon inscribed in all

communications with regard to the Gulf of Mexico crisis

response. From a narrative analysis point of view, it poses an

interesting contrast to the ‘‘beyond petroleum’’ slogan. First,

temporality is this time clearly included by the present

participle form of ‘‘making’’—stressing how BP was taking

action and control of the situation. Second, aiming to set

things ‘‘right’’ is an explicit reference to stakeholder

expectations toward BP’s responsiveness. While the

‘‘beyond petroleum’’-campaign had mostly implied the

moral dimensions of BP’s environmental responsibilities,

‘‘making this right’’ seemed to acknowledge them overtly.

However, as the narrative progresses, there is a striking

turn to its plot structure, possibly explaining why its

‘‘headline’’ requires the more distancing ‘‘this’’, rather than

an ‘‘it’’, when referring to the multifold crisis. As the fol-

lowing analysis will show, BP was very explicit about

assuming ‘‘full responsibility for cleaning up the spill’’

(e.g., HP d), but not for the spill itself. By implication, BP

was stepping up to do what is right, but refrained from

including any prior wrongdoing in its narrative, which

made making it right necessary in the first place.

Given the circumstances, BP’s ‘‘Making this right’’-

narrative thereby masters the avoidance of self-incrimina-

tion as epitomized by the US American Miranda warning

that whatever you say can and will be held against you in a

court of law. The ‘‘making this right’’-narrative allowed for

BP to assume responsibility and engage in a full-on crisis

response as a means of reinstating its legitimacy, rather

than aggravating the allegations of (ir)responsibility (and,

by implication, negligence) in legal terms. Especially with

regard to the fact that BP was one of several parties

involved, but definitely the one taking most of the public

blame (Cherry and Sneirson 2011; Frey 2002; Hart and

McGinn 2010; Macalister 2002), the narrative served its

situation optimally, placing BP’s role in it in a more

favorable light.

The first aspect to the plot structure which helped BP to

at least start and rebuild legitimacy is its beginning. For

BP, the narrative of the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe

begins with a ‘‘tragic incident’’, an act of higher powers,

compared indeed to a natural disaster like Hurricane Kat-

rina (PA III). Set in relation with a freak accident of nature,

the rig’s explosion is placed in a context without agency

(HP d; PR II, SR 3). In such a plot, things happen without

an acting subject, as questions of responsibility are avoided

by the narrative’s passive voice (Hebel 2010). For instance,

the narrative sets out ‘‘when tragedy strikes’’ (PA III) or ‘‘a

gas release and subsequent explosion occurred’’ (HP d).

Similarly de-personalized is the following description of

how ‘‘the accident involved a loss of control over the

pressure in the well followed by the failure of the well’s

blowout preventer […] allowing the leak to occur’’ (HP d). Excluded from this narrative are any patterns or concrete

instances of behavior on BP’s part which may have led up

to the accident. Also, if the trigger to the crisis was the kind

of accident which, as it is implied, could not have been

anticipated and prevented, this means the same could have

happened to anyone and ‘‘any one company’’ (HP b).

Pointing this out is a normalizing technique repeatedly

employed by BP in its crisis communication (HP b, d; PR I,

II, III, IX; SR 3). The impression created is one of

deflecting the attribution of responsibility to BP

individually.

A second, more dominant element in BP’s ‘‘making this

right’’-narrative is the clear distinction between ‘‘Trans-

ocean’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig’’ and itself as

‘‘lease operator’’ (HP d; PA I; PR I, III). Especially in BP’s

press releases throughout the response, this twofold role

division is addressed overtly (e.g., PR V) and gradually

translated into a sequencing structure which becomes the

established ‘‘chaptering’’ of information in BP’s press

releases (PR VI ff.): ‘‘Subsea Source Control and Con-

tainment’’ and ‘‘Surface Spill Response, Containment and

Shoreline Protection’’ (PR VI). Through this structure, the

narrative assigns a rather admirable role to BP, as the one

who is battling the crisis ‘‘at multiple fronts’’ (HP d)—the

fishing grounds and the beaches in particular—where the

consequences manifest themselves most visibly:

We have acted to take responsibility for the clean-up,

to respond swiftly to compensate people affected by

the impact of the accident, and to look after the

health, safety and welfare of the large number of

residents and people who have helped respond to the

spill. (ibid)

With regard to the clean-up, BP has accepted not merely

that it is ‘‘a responsible party, as defined under US legis-

lation,’’ but also that it sees ‘‘a huge moral obligation’’ (PR

XI) to make things right.

