This will be accomplished through desk research taking the form of a literature review. The literature review will be largely conducted online as well as through the review of primary legal documents reviewing the case in its aftermath. This would be followed by the primary data-gathering process, which would include a single survey to be distributed to two distinct populations. Randomly selected members of the general public living outside of the region impacted by the disaster and randomly selected non-managerial members of the BP organization would be tapped to complete the survey. The survey would pose 20 statements to respondents, asking them to state their level of agreement with each item using a Likert Scale-based ranking for responses.

Each survey will produce an index score that will tally the individual respondents degree...

The ANOVA method of statistical analysis would be used to draw conclusions about the perception of the company's environmental record according to demographic characteristics as well as according to company affiliation or non-affiliation. This will allow for a number of qualitative conclusions about how well the company has managed its reputation following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and how well its members perceive that it has managed this reputation. This should allow some conclusion about the degree of reputational damage experienced by the company as a consequence of the oil spill.
Timetable:

Literature Review: Sept. 2013-October 2013

Primary/Secondary Data Collection: Oct. 2013-Dec. 2013

Data Analysis and Interpretation: Dec. 2013-Jan. 2014