BP’S CONSTRUCTION OF AN ORGANIZATIONAL IDENTITY ON ITS WEBSITE: A CASE STUDY OF DISCURSIVE LEGITIMIZATION
BP’S CONSTRUCTION OF AN ORGANIZATIONAL IDENTITY ON ITS WEBSITE: A CASE STUDY OF DISCURSIVE LEGITIMIZATION

Summary/Abstract: The paper presents a critical discourse analysis of the website of one of the world’s major oil companies, Beyond Petroleum (BP), formerly British Petroleum, with the focus on investigating the construction of BP’s corporate identity. The analysis reveals that BP enacts multiple positive discursive roles, including the identities of an indispensable organization, a philanthropist, an environmentally conscious company, an explorer, a researcher, an educator and an American dream achiever. These roles serve as a potent legitimizing strategy since they enable BP to be associated with higher social and moral values. The analysis shows that BP’s environmentally protective ethos adopts the ideology of the domination of human beings over nature through technology, an ideology which is suited to the company’s profit-making purpose.

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