Comparison of XTO Energy and Devon Energy Companies
Company Background
XTO Energy Inc. is a premier domestic natural gas and oil producer engaged in the acquisition, exploitation and development of quality, long-lived gas and oil properties. The Company, whose predecessor companies were established in 1986, completed its initial public offering in May 1993. Its properties and activities are concentrated in Texas, New Mexico, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Wyoming, Colorado, Alaska and Louisiana.
Competitive Environment
XTO operates in the lower-cap oil and gas business. They compete directly with larger independent companies like Devon Energy, Anadarko, and Apache. XTO’s main focus is acquiring established, long-lived properties, which are low in risk, and apply the best technology possible to maximize production.
Structure
Based on interviews with management, we found that XTO’s management style encourages innovation. Employees are encouraged to ask for forgiveness and not permission. We’ve learned this semester through lecture and readings, that this management technique empowers employees and gives them the autonomy they like and the freedom to create. Employees that work under this type of management style are not faced with the possibility of loosing their jobs if they make a business decision that turns out to have negative consequences. Employees are free to innovate and take pragmatic risks. The company culture at XTO is described as laid back and relaxed. XTO believes that major oil and gas companies are unable to implement this type of culture due to their size. Since XTO is smaller, the company is able to deploy a much different policy from what the majors employ. As the company rapidly grows, this relaxed practice has become a concern for XTO’s management. The company has recently grown so much that they’ve had to pull back slightly on the relaxed atmosphere. Management has been working with Human Resources to increase the amount of structure within the company. It remains to be seen if this policy will stifle company innovation.
XTO’s main focus in managing people has been to adapt and adhere to employees’ interests and skills. If an employee becomes unproductive or disinterested with her current job accountabilities, management will find alternatives for the employee first before termination. Management will transfer an employee to a business unit where she may have the best opportunity to excel, and where her skill set and interests will be most utilized - an alignment with the “best practices” concept studied in this course.
TransCanada Corporation was founded in 1951 in Alberta, Canada and is currently one of the largest gas storage providers in North America. It has a storage capacity of 400 billion cubic feet and ownership or control over 51,860 miles of oil and gas transportation pipelines. The TransCanada Corporation’s primary focus of business is in natural gas and power generation, and currently employs approximately 4,800 individuals. TransCanada is affiliated with fourteen separate pipelines with the Keystone Pipeline being the most publicly known and controversial. TransCanada has ownership, partnership, or partial control over eighteen power plants in Canada and the United States of America as well.
The financial perspective for Exxon, it decreased revenue due to dropped price of barrel, oil. However, it has future development plan, and the outlook for exploration plain in Russia is favorable. The company applied new technologies that efficient drilling and extracting technologies to provide cheap and reliable oil and natural gas. Because of indiscriminate exploration, the company took a claim about pollution that occurs while drilling and processing to provide oil and gas. Exxon is also invested for human resources that creating environment that its employees have the opportunity to learn based on
The Shell Oil Company involves a group of energy and petrochemicals companies that operate globally. Shell employs over 92,000 employees and operates in more than 70 countries and territories. Shell is considered a prominent gasoline provider, offering products that range from energy fuels, lubricants for businesses, and petrochemicals for detergents, packaging, carpets, and computers. The Shell corporation is also making strides to embrace renewable energies “by creating hybrid energies with traditional fuels such as natural gas” (Shell Global, n.d.). Shell is building hybrid power plants that combine renewable energies, including those produced by sun and wind, with traditional fuels. By investing in emission-free energies, Shell seeks to improve its operations and competitive posture as renewable technologies advance.
Teekay Partners L.P. is the third largest independent LNG carrier company in the world, and is growing very rapidly. They have grown 18% over the last year, and that comes primarily from investing any net income back into the company, to generate more ships. The more vessels an LNG company has, the more it can drive down price and the more likely it is to capture an exclusivity contract with a gas extractor. Within the next three years, the plan is to have ...
