ABSTRACT
Until the late 1990s, most of the world’s leading oil and petrochemical companies
operated under a matrix structure involving complex layers of hierarchy and
bureaucracy. Regional head offices enjoyed considerable independence including
autonomy in capital expenditure. Shell had ‘a proliferation of regional baronies’,
which ‘encouraged too many committees and turf battles’ (Financial Times,
16 February 1996). The complex reporting structure and the powerful regional
head offices made it difficult to link the performance of individuals and
operating units to that of the whole group. The typical attitude was that ‘(w)hen
things went wrong it was usually someone else’s fault’ (ibid.).
