Toward A Resilient Organization: Lessons Learned from Oil and Gas Sector

Abstract

Organizational resilience indicates the capacity of an organization or system to return to its steady condition or exceed it after experiencing a disruptive event that disturbs its steady condition. The Oil and Gas sector in Qatar has shown remarkable resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic due to its preparedness and readiness to deal with such a disruptive event. As a lesson learned from the recent COVID-19 pandemic, local governmental institutions need to support national preparedness and resilience to handle emergencies and unpredictable crises learning from the successful model of the Oil and Gas sector in Qatar. This study presents the key Resilience Engineering Factors (REFs) that result in organizational resilience based on the six Resilience Engineering indexes adopted from (Costella, Saurin, & Guimaraes, 2009); (Wreathall, 2006)& (Hollnagel & Woods, 2005 ) which include top management commitment, speaking-up culture, learning, awareness, being prepared, and flexibility. The study evaluated the performance of these REFs through the means of a 5-point Likert Scale survey questionnaire based on the relevancy of resilience groups. The results show that the 10 most critical REFs were: ensuring the ‘Availability of local Expertise and R&D Capabilities’ and providing essential tools such as sound ‘Organization Governance’, ‘Information Technology System’ and ‘Effective Sparing Philosophy’ are some of the key factors for building organizational resilience. In addition, adopting a ‘Risk Management System’ and building a ‘Crisis Response Team’ capable of identifying ‘Crisis Risks’ with defined ‘Roles and Responsibilities During Crisis’ are part of resilience management. Finally, developing a ‘Healthy Working Culture’ where issues and concerns can be captured and reported as ‘Lessons Learned Best Practices’ without the fear of being punished set the ground for developing organizational resilience. This study is the first study that attempts to assess organizational resilience in the Oil and Gas sector in Qatar and the results can be integrated into different organizations’ strategies to improve efforts to enhance governance of national response to disturbances.