Organizational culture is the belief system that incorporates the values, beliefs, and norms of the organization’s members. It is a guide system that tells the members of the organization how to think and act while performing the job functions. By the 1900’s when Engstrom experienced its first downturn it was operated by a manager that “lacked the sophistication with technology necessary to find quick solutions and was inept at working with an increasingly militant union” (Beer and Collins, 2008). By 1998, Ron Bent was hired to salvage the remains of the company and at that time the structure , or the organizational culture, should’ve been outline. The lack of establishing an organizational culture impacted the company in several ways: Ron Bent missed the opportunity to define the vision or the overall company direction, the opportunity to give stability and continuity to the company, and the opportunity to stimulate employee
Mr. Marchionne was hired to change the culture of Chrysler. Mr. Marchionne has accomplished this through two aspects of organizational change. The first step was “workflow and organizational structure” (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2013, pg.76). Mr. Marchionne also utilized “formal statements of organizational philosophy, mission, vision, values, and materials used for recruiting, selection, and socialization” (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2013, pg.74). Mr. Marchionne utilized organizational structure from the get go. He called all his CEO’s from various functions and held meetings with them. He eliminated quite a few. He then started building his own foundation utilizing organizational structure change that fell linier to his new culture. Mr. Marchionne also changed the organizational philosophy. Anyone whom he felt did not want to take part he fired. His first step was to eliminate anyone he felt would hinder the process. He also changed the mission of the company along with vision. His new vision eliminated the idea of cutting cost. He fired one CEO for offering a $4,500-dollar rebate on top of the governments already instilled rebate. This was a loss of margin in his eyes and was the reason the company lost profits and filed bankruptcy. Mr. Marchionne envisioned a new plan and idea for the company. He “formed an alliance with Italy’s FIAT SpA” (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2013, pg.86). “Much empirical evidence has highlighted the role of authentic leadership in generating desirable work related outcomes including creativity at work” (Kamal, Zubair, 2016, pg.429). Leadership is the root of change. If the leadership is not coherent then the change will flat. “Culture
(2014) is “the way in which leaders interact, make decisions, and influence others in the organization” (p 237). The culture needs to foster cooperation from all areas of an organization, while providing the ability for adaptation and growth. Not all organizations culture will be the same, there is not a correct one that can blanket all organizations to cozy success. (3) Talent Systems. Human capital drives all organizations, the right people need to be in the right jobs with the correct opportunities for growth and advancement. There must be a constant search for strategic thinkers and leaders able to step up with called upon. The authors mention “Talent Sustainability” (p. 248), there must be enough qualified employees ready to move up so the organization will not stall while searching for others to replace others due to attrition, or other opportunists. (4) Organizational Design, must take a number of variables into account while providing structure to an organization. Hughes et al. (2014) state “the design of the organization is a trade-off between options, each with advantages and disadvantages” (p 253). The correct design can help clear the hierarchy of an organization and the proper channels for
As we learn from the case study, the Lincoln Electric Company is the largest global manufacturer of machines for welding, which are used in all kinds of construction projects. This means that the company has a large global presence and many employees, so its culture affects thousands of its workers. Even though it is now 2014, the company still has a large market share and very satisfied employees, so clearly the culture leaves employees satisfied and motivates them to work hard for the company.
The industry is divided into three distinct sectors including the upstream, midstream and downstream sectors. The upstream sector includes the exploration and production of crude oil as well as the exploration and production of natural gas. This sector has experienced the largest amount of deals in terms of mergers and acquisitions, which will be further discuss in section III. The midstream sector involves the transportation of extracted petroleum from the upstream sector through pipelines, rail, barge, truck as well as storage. Finally, the downstream sector connects the end consumers through derived products such as gasoline, liquefied natural gas (LPG), liquefied natural gas (LNG), kerosene (aircrafts), and diesel…
Corporate culture is the shared values and meanings that members hold in common and that are practiced by an organization’s leaders. Corporate culture is a powerful force that affects individuals in very real ways. In this paper I will explain the concept of corporate culture, apply the concept towards my employer, and analyze the validity of this concept. Research As Sackmann's Iceberg model demonstrates, culture is a series of visible and invisible characteristics that influence the behavior of members of organizations. Organizational and corporate cultures are formal and informal. They can be studied by observation, by listening and interacting with people in the culture, by reading what the company says about its own culture, by understanding career path progressions, and by observing stories about the company. As R. Solomon stated, “Corporate culture is related to ethics through the values and leadership styles that the leaders practice; the company model, the rituals and symbols that organizations value, and the way organizational executives and members communicate among themselves and with stakeholders. As a culture, the corporation defines not only jobs and roles; it also sets goals and establishes what counts as success” (Solomon, 1997, p.138). Corporate values are used to define corporate culture and drive operations found in “strong” corporate cultures. Boeing, Johnson & Johnson, and Bonar Group, the engineering firm I work for, all exemplify “strong” cultures. They all have a shared philosophy, they value the importance of people, they all have heroes that symbolize the success of the company, and they celebrate rituals, which provide opportunities for caring and sharing, for developing a spiri...
Due to all these factors managers have come up with different strategies to understand employees problems and to improve organizational behaviour by screening out the employee who does not suit the specific organizational culture, and specific job based on interest and experience instead of conventional approach. These steps are very utilitarian in ameliorating the employees over all job satisfaction, which in return lowers the absenteeism and employees turnover, thus benefiting the organisation in improving its services and products.
Over the course of this class I have learned how important it is to be creative and innovative in the way that businesses are conducted within the organizations. The ability to innovate is the “secret sauce” of business success (Dyer, et al., 2009). However, creativity and innovation cannot take place if the leaders are not willing to foster a culture of innovation within the organization. Amabile & Khaire (2008) asserted that, it is essential to motivate people to contribute ideas by making it safe to fail. Stress that the goal is to experiment constantly, fail early and often—and learn as much as possible in the process. Convince people that they won’t be punished or humiliated if they speak up or make mistakes (Amabile & Khaire, 2008).
Employees have to work in a culture where they are presented with challenges and develop solutions by questioning their fellow work team rather than just following suit and agreeing or settling. “Toyota views employees, not just as pairs of hands but as knowledge workers who accumulate chi- the wisdom of experience- on the company front lines” (Takeuchi, 2008, p.98). This establishes input from everyone in the company even the frontline workers. “A “community of fate” ideology is developed, which means that employees feel that they and the organization share the same fate that they will succeed or fail together.” (Besser, 1995, p.383). This helps the personal goals align with organizational
Leaders know in their gut that creativity and innovation are the life blood of their o...
Innovation has become a vital success factor for survival of organizations in rapidly changing industries. Specifically, service firms have perceived importance of innovation in creating long term advantages, and developing significant changes in competitive positioning (Dobni, 2008). Tourism and hospitality is among service industries which encompass higher risks, given that they own services with fewer patent protection and shorter service cycle. Hence, in order to overcome this issue in the globalized service industry, hospitality firms need to have durable and continuous innovation processes (Nieves et al., 2014). An organizational culture that supports novelty could be considered as a remedy for a continuous innovation that thrives in