Paper Example on Starbucks: Success Through CSR

Introduction

Starbucks is concerned with social responsibility as its overall strategy because corporate social responsibility is responsible for the success of Starbucks, and the other reasons are Starbucks' success which is not yet clear. Starbucks credits the success of integrating corporate social responsibility into its business model as it has helped them to operate their business in a manner that produces social, environmental, and fiscal benefits for the community where they function (Anonymous, 2019). It is further linked to their drive of creating and augmenting their shareholder value. The idea of integrating corporate social responsibility has helped them to continuously maintain the quality of their coffee. Once a client walks into Starbucks, they regard it as a passion to avail high-quality coffee beverage and deliver an experience worth rewarding to their clients (Anonymous, 2019).

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Their social responsibility model has three main facets: community, ethical sourcing, and the environment. Starbucks has built community stores that partner with local nonprofit organizations. These nonprofit stores will provide amenities aimed to meet the demands of the societies in which they are located. Starbucks also offers training opportunities for young adults in their communities, and they developed the Starbucks Foundation to bolster its community-centered projects. While trying to replicate its second pillar, Starbucks is dedicated to ensuring its coffee, cocoa, and tea products are responsibly and ethically manufactured and bought. On their third pillar, the company has always been committed to embracing recycling methods, and conservation of water, and energy strategies, which will help to address the problem of climate change (Anonymous, 2019).

Starbucks partners with numerous organizations, such as the Eastern Congo Initiative and Business for Social Responsibility. Through this integration, the company efforts at promoting transparency, genuine treatment of its employees, and scaling up its dozens of philanthropic commitments that reinstate their mission of becoming ethical and socially responsible. The company is augmenting its sustainability efforts beyond decreasing waste with its objectives geared towards reducing energy usage, increasing renewables, and reducing water wastage. One notable strategy of Starbucks involves the use of reusable cups, and individual tumblers among its customer segments, thereby reducing the amount of waste generated from disposable cups (Anonymous, 2019).

Why analyzing the Starbucks case study, it is evident that the author uses Christian Worldview major elements, since most of the CSR measures elucidated by the author are centered on caring the society, nature, and instilling Godly acts to the community members.

Is Starbucks Unique in Being be Able to Provide a High Level of Benefits to its Employee?

On the positive aspects, Starbucks is first dedicated to the well-being of its workers- both physically, and intellectually. As a way of enhancing their employee health, they established a program for their employees, dubbed "Thrive Wellness" that provides various resources focused on helping employees integrate wellness into their lives (Anonymous, 2019). The program provides resources like smoking cessation, weight loss, and physical exercise. The majority of workers are in an era where most organizations disregard them, but Starbucks provides its employees with a wide variety of benefits that most other firms fail to do. For example, workers are provided with an opportunity to join the Starbucks stock-sharing program known as Bean Stock. These employees get the opportunity to access loans, mortgages, and salary advances to help them make investments Further, in 2015, Starbucks provided its workers a raise and augmented their starting salary rates across the country (Anonymous, 2019). Finally, over 2,000 workers applied the ASU to further their education experience, the program would help to alleviate the growing cost of education (Anonymous, 2019).

On the negative front, during Schultz's long reign repeatedly battled against workers attempts to plan a union. For instance, in 2008, a National Labor Relations Board tribunal panel established that the organization has unlawfully retrenched three workers for their union activities (Anonymous, 2019). In a nutshell, the majority of workers do not have a union to represent them against unlawful actions by the employer (Anonymous, 2019).

What Areas of the Starbucks Case do you Believe the Authors Failed to Comprehend?

The author has not highlighted on how corporate social responsibility decreases the social responsibility of consumers. For example, in the scenario of Mexico, there are numerous advertisements for recycling to reduce wastage of resources. Instead, the author focuses on how the three main social responsibility concepts namely; environment, employees, suppliers, customers, and communities have promoted to their success (Anonymous, 2019). For example, when customers purchase a certain brand of coffee, they would do it knowing that a certain amount of profits will be geared to community initiative projects like protection of the Lacandona jungle, but they will end up not properly disposing of their cups, therefore, denting the environmental efforts (Anonymous, 2019). The author should demonstrate a socially responsible consumer as one who directly contributes to promoting good environmental practices, and not indirectly through the previous narrative that the proceeds of their purchase would help promote sustainability and propel their community initiative projects (Anonymous, 2019). However, the author has only illustrated how Starbucks engages in ethical production of their coffee, cocoa, and tea products. Even though the majority of their corporate social responsibility reports focuses on four Nespresso's, and overall materials scopes were analyzed. The author does not highlight the materiality of their operations. In such circumstances, the Starbucks KPIs assessed in their report does not conform to the GRI G4 protocols (Anonymous, 2019). For example, in promoting an ethically sourced, Starbucks has indeed lagged on afforestation practices, and creating an international farmer fund. On promoting greener retail, the company has failed to construct greener stores and apparel for clients. On the facet of fostering community activities; they are yet to boost Starbuck's college achievement plan, fewer opportunities have been created for youths, and minimal benefits have been channeled for veterans and military spouses (Anonymous, 2019).

