Epistemological Assumptions Reconciling Safety and Succession Planning

Focus Organization

This paper discusses the philosophical assumptions and epistemological stances of Belfast Petroleum, Inc. As they relate to issues of on-boarding, transitioning, and promoting new engineers to greater levels of responsibility. Belfast Petroleum is based in Calgary, Canada, and was acquired by Merit Energy, Ltd. On July 14, 1999. The core competencies of the Belfast Petroleum are services related to oil and gas exploration, development, and production.

Experts and Decision Makers

I will draws on the field-based paradigm of the petroleum engineering experts and the corporate-responsibility paradigm of decision makers on the Board to characterize and describe the lenses through which they see the world. A major aim of this paper will be to reveal the extent of alignment between the world views of these two groups.

Experts in the field of oil and gas services are petroleum engineers, presumably many of whom have substantial years in the petroleum sector. Belfast Petroleum is a private company, so the names of officers and members of the board of directors are not easily accessed. However, for my purpose here, Barry Stobo serves as an example...

From May 1996 until its acquisition by Merit Energy, Ltd., Stobo was the President and Chief Executive Officer of Belfast Petroleum. Following the acquisition, Stobo was made interim President and Chief Executive Officer of Merit Energy, Ltd., followed by appointment to the positions of Senior Vice president and Chief Operating Officer of Merit from July 1999 through March 2000. During his time at Belfast, production grew from 29 boe/d to more than 1,000 boe/d. Through Stobo held positions as an officer of the company, he could fairly be considered an expert engineer as well since he has over 30 years of experience in the field of gas and oil exploration and development.
Epistemology of Experts

My framework for discussing the world view lenses held by the Board members at Belfast Petroleum and the field experts in the petroleum industry will be hermeneutics -- and critical theory, which is essentially a component of hermeneutics. I will particularly focus on those aspects of communication that result in pre-conceived notions or biased ideas about others, an emphasis that is especially appropriate in hermeneutical study. I will tie the framework of hermeneutics to…