BP is also involved in the frustrating efforts to stop the

problem at its source, albeit here it presents itself as merely

580 S. Matejek, T. Gössling

123

one of many parties involved, along ‘‘with Transocean,

MMS, the US Coast Guard’’ (PR V) and ‘‘working closely

with specialists form peer companies, governmental

agencies and academia [to tackle] the leak in multiple,

parallel ways’’ (HP e). As a subtext, BP is communicating

that it only takes a share of responsibility at and for the

literal source of the problem.

Resonating with this self-assigned role, BP presents its

response efforts in the familiar terms of pride in superior

technological abilities of ‘‘[t]he best engineers in the

world’’ and in having ‘‘organized the largest environmental

response in this country’s history’’ (PA I). Communications

like this show the potential unintentional side-effects of

crisis marketing: where it praises response performance

more than showing humility and regret for having caused

the original problems, it may offend affected stakeholders.

Crisis marketing can then create the kind of CSR backlash

which accuses the issuing company of bolstering its repu-

tation in a way that is easily perceived as ungrounded and

even inappropriate under the circumstances.

BP also describes the innovations ‘‘ranging from incre-

mental enhancements to step changes in technologies and

techniques’’ which were necessary to stop the deepwater

spill with predominant pride of how they ‘‘have advanced

the state of the art and laid the foundation for future

refinements’’ (HP b). They are presented as testament to the

company’s ingenuity and leading position in the market.

Not mentioned, however, is the embarrassing trial-and-

error ordeal when the praised technologies failed to put an

end to the crisis (Chazan and Carlton 2010; Cherry and

Sneirson 2011; Harlow et al. 2010; Vetter et al. 2010).

After all, BP kept falling short of its own ideals as they are

emplotted in its corporate narrative: superior technical

expertise and engineering skills. This demonstrates that

CER communication has a high potential for (re)building

legitimacy ‘‘regardless of whether the firm substantively

engaged in the activities described’’ successfully (Bansal

and Kistruck 2006, p. 167).

As the analysis of BP’s ‘‘making this right’’-campaign

has shown, its plot structure’s scope limits the narrative of

BP’s responsibility to the crisis response, leaving out its

causes. In other words, BP assumes responsibility for

making things right, but not for having done anything

wrong. Its ‘‘making this right’’ narrative had the primary

objective to isolate the company as best as possible against

a legal admittance of guilt without contradicting its

response efforts. This defensive stance encodes a threat to

its corporate existence, as once again the narrative is clo-

sely intertwined with the concept of evolution. However,

while the progress narrative had embraced the survival of

the fittest argument for the business context, this time the

metaphor of ‘‘organizational mortality’’ (Starkey and Crane

2003, p. 229) is introduced: ‘‘While interrelationships and

interdependencies are highlighted, we also have species

destruction, crisis of biodiversity, and the ever-present risk

of extinction’’ (ibid) in their respective metaphorical

translations to the business world. Any of the latter can be a

driver of co-evolution, i.e., the notion that competition and

market mechanisms do not pre-empt collaboration from

which all parties involved will profit respectively (ibid).

Implied here is what CSR research refers to as ‘‘license

to operate’’: as opposed to the logic of the progress nar-

rative, it is not ‘‘the fittest’’ corporation itself, but ‘‘natural

selection by the environment [which] determines survival’’

(ibid, p. 228) for a corporation. As opposed to the domi-

nance of competitive superiority in the ‘‘beyond petro-

leum’’-narrative, BP’s ‘‘making this right’’ is set in a frame

of business narratives that are ‘‘freed from their narcissistic

and self-regarding tendencies and [can] be structured

instead around multiple characters’’ (ibid, p. 229), or

stakeholders.

