Resource Planning and Management in Interorganizational Systems in the Oil, Gas, and Petrochemical Industries

The oil, gas, and petrochemical industries constitute as a complex system characterized by extensive interdependencies among multiple actors and a wide variety of resource flows. Effective management of these flows is the foundamental to the stability of the industries concerned. This study examines resource planning in interorganizational systems involving business entities operating in the oil, gas, and petrochemical industries. The study aimed to conceptualized the existing problems and develop a model for effective resource planning within such systems. The methods employed included observation, systems analysis, hypothetical-deductive reasoning, generalization, economic and mathematical modeling, and optimization. Based on the technological principles and the current operating conditions of oil, gas, and petrochemical production, the specific characteristics of resource flows within interorganizational systems were identified, and the available resource planning and management tools were analyzed accordingly. Barriers to effective resource planning in interorganizational systems of interaction in the Russian oil, gas, and petrochemical industries were identified. A conceptual economic and mathematical model of resource planning efficiency was developed. The model can be used to determing the optimal volumes and routes of resource flows within an interorganizational system. An approach to measuring the entropy of resource flows within systems comprising interacting business entities was also proposed. The developed model can serve as an component of an adaptive resource flow management framework used when establishing industrial clusters and other forms of interorganizational cooperation in the oil, gas, and petrochemical industries. The causal relationships identified in the study should be considered both in strategy development and operational management by industry participants and in the formulation and implemention of government policies regulating the development and operation of these industries.