Business Process Reengineering and Organisational Sustainability of Oil and Gas Firms in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study investigated the nexus between business process reengineering (dimensioned by process improvement and information technology) and organisational sustainability (measured by enviromental sustainability) of oil and gas firms in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. The baseline theories that underpin the study are the institutional theory and the upper echelon theory. The overriding philosophical bearing of the study is positivism, which assumes an ontological posture of realism. Consequently, a cross sectional survey design was adopted and the questionnaire was the main instrument for data collection. The target population for this study, consists of 187 midstream oil & gas firms (oil servicing) in Port Harcourt, as contained in the Yellow Book of the Rivers State Ministry of Commerce, while the accessible population  consists of 328 management staff of 82 midstream oil & gas firms in Port Harcourt. The investigation used the Krejcie and Morgan's (1970) formula to determine the sample size of 177 and 20% adjustment was made to accommodate attrition and outliers, bringing the adjusted sample size to 212 respondents. The purposive sampling technique was adopted and the reliability statistics all exceeded the 0.7 cronbach’s alpha threshold. Data obtained from 204 duly completed and usuable copies of the instrument were analyzed, and the Spearman’s Rank Order Correlation Coefficient was deployed to test hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The analysis revealed that while process improvement leads to enviromental sustainability,  information technology does not have a linear bearing with enviromental sustainability. The study recommends that managers of midstream oil and gas firms in Port Harcourt should identify and prioritize improvement potentials of the work, to achieve process improvement which will lead to business process reengineering. Furthermore, leaders of oil and gas firms should ensure that the selection, implementation, use, maintenance and improvement of technology solution is included in the organization’s strategic/service planning, as a means of staying updated with information technology.