Yet, as a narrative of CER, the ‘‘making this right’’-plot

falls short of the kind of paradigmatic shift necessary to

trigger a substantial change in BP’s consideration of its

environmental impact. A year after the crisis, the patterns

of BP’s CER narrative were still dominated by techno-

rationalist language (SR 2) and the same pushing-the-

frontier spirit as before (HP a, b, c). The concepts of sus-

tainability and environmental responsibility remain framed

in objectives such as cost and liability reduction, as well as

the ongoing pursuit of oil reserves as core priority (SR 3).

Even the oil spill of unparalleled dimensions is presented in

familiar terms as yet another ‘‘complex problem’’ (PR IV)

to be mastered. BP remains fixated on an instrumental

understanding of its environment as a controllable obstacle

which is to be managed by ever-improving technology.

Like ‘‘beyond petroleum’’ before, it is a narrative of

high familiarization value, which draws on ‘‘acceptable and

uncontroversial frames of reference’’ (Starkey and Crane

2003, p. 227). If we are ‘‘looking not just for specific

actions, but for a sense of the values that are driving the

response’’ (Hart and McGinn 2010, unpublished) at BP,

there appears to be no change in the underlying values. Its

green communications continue to idealize unrestrained,

purely quantitative progress and accept the risks that this

entails as legitimate for the sake of profitability and com-

petitiveness (Chazan and Carlton 2010; Heubaum 2010).

If we consider BP’s green narratives in terms of how

they ‘‘might subvert, or otherwise impact on, managerial

intentions’’ (Preuss and Dawson 2009, p. 137), they remain

opposed to pre-emptive, sustainable CER. They could thus

be seen as a symptom of management priorities set in a

way which prevents a consequential dedication of resour-

ces to preventing accidents even where it cuts into profits

(Cline 2010). Also, they can be taken to reflect a corporate

culture which discourages a restraint on operations merely

Beyond Legitimacy 581

123

because there is an intrinsic value assigned to the envi-

ronment potentially put at risk. Nor do they enable a

consequential diversification of the product portfolio into

fields where the environment takes the role of a provider,

rather than as BP’s opponent in a struggle for technical

superiority.

At least, it can be concluded that the company seems to

have learned one lesson through the crisis, namely the

boomerang effect of green communications: BP appears to

be more cautious about what is and what is not included in

its corporate narratives.

Case Study Implications

As the immediate crisis in the Gulf of Mexico abided and

its long-term ramifications—or lack thereof—became

apparent, BP and its entire industry claimed to have learned

important lessons, as BP stated in the campaign, claiming

that they had understood. Academic research in corporate

responsibility, too, should avail itself of BP’s integrity

crisis as a case study in ‘‘green lashing’’.

Prior research has argued that the need for substantive

greening and authenticity in its symbolic representations is

highest where transparency of corporate actions is ample or

increasing (Brown 1994), and where stakeholder demands

are inconsistent with primary company objectives (Bansal

and Kistruck 2006). The BP case, as it was discussed here,

illustrates that a third aspect needs to be added to this

equation, namely that substantive and symbolic greening

should especially not diverge where a corporation has been

differentiating itself on the grounds of CER. Legitimacy

crises as BP’s show that companies claiming green lead-

ership for themselves have to accept that their actions will

be met with tightened scrutiny and measured against

stricter standards.

Corporate greening remains a potential source of dif-

ferentiation and even competitive advantage, especially in

sectors which are—both, by intuition and with good rea-

son—not associated with environmental responsibility.

Yet, the lesson to be learned from BP is to insure that

symbolic representations are authentic enough to avoid a

green lashing effect when the degree of substantive CER

management becomes apparent. In the light of corporate

scandals, when symbolic actions are revealed to have

replaced, rather than represented substantive activities

(Bansal and Kistruck 2006), corporate environmental

legitimacy can be lost instantly, and recovered only at great

effort and expense.

