BUSI1314 Business Ethics Assignment Sample
Introduction (BUSI1314 Business Ethics Assignment Sample)
The management of ethics in an organisation has to be quite well so that it helps the organization to work and even sustain for a longer period of time. Moreover, the sustenance of an organisation depends highly on the management of the organisation as well as cooperative and collective work of the leaders and the employees which may help the organisation to work well. Therefore, in order to make an organisation work and also to help the organisation sustain in the competitive market, the ethical management of the organisation is highly required. However, an organisations’ businesses and the profit helps to manage and even to flourish in the market which may be possible with the help of trustworthiness between the leaders and the employees. In this report, the company Starbucks will be stated and the way the company manages the ethics and at the same time because of the ethics management the way the company has sustained for so long.
Case organisation
Starbucks is one of the world’s largest coffeehouse chains started in 1971 at Seattle, North America having more than 30,000 retail stores in 83 markets and successfully doing business with continuous evolution of business operation (Starbucks.com. 2021). The company has expanded its business to more than 50 countries with coffee, spices, tea and food products as an ideal cafe around the globe with product differentiation strategy and grow to earn annual revenue more than $29 billion in the year 2020. However, more than 1,30,000 people are working in Starbucks as of 2021 to accompany the global operations at various locations. The company is doing business in America, Europe, China, Asia pacific and other places with rare and extraordinary coffee beans, pastries, snacks, roasted beans, breakfast sandwiches and lunch which are unique to the taste and win the consumer confidence around the world.
Starbucks has its stores in Greenwich which are successfully operating with product differentiations and inclusion of local tastes in the food products to get wider response from the local consumer. This retail store of Greenwich recently renovated according to the growing urge from the consumers and the food products and mix beverages and different coffee products get excellent ratings from the customers which made the organization number two in the coffee and tea market of the Greenwich. The Starbuck Greenwich CT is experiencing a large line at the gate where consumers are gathered to taste the coffee varieties to add to the profit margin of the company. Further, the strategic location of the stores right in the Greenwich Avenue made a strong presence to the highway traffic and attracts a huge footfall every day where it served the quality coffee with several differentiations and brewed to the consumer hand.
Sustainable Development Goals
It may be opined that the business organizations need to follow and adhere to certain principles to accommodate the global need which are mentioned as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). The organizations are adopting the SDG goals to make the firm sustainable and run according to consumer interest and emerging trends of climate friendly behaviour where the climate prospects of the Earth is at an alarming state and need a global step altogether to achieve sustainability. The Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities forecast the employer characteristics towards the population and helped to earn a wide reputation and brand values who are giving effort to alleviate the problematic issues of the world. Further, Starbucks has prioritized its mission to achieve the sustainability goals firmly through halving the waste, water use and greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. The company is also inclusively looking to increase the food availability, increase resilience and adaptation to climate change with the use of renewable energy with strengthening the communities with sustainable coffee, green retail, and creation of opportunities. It needs to mention that, the company has enforced the ethical sourcing, environment and the community which is based on supply chain performance, social responsibility and value chain performance.
Figure 1: Starbucks Sustainable Development Goals (Source: Grandelli, 2019)
Starbuck has provided a loan of $50million to the farmer through Global farmer fund which made the farmer’s livelihood simpler with access to credit for the sustainable farming (Grandelli, 2019). It also committed to train 2,00,000 coffee farmers to follow sustainable practices around the coffee growing region along with the practice of climate smart agriculture, access to water requirements of wages with zero tolerance to unfair treatment to labourers (Kumar, 2019). More specifically for the sustainable coffee challenge Starbucks has committed to make coffee as the world’s first sustainable agriculture product with the development of shared principles of responsible renovation with 1 billion coffee trees. It also partnered with conservational international for more than 17 years to source the products ethically and sustainably. On the other hand Starbuck foundation has deep focus on poverty eradication around the world where it has awarded grants and funds approximately 47,000 direct and indirect beneficiaries including the projects of water access, health clinic and infrastructure project with the aim to eliminate hunger. The company invested around $700 million annually to create opportunities for the community with investment in minority and women owned business to scale up the business opportunities and it widened the scope of diversity in Starbucks supplier and diversity programs.
