Starbucks as a Morally Responsible Company

Starbucks is a “premier roaster, marketer and retailer of specialty coffee” (Marketline 2012). This company is globally recognized because of their vast amount of stores, consisting of more than 17,000 retail stores in over 55 countries. Most retail stores are in highly populated areas, like “downtown and suburban centers, office buildings, university campuses and in select rural and off-highway locations” (Marketline 2012).

Starbucks is a large organization that upholds many standards when it comes to their financial environment. Upholding ethical standards within a business is important if a business wants to become successful and maintains their credibility, Starbucks does not just operate on one ethical standard but eight different ones. They are all different sources that are used for different reason within the company. Starbucks has two specific organization standards they go by that deal with their financial portion of the business. Transportation, manufacturing, and supplies are the main ethics codes this organization deals with to earn financial stability. Starbucks has a zero tolerance policy that deals with human trafficking as well as forced labor for individuals. Suppliers play a major financial part within this company, and are held to higher standards when doing financial business. The supplier code of conduct is an ethical handbook, which states the ethical standards that a supplier must comply by. Suppliers as well as the organization have to comply by these standards in order for them to keep ethical financial standards.

Seattle based, Starbucks Corporation is the leading coffeehouse chain in the world. The company has its operations in more than 44 countries. The main products offered by Starbucks various kinds of drinks, snacks, coffee beans. The company also operates in the field of marketing of music, books (The Company, 2008).

Starbucks is dominant coffee brand in North America, which also is well-known worldwide. Established in 1971 as coffee shop oriented to a niche of coffee purists, in late 1980’s it turned to be a constantly growing chain of stores that sold whole-beans and premium-priced coffee to mostly affluent, well-educated customers. In years 1992-2002 company was showing at least 5% annual growth. And by 2002 Starbucks was serving already 20M customers in 5886 stores (both operated and licensed) around the globe, had $3.3 billion net revenues and was opening 3 new stores a day in average.

Do you think that Starbucks has grown rapidly because of its ethical and socially responsible activities or because it provides products and an environment that customers want?

starbucks Corp., an international coffee and coffeehouse chain based in Seattle, Washington, has expanded rapidly since its opening in 1971. These outrageous success was due to its well-developed strategy vision which lay out the company's strategic course in developing and strengthening its business. Starbucks is a global corporation that sells authentic coffee in 30 countries, reporting revenues of nearly $5.1 billion in 2006. The main goal of Starbucks is to embrace diversity by applying the highest standards of excellence. Starbucks strives to perfect the relationship with the working class by making the service as fast as possible because they believe that every customer has their own personal rate. One

As a worldwide leader in coffee and coffeehouse chains, Starbucks has been faced with both scrutiny and praise for their practices in regards to community engagement and corporate social responsibility. With locations across the globe from the United States to Saudi Arabia to Guatemala, Starbucks has seventy-two locations spread across 26 countries. With such a large footprint, this paper will be address employees and local communities within the United States operations and the suppliers in the Coffee and Farmer Equity (C.A.F.E) Practices program. Starbucks has broadcasted and built a platform upon their ethical sourcing, employee relations, and community engagement with an impressive transparency not often seen by global corporations today.

Starbucks Corporation is an American global coffee company and coffeehouse chain based in Seattle, Washington. Starbucks is the largest coffeehouse company in the world, with 20,366 stores in 61 countries, including 13,123 in the United States, 1,299 in Canada, 977 in Japan, 793 in the United Kingdom, 732 in China, 473 in South Korea, 363 in Mexico, 282 in Taiwan, 204 in the Philippines, 164 in Thailand and 3 in India.

In today’s business world, companies have changed. Companies are looking to adjust to their business and community expectations by making changes in the technological machinery and devices they use to reduce the company’s negative environmental impact. In order to sustain economic businesses, companies should not only concern about the financial benefits, but also ethic firms have to care about people, society, and the environment as well (Elkington 72). A portion of their profits goes to programs in charge of reducing any negative effects and promoting sustainable and social development. This social responsibility has been implemented with the purpose of satisfying the company’s and the community’s necessities in order to create a good and long-term win-win relationship. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is becoming essential for today’s company’s success. Corporations have the obligation of developing strategies that will benefit employees, customers, and the community. Today we will focus on how Starbucks has made use of its corporate social responsibility to succeed in the business world and how Dunkin Donuts is still trying to stay in the market. After oil, coffee is the second most valuable commodity in the world. More than 50 percent of Americans drink coffee everyday — three to fourcups each, more than 330 million cups a day and counting (Neal).