Starbucks ' approach to reporting its CSR initiatives is not the best in terms of sustainability standards. This is because their method emanates from a different viewpoint. For instance, Nespresso's AAA framework overtly follows the GRI G4 guidelines, which standardizes sustainability reporting (Anonymous, 2019). Their reporting emerges from their focus on being socially responsible, by sharing their impactful activities. In that sense, several sustainable performance indicators are not included in their case study. The author does not mention that the strength of the company's CAFE practices originates from its cost-effectiveness, and restructuring of the verification process. By using third-party experts with succinct top-down hierarchical structures, Starbucks reduces costs but directly managing its CAFE practices (Anonymous, 2019).

Numerous Small Coffee Shops have been put out of Business because of Starbucks Clout. Argue Why Putting other Coffee Shops out of Business is Ethical and why it's Unethical.

Starbucks is experiencing resistance from the rural societies who feel a Starbucks store will put the local coffee shops out of business, and alter the character of the rural community. The rural community members cited the move by Starbucks as unethical, since it does not conform to the guidelines, and protocols laid out in the business ethics. Whereby, similar producing companies should promote their practices by promoting moral development, ethical behavior, and moral conflict management that will enhance a fair competition but not putting them out of business to promote your brand. On the ethical point of view, one could argue that the act of Starbucks putting off local coffee shops out of business it does not want to see other businesses fail, they are only focused on providing consistency, and a positive consumer experience that will appeal to them and also increase their consumer retention. Starbucks insists that these local coffee shops do not provide high-quality espresso, lattes, and frappucino, and the Starbucks loyalty program is prominent and closely resonates with the majority of clients (Anonymous, 2019). In this question, the unethical aspect does not apply, since independent coffee owners will have to think creatively if they are to cope up with the pressure from Starbucks. For example, they need to figure out how they can create even sturdier loyalty programs to keep their regular consumers satisfied. They should also concentrate on espresso, and other unique Italian coffee drinks (Anonymous, 2019).

How do the issues raised in this case comport with a Christian Worldview

A worldview assesses how an individual perceives and understands the world. One of the focus is the Starbucks family; It generally encompasses comprises of values, notions, or the basic belief system that determines their executive's attitudes, beliefs, and eventually actions on the workers. For example, Howard Schultz creates a conducive work relationship with the workers. He has focused on developing opportunities that will ensure the employees well being is catered for through health care programs. Starbucks also has a developed a cordial relationship with suppliers by first ensuring they reimburse them premium rates to help them make profits, and support their families. Approximately 98 percent of their entire coffee purchases are CAFE (Starbucks Coffee and Farmers Equity Practices) certified (Anonymous, 2019). Secondly, Starbucks also supports the suppliers, and the general community through social development projects, they are also financing other projects like building schools, and health clinics (Anonymous, 2019). Further, projects that will benefit coffee-growing farmers who are their main suppliers.

The main business-related principles that can be drawn from Starbucks Venti Social Responsibility and Brand Strategy include; servant leadership, encouraging others, Treating everyone fairly and a commitment to excellence (Anonymous, 2019). Servant leadership is a leadership structure where the main objective of the leader is to serve. Howard Schultz portrays the qualities of yearning to serve the community, leave the consumers with a great experience of their high-quality coffee products, and also create a good relationship with their employees and suppliers.

Howard Schultz promotes brand loyalty by augmenting repeat business. One of the ways it achieves this is through providing the Starbucks Card to the consumers, and also provides the convenience of payment for them. Starbuck's mission shows that the company is geared towards assisting the community through their corporate social responsibility projects, coffee stakeholders, and an inclusive organizational culture that looks into the well-being of the workers. The workers of Starbucks are treated with dignity as they are paid attractive salary packages, and are further provided with a myriad of benefits, such as medical, paid leave, maternity leave, and education benefits through a strong partnership with Arizona State University (Anonymous, 2019).

The second principle is treating...