Starbucks As a Morally Responsible Company: Starbucks Essay

Starbucks as a Morally Responsible Company:

Starbucks Coffee Company is an American coffee firm that operates globally and headquartered in Seattle, Washington. Currently, Starbucks Coffee Company is the largest coffeehouse firm across the globe with over 20,000 chain stores in more than 60 countries. Generally, the company serves various brands of hot and cold beverages across its stores such as microground instant coffee, pastries, whole-bean coffee, and full-leaf teas. The success and productivity of the Starbucks in its global operations is attributed to the fact that it has remained committed to ethically sourcing and roasting the highest quality of Arabica coffee since its inception. The ethical commitment is evident in the fact that it behaves morally responsible toward consumers, the environment, and employees. As a result, Starbucks Coffee Company was recognized as one of the most ethical companies as listed in Etisphere website. The recognition is based on acknowledging companies that translate their statements on ethical responsibility into action.

Starbucks' Corporate Culture:

Starbucks is considered as one of the world's most ethical or morally responsible companies because of its corporate culture. In addition to treating its partners well, one of the pillars of Starbucks corporate culture is contributing positively to the environment and communities it serves ("Starbucks Coffee Company," 2002). The decision to contribute positively to the communities and the environment was fueled by the awareness and concern of its employees regarding poverty and environmental issues across the globe. Furthermore, the decision was made in attempts to sustain and promote continued growth and profitability of the company. As previously mentioned, Starbucks moral responsibility is geared towards promoting the well-being of its employees, customers, and the environment.

Starbucks' Means of Behaving in a Morally Responsible Way:

Starbucks Coffee Company is committed to achieve profitability and success through treating its consumers, employees, and the environment in a respectful and dignified manner. This not only enables the firm to develop and maintain good relationships with its employees and consumers but also enables it to be force for positive action in the community it operates in. The moral responsibility of the company is evident in ways it treats its & #8230;

Employees:

The mission of Starbucks Coffee Company includes a commitment to treat all its workers with respect and dignity that promotes positive action towards the community. One of the major ways with which the company behaves in a morally responsible way towards its workers is through supporting and upholding the provision of basic human rights ("Global Human Rights Statement," n.d.). The company ensures it demonstrates respect for human rights provisions by eliminating discriminatory practices in its operations. Through this, Starbucks respects the intrinsic dignity of all individuals while providing measures for all employees to make their best contributions through valuing and embracing the unique talents, views, and experiences of other workers in the company.

To this end, Starbucks has developed a policy based on the fundamental principles and requirements for perpetuating basic human rights in the working environment. The human rights policy supports workers in developing and sustaining an organizational culture that safeguards basic human rights. Some of the basic human rights protected by Starbucks policy include prohibiting forced labor, enabling children to pursue basic education over work, promoting an environment for employees to interact freely, and encouraging the provision of equal basic human rights to all individuals.

Secondly, Starbucks considers it employees as partners, which is the reason every worker is offered stock options. The consideration of workers as partners is attributed to the company's focus of becoming the employer of choice in every market it operates in. As a result, the firm pays fairly, offers benefits to all workers regardless of whether they are part-time or full-time, and promote open communication and individuality. This treatment of employees as partners has made them to feel valued and respected and contribute positively towards the organization and the community (Harnrungchalotorn & Phayonlerd, n.d.).

Customers:

Since customers want to feel at home and experience welcoming places, Starbucks Coffee Company understands the value of making them think that its coffeehouse is special. One of the major ways that it behaves morally responsible towards its customers is through service diversities. Service diversities are geared towards providing the best brand and flavor of products to customers based on the responses of these customers. Service diversities not only focus on product diversity but also incorporate creating an environment where customers feel at home while enjoying the company's products. Some of these measures include creating unique shops, providing wireless Internet, developing an online community, and use of mobile application to make life easier. Secondly, Starbucks engages its customers through a rewards program that encourage brand loyalty. This reward strategy is provided through the My Starbucks Rewards program, which is centered on providing several cards through which customers can receive discounts and collect points.

The Environment:

The third segment in which Starbucks behaves as a morally responsible company is the environment where it has emphasized the need to care for the world and support its stakeholders or others to do the same. Since its operations are based on agricultural products, the firm believes in maintaining the environment through recycling, green building, and other measures. Starbucks Coffee Company has demonstrated environmental stewardship through various measures that focus on protecting the environment and showing respect to communities. One of the main ways it has behaved responsibly towards the environment is through preserving and developing energy efficiently. The company attempts to lessen its energy through cooperating with GE Company that develops LED lighting to substitute halogen lighting. Secondly, the firm launched a project for introduction of manually operated hand-meter faucet across its United States stores since it recognizes the significance of water in making coffee and tea beverages. This project is geared towards enabling the firm to save more water i.e. nearly 150 gallons of water per store per day (Harnrungchalotorn & Phayonlerd, n.d.).

Effect of Morally Conscious Decisions on Starbucks' Bottom Line:

The behavior and business decisions of companies play a crucial role in determining the success and profitability of a company's operations. As evident in the findings of various survey's morally conscious decisions and behaviors have significant benefits for individuals, small and medium organizations, and large corporations. One of the major effects of morally conscious decisions on Starbucks' bottom line is that it contributes to increased competitive advantage through promoting the development of positive relationships with stakeholders based on integrity. Secondly, these decisions will improve Starbucks' bottom line results by contributing to long-term cost savings through effective controls ("Corporate Ethics," n.d.). The improvement of bottom line results is attributed to the effect of morally conscious decisions on building and enhancing the company's reputation. This will in turn help in promoting customer trust, loyalty and satisfaction, which leads to increased productivity.

Recommendations of Improvements:

Starbucks Coffee Company has remained successful since its inception because of its sound business decisions and practices. These decisions and practices have mainly been centered on morally conscious decisions for all employees, customers, and the environment. However, the firm can achieve much more by incorporating other measures that could enhance its treatment of consumers, the environment, and employees. Based on a critical review of the company's policies, most of Starbucks business decisions and practices have primarily focused on treating employees and the environment in a morally responsible manner. These policies do not focus on treatment of customers in an equal measure at it focuses on treatment of workers and the environment. Therefore, Starbucks should adopt necessary measures to focus on and treat customers in improved ways as it treats its employees and the environment.

One of the areas in which Starbucks can enhance its treatment of consumers is focusing on customer experience. While the company has established several means of making customers feel at home and relaxed when drinking coffee in its stores, it should develop a customer experience strategy that puts customers at the heart of all its operations. The main goal of developing a customer experience strategy is to ensure that the firm's operations are based on the needs and wants of customers (Kha, 2000). The second area is to incorporate what the company has learnt about its customers into closed-loop marketing where it can customize marketing offers to all its customers.

In conclusion, Starbucks Coffee Company is an example of a firm whose success and profitability has been fueled by morally conscious business decisions and practices. Actually, Starbucks has remained successful by focusing on consumers, employees, and the environment. One of the major effects of these decisions and practices on the company is that they contribute to the improvement of its bottom line results. However, Starbucks needs to adopt measures that focus on consumers in an equal manner at it focuses on employees and the environment. These measures include developing a customer experience strategy and customizing marketing offers.

References:

"Corporate Ethics and its Role in Consumer Perceptions and Behavior." (n.d.). Full Thesis

Honors Program. Retrieved from University of Florida website: http://www.honors.ufl.edu/apps/Thesis.aspx/Download/1518

"Global Human Rights Statement." (n.d.).…