From our beginning as a single store in Seattle’s Pike Place Market in 1971, we have sought to be a catalyst for positive change in the many communities we serve. Now, with more than 17,000 stores in more than 55 countries and a growing business in consumer packaged goods, we find our reach is greater than ever. Just as important, we continue to believe that the ultimate way to scale the power of our brand is to share the good we do and how we do it so that Starbucks and everyone we touch – from customers to coffee farmers – can thrive and endure.

Starbucks has many stakeholders who are interested in the business’ success and failure, as they can be positively or negatively affected by the business. One of Starbucks’ main stakeholders is its consumers, this because consumers are the company's most influential stakeholder group and that Starbucks should listen to, to make the business successful. There are many types of consumers, therefore Starbucks should be aware of this and meet their consumer's needs and desires. Starbucks welcomes all type of people to their stores this is shown through Starbucks’ values which is to “create a culture of warmth and belonging, where everyone is welcome”. This emphasises that Starbucks knows that their consumers are an essential part of their business and believe it is important to please their consumers as they can have an influence on Starbuck’s activities. For that reason, Starbucks welcomes anyone to their business and makes them feel comfortable and also part of the business. Furthermore, if Starbucks didn’t have consumers the business wouldn’t survive, as they would have no-one to sell their products to. This means that it is important that Starbucks listens to their consumers but primarily pleases them with reasonable prices, a wide product range, and also easy access. However, there could be a conflict between consumers and Starbucks if the consumers are not satisfied with the product or services they have received which may lead to the failure of the business.

Starbucks advertises two essential mission statements. First and foremost, it strives to “establish [ourselves] as the premier purveyor of the finest coffee in the world while maintaining our uncompromising principles while [we] grow(s).” (Starbucks) Reflective of its mission, Starbucks bases its strategic campaign and communications on six indispensable philosophies; structuring a pleasant work environment in which employees are treated with “respect and dignity,” incorporating diversity in all business aspects, purchasing, roasting and delivering fresh coffee, retaining satisfied customers, giving back to the community and environment, and developing

Today’s culture is pushing companies to be more socially responsible on all levels. Companies who fail to adapt risk becoming overshadowed by competitors that do so. According to the text, "...companies displaying a 'clear commitment to ethical conduct ' consistently outperform companies that do not display ethical conduct..." (Strategic Management, 312). It is therefore important for companies to meet the standards of customers who choose to shop with a ‘filter’. As such, it is important to investigate how a company ranks when doing a strategy analysis. The following paragraphs look into Starbucks to see what socially responsible actions they claim to do, where they fall amongst their competitors, and whether their claims are truthful.

Starbucks is renowned for its morality due to their innovative sustainability and environmental policies and operations. They strive to go beyond mandated regulations by implementing ethics as part of their core practices. However, no matter how flawless their code of ethics is; they, too, face ethical issues and commit unethical acts. First, they are responsible for putting small, local coffee shops out of business which creates a uniform retail culture throughout cities. Second, they advertise to provide 100% fair trade coffee when it is not truly 100% fairly traded. Third, they use hormone added milk that is detrimental to the human body as well as the environment. Fourth, they set unrealistic, unattainable recycling goals, so they were unachievable; in turn, their trustworthiness is hindered and their reputation is tarnished. Lastly, it was revealed that Starbucks discovered ways to avoid paying taxes in the UK. To this day, Starbucks continues to be recognized as an ethical company. Although sometimes controversial, they are innovatively striving to positively change the ways of society and business operations.

Starbucks is one of the top leading coffee sellers in the world. With more than 17,000 stores in more than 55 countries, Starbucks has created the ultimate brand and coffee shop (Ferrell, Fraedrich, & Ferrell, 2015). Building Starbuck’s name was a process performed by the founder Howard Shultz that focused on quality ethics and good coffee. One of the main aspects of Starbuck’s culture is its mission. Starbucks brand has been ranked number 16 in the Fortune’s one hundred companies to work for because of its honorable, ethical back-round (Lemus, von Feigenblatt, Orta, & Rivero, 2015). However, like all businesses, Starbucks has encountered some ethical issues along the way of their success.