In BP’s case, its apparent lack of substantive action in

CER stood in sharp contrast to the ‘‘beyond petroleum’’-

spin. It was argued here that the green image created by

BP’s repositioning campaign can be accounted for by the

fact that its green narrative consistently evoked established

narrative patterns of the environmental paradigm. It was

therefore judged against the standards of narrative, rather

than empirical truth and as long as the requirements for

narrative truth were fulfilled, the narrative could be

accepted as speaking for the issuing company’s CER,

irrespective of whether it reflected substantive greening or

not.

Pitted against BP’s symbolic actions in the course of the

‘‘beyond petroleum’’-campaign, however, it fell short of

enabling substantive green change in BP’s core business.

With its strictly instrumental approach to the environment,

it is a typical example of what Preuss and Dawson (2009)

call an ‘‘enlightened self-interest narrative,’’ one which

considers CER in terms of prudent impression management

and cost cutting only. Thus, the values and objectives it

idealizes are opposed to those required for a company who

would indeed take the step beyond petroleum. BP’s green

narrative encodes the very corporate values and under-

standing of environmental responsibility which may have

kept the company from substantive greening. As such, it

did not constitute the kind of de-familiarization narrative

necessary to trigger or reinforce substantial change.

With regard to the ‘‘making this right’’-campaign, its

narrative analysis has demonstrated how BP’s response

communications were driven by its need to both, avoid

legal self-incrimination and counter the green lashing and

legitimacy loss it was faced with in comparison to the other

parties involved. Considering the uneven share of critique

which BP had to take as an effect of its prior differentiation

through symbolic greening, its communicative approach to

making things right had a certain re-legitimizing effect and

guarded BP against self-incrimination. At the same time,

though, it was to a degree insensitive toward those most

affected by the spill and also fell short of allowing for a

consequential change in BP’s underlying values.

This paper builds on a narrative approach to distinguish

between familiarization and de-familiarization narratives

of corporate responsibility. It has added a case study

example of a qualitative narrative analysis of CER narra-

tives to the research literature and contributes to a better

understanding of when green narratives constitute sub-

stantive corporate greening and when they might even

prevent it. The analyses have shown that BP’s green nar-

ratives can be read as symptoms of intrinsic barriers to

substantial green change in the oil company.

It has shown three things with regard to legitimacy

theory: First, it became apparent that strategic responses

that are different from compliance can indeed relate to

legitimacy in such a way that the public opinion is influ-

enced by communication that is not congruent with sub-

stantial action. Second, there are good reasons to assume

that this attempt to build legitimacy without substantive

582 S. Matejek, T. Gössling

123

actions has been severely punished. We cannot proof that

BP was punished throughout the crisis more severely than

it would have been without the green washing. However,

we have identified indicators that support this assumption.

Third, the case shows the crucial importance of moral

legitimacy. Even though the pragmatic legitimacy was

nearly untouched and unquestioned throughout the crisis,

the loss in moral legitimacy must be associated with the

significant drop in share prices that were observed.

The case study needs to address the potential for

researcher bias, since the identified narrative patterns may

be more significant in their implications to a researcher

familiar with and searching for their manifestations (Boje

2008; Crane 1999). In order to verify its findings with

regard to this limitation, the study focused on explaining

the impression management effect evoked and abstained

from allegations as far as the deliberation or intentionality

of BP’s communication strategies are concerned.

A clear limitation of this case study lies in its ‘‘narrow

event window’’ (Bansal and Clelland 2004, p. 96), contrasting

selective examples of BP’s CER communications ‘‘before’’

and ‘‘during/immediately after’’ the crisis in 2010. It remains

to be seen how the Deepwater Horizon disaster will be

emplotted in BP’s future narratives, whether green or other-

wise. Also, as a media and public response analysis, the study

does not attempt to judge BP’s actual shortcomings regarding

the crisis, but evaluates the reactions to it by stakeholders with

their own interest agendas and limited objectivity.

Rather than usurping an insolent stance of ‘‘you could

have seen it coming,’’ the paper aims to propose one

explanation for why corporate (environmental) responsi-

bility remains a concept much easier claimed than vali-

dated. It explains how a purely symbolic commitment to

CER can already have legitimacy-building effects, when

the corporate communications successfully evoke narra-

tives of the environmental paradigm and are therefore

judged against narrative, rather than empirical truth.

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