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European Journal of Applied Sciences – Vol. 12, No. 4
Publication Date: August 25, 2024
DOI:10.14738/aivp.124.17311.
Lafraia, J. & Dias, M. (2024). Does Individualism and Uncertainty Predict Operational Discipline in Brazilian Oil and Gas Industry?
European Journal of Applied Sciences, Vol - 12(4). 138-148.
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
Does Individualism and Uncertainty Predict Operational
Discipline in Brazilian Oil and Gas Industry?
João Lafraia
Rennes School of Business, France
Murillo Dias
Instituto de Desenvolvimento Educacional – IDE
Fundação Getulio Vargas – FGV, Brazil
Corresponding author’s e-mail: agenda.murillo@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
This study examines the impact of organizational power distance, uncertainty
avoidance, autonomy, and trust on the capacity to produce desired operational
discipline and achieve better ESG results in a Brazilian Oil and Gas Company's
business unit. Previous studies highlight the importance of intangible factors in
internal coordination for operational discipline. However, a combination of low
trust, high power distance, high uncertainty avoidance, and collectivism creates a
reactive planning culture, increasing transaction costs and hindering efficiency
and effectiveness in solving complex problems. The results show that
individualism and uncertainty avoidance predict operational discipline, while
power distance and trust moderate the first two variables.
Keywords: Numerical simulation, Phase change material, Indoor air temperature,
Thermal comfort.
INTRODUCTION
Managers and researchers have devoted significant efforts to understanding how contextual
elements affect safety culture. Several authors [1]; [2]; [3]; [4] demonstrate the context
matters for human behavior. Furthermore, [5] and [6] argues that culture is a relevant
contextual variable that should be considered in understanding human reliability. After 19
years of research and practical managerial observations in the workplace, we were able to
isolate the critical factors and establish causal relationships. Excessive norms and low trust
need to be replaced by new ways of managing human factors.
The combination of low trust [7], high power distance and high uncertainty avoidance [8] has
created a culture of reactive planning, short-term focus, and focus on excessive controls,
which significantly increases transaction costs and do not promote efficiency, effectiveness, or
the ability to solve complex and systemic problems. This article analyzes these cases and the
research trajectory that led to these results. The combination of the above factors promotes a
great distance between the prescribed and actual tasks, generating a disconnection between
the objectives and values proclaimed by organizations and the concrete reality of the work
environment. This disconnection is Brazil's leading cause of low operational discipline.
Reintegrating these elements presupposes opening spaces for the performer's participation in
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Lafraia, J. & Dias, M. (2024). Does Individualism and Uncertainty Predict Operational Discipline in Brazilian Oil and Gas Industry? European Journal
of Applied Sciences, Vol - 12(4). 138-148.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/aivp.124.17311
seeking solutions to perceived concrete problems. However, the leadership style of the
Brazilian cultural model, combined with low trust, is a significant barrier to robust advances.
In this article, we present a longitudinal study in a Brazilian Oil and Gas Company business
unit to understand the internal articulations that historically ensured a low number of
accidents and high degrees of operational discipline. Our results show that the exercise of
individualism (independence, empowerment and autonomy) and risk avoidance (in the form
of structured process) combined with trust on the leader and reduced power distanced is
essential for promoting operational discipline and probably the reduction of accidents.
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
Operational Discipline
We adopted the terminology proposed by Klein [9], for whom operational discipline (OD) is
the consistent adoption of rules by all interested parties in an organization. Those rules
should be a way of living for the organization. However, more than the existence of rules is
required. The challenge is to have a culture where everyone, every time, does everything
according to those rules. Moreover, if there is a better way of doing this, all stakeholders will
act to revise and review the existing rules so that they are constantly updated and valuable.
Scholars such as Hopkins [6] and [10], [11] came up with the discussion between the plan and
execution. Executing accordingly to the plan is the essence of the operational discipline
paradigm. In many organizational environments, this way of doing is considered extremely
bureaucratic. However, operational discipline is essential for operational excellence, which is
necessary for mature risk, safety, and asset management [12]. Not only that, but it is also vital
for the successful implementation of the ESG strategies.
Also, there is a tendency in many organizations to consider operational discipline as
bureaucratic and a productivity hindrance. Implementing a “structured process,” poses many
challenges for leaders and team members. Nevertheless, it is necessary for critical situations
such as aviation, nuclear, energy, mining, oil and gas industries, to name a few [5]. The same
trend should be critical services such as hospitals, police, and firefighters’ organizations [13].
Nonetheless, International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) studies [14] demonstrate that
cultural dimensions such as power distance affects the relationship between pilot and copilot
in the airplane cabin, negatively affecting the team ́s perception of the risk by the copilot and
his/her capacity to assertively inform the pilot of a problem, wasting a precious time to avoid
an accident. In this case, the negative impact of national culture on coordinating efforts in
safety assurance is clear. Hofstede [8] argues that power distance, a concept that produces a
significant reduction of the cultural phenomena (necessary for quantification and
comparison), especially when combined with substantial uncertainty avoidance, produces a
management style that is more political than strategical. He also argues that a voice is the best
proxy of power distance. The higher the power distance, the lesser the voice of the shopfloor
is heard. Furthermore, high power distance cultures tend to produce less trust [8]. Moreover,
trust is relevant for cooperation and the capacity for solving conflicts related to different
views of facts [13]. The difficulty of escaping the excess of controls to focus on objectives,
typical of contexts of low trust, is one of the major obstacles to increasing the effectiveness of
Brazilian organizations [13].
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European Journal of Applied Sciences (EJAS) Vol. 12, Issue 4, August-2024
Organizational Culture
Our focus was on the effect of national culture on the country's safety, governance, and ESG
results based on objective performance indicators such as road work accident indices,
economic growth, governance practices, and national companies' ESG results. However,
national culture differs from the organizational culture [8]. Furthermore, we saw that both are
related but not the same. To better understand this relationship, we endeavored in a
qualitative case study to pinpoint precisely how the national culture affects and is related to
the culture of a particular organization. First, we have learned that interviews and focus
groups require time investment and researcher commitment to come up with conclusions and
suggestions because the methodology requires a rigorous procedure to be valid. Therefore,
approaching a more horizontal case study would take significant workforce investment.
Secondly, besides the large sample adopted for the results, it is still tiny compared to the size
of Brazil's Oil and Gas industry. To overcome that, developing a practical instrument, such as a
questionnaire, is necessary to reach a larger sample size. Not only that, but with an objective
questionnaire, the quantitative analysis could provide a faster diagnosis for the business
environment and, depending on the case study, start an in-depth qualitative cases study using
interviews, focus groups, and ethnographic analysis to delve into the issues previously
pointed by the numeric approach. Therefore, we decide to develop a culture-specific
questionnaire starting with one company in which the researcher has extensive experience.
Once this instrument is tested and validated, other organizations could use it to bring more
horizontal suggestions and conclusions. To do so, the constructs or themes described in the
following items were included in the questionnaire, which was found in the literature review.
CONCEPTUAL MODEL AND HYPOTHESES
Conceptual Model
Based on the theoretical background we designed the Organizational Cultural Behavior
Questionnaire (OCBQ), to conduct a quantitative deductive study of the proposition and
hypotheses. This questionnaire has five independent constructs called "power distance (PD),"
"uncertainty avoidance (UA)," "individualism (Voice)," "trust in leaders (TL)" and "trust in
peers (TP)", which are the independent latent variables initially formed. In addition, it has one
dependent latent construct called “operational discipline (OD). Figure 1 show the
questionnaire items (manifested variables displayed in boxes) for each of these constructs
(displayed in the ellipses).