Publication

This paper discusses the response of four major oil companies - ExxonMobil, Shell, BP and TotalFinaElf - to emerging business challenges. It addresses the questions of how companies have dealt with calls for wider corporate social responsibility and what can explain differences in response between companies. The authors briefly discuss the dilemmas companies are facing defining the limits of their responsibility. They further indicate the significant variations that exist among the companies, particularly at the rhetorical level, but also in terms of what they do and how they do it.