Exploring Failure Orientation: A new construct in multi-disciplinary Teams of petroleum industry

  • Debasish Mukherjee, Dr. Subash Chandra Nath
Keywords: Failure Orientation, Escapism, Blame Game, Collective Analysis

Abstract

Various factors impact the effectiveness of teams. Literature on Teams lists a number of such factors. This Research Paper identifies a new construct ‘Failure Orientation’, which is a measure of the collective capacity of a multi-disciplinary team to cope, learn and develop from Team Failures. Qualitative research on this identifies some interesting features of the this ‘Failure Orientation’ concept and its mediating role in the Input-Mediator-Output-Input (IMOI) model of teams, in the context of Indian upstream Petroleum Industry, where failures are quite normal in oil-field operations; learnings from such failures are steps to progressively move forward to success in finding and producing Crude Oil and Natural Gas. The research methodology was conduct in-depth interviews of senior team leads and team members in two public sector petroleum exploration companies in India for primary data. These two central public enterprises comprise 80 per cent of the activity in the industry in India, hence the data are quite representative of the industry. The findings enable us to develop a conceptual framework of Failure Orientation, which is a vital determinant of Team Effectiveness. The three categories (factors) of Failure Orientation are identified which helps in operationalizing this new construct Failure Orientation in such multi-disciplinary teams, viz. Escapism, Blame Game and Collective Analysis. The paper also positions these as mediating roles in the IMOI model of teams. Such operationalization of the new construct will help practicing managers to deal with teams encountering failures, which are frequent in this economically-vital petroleum industry. Further research with Factor Analysis can enrich team literature significantly.

Published
2021-08-25
How to Cite
Dr. Subash Chandra Nath, D. M. (2021). Exploring Failure Orientation: A new construct in multi-disciplinary Teams of petroleum industry. Design Engineering, 3806-3821. Retrieved from http://thedesignengineering.com/index.php/DE/article/view/3745
Section
Articles