Constructing a scenario planning method as a tool for political risk mitigation: The case of Exxon Mobil's Operations in the South China Sea

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Uncertainty and unpredictability within the global political environment haspresented considerable political risks for businesses and organisations. Analternative means to explore how these actors can mitigate these political risks isto utilise scenario planning to maximise the actor's understanding of theuncertainties within the environment, thus enabling the identification of politicalrisks as well as providing insights for potential mitigation strategies. The primaryresearch question for the study is therefore concerned with building a scenarioplanning method to facilitate political risk mitigation. The question is answeredby constructing a method which uses scenario planning to develop anunderstanding of the key driving forces influencing the environment andconstruct a scenario matrix from these driving forces for a corporation ororganisation. From this understanding of the scenarios and how they may impactthe corporation, the first sub-research question, which seeks to address how thescenarios can be utilised to identify political risks and risk mitigation strategiesrelevant for the corporation, can be answered.The final two research questions test the method's capacity to facilitate riskmitigation for the oil and gas corporation Exxon Mobil's operations in the SouthChina Sea from 1 February 2017 to 1 February 2018 by constructing scenariosfor the SCS over the timeframe and using the scenarios to identify and mitigatepolitical risks for Exxon Mobil. Utilising the method, the study constructs ascenario matrix for the South China Sea which is used to identify four risk factorsrelevant for Exxon Mobil. From these risk factors, the information compiled onExxon Mobil and the scenarios themselves, the study is able to successfullyidentify four risk mitigation strategies that could be implemented by Exxon Mobilin the SCS. Within the confines of this case study, it was concluded that scenarioplanning could be used as a tool for political risk mitigation, and that thisrelationship should be explored further.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University