It has been observed that 1005 of the company stores globally are invested to uplift the under-deserved community through offering opportunities of employment and job readiness. On the contrary, the Starbucks food share program is used to donate foods, meals to feed the local, community food banks and services to cover the insecurity of food in the wider population. Furthermore, for the green retail ambition it announces 100% use of renewable energy in its stores around the world and invested in renewable energy production and water conservation with sustainable consumption. Apart from that, waste management and plastic reduction is another broad commitment for the organization where it has emphasized the policy of reuse and recycle for its packaging of reusable and hot cups and ban on use of plastic straw (Valuiskaya, 2019). The company also aligned the customer for its environmental pledge where customers have to pay for single use cups around all its stores situated in 70 countries to make the earth greener along with the company’s prospectus. On a specific note, the global footprint of the company is contributing to waste production in various ways which are committed by the company to lower the volume and make easy alignment with global index to support the cause of climate and the earth.
It also implied that the organizations have taken effective steps at the advent of fair trade of coffee to ethically source the products with fair treatment of laborers and defy colonialism in coffee production. In the creation of opportunity the company has committed to employ 10,000 refugees along with 100,000 employment by year 2022 with hire and honour 25000 veterans and military spouses by 2025 where the company is working with more than 50 companies to accelerate the 100 k opportunity initiatives.
Ethical infrastructure
The maintenance of ethics is highly important for the company as the company is a largest coffeehouse company spread over all the parts of the world. However, the company aims to ethically have great coffee with good quality by having a positive impact on the customers by making business possible successful. Moreover, the company maintains the ethics in order to maintain the social impact globally by providing benefits to the stakeholders of the companies such as the employees, customers, business partners, suppliers, shareholders and others (Starbucks.com. 2021). Furthermore, the ethical behaviour of the company depends highly on the employee’s behaviour and also the way the company is working on the feedback of the customers which might help the company progress. Additionally, the company maintains a code of ethics according to which the company has to work and also which might help the company to maintain the ethics of the company well. Moreover, the disengagement of moral and cognitive restructuring of inhuman conducts with the help of diffusion and displacement (Bandura, 2002). Therefore, the company has to maintain the conduct of human behaviour so that it may help the company to work well with the help of sustaining human conduct towards others. In addition to that, the company does have to maintain the ethical structure with the help of maintaining certain management of risks and issues. Thus, it may help the company to mitigate the problem quite well which might help the company to solve the problem quite easily.
The company gives highest priority to the product’s quality and also in maintaining the demands of the customers which might make the company have a good and positive attitude towards the customers. Moreover, the Starbucks brand is highly giving out the priority towards preserving, growth and even leverage and also makes sure about the sale the company makes across various channels. Furthermore, the company always maintains that the company may be able to preserve the quality of the products and keep a check so that in no way the company behaves in an unethical, illegal, unequal or socially irresponsible manner. Additionally, in order to maintain the trustworthiness among the customers and also in the development of the trust building with the help of competence, legal compliance and quality assurance by the company (Caldwell and Clapham, 2003). In addition to that, the company maintains that the customers’ treatment and even the service to the customers have to be well in the Starbucks stores and also the data generated from the customers are to be kept for further marketing purposes. Furthermore, the company also has to make sure that the company is able to retain employees with the help of fostering the brand and even making a diverse environment. Additionally, the company has to make sure that the ethical management of the employees has to be maintained quite well with the help of training and even taking up good and trusted employees. Therefore, the company has to maintain good ethical conditions not only to retain customers as well as employees quite well.
Additional analysis
Stakeholders network mapping
The stakeholder’s network mapping helps the company in understanding the stakeholders of the company such as the employees and the policy which the organization wants to maintain. Moreover, the company has to make sure that the stakeholders of the company are taken utmost care as it may help the company to flourish and even progress well in the market. Furthermore, certain unethical behaviour might be visible in an organisation which may be mitigated with the help of ethics programs with the help of ethical training and communication (Kaptein, 2015). Additionally, the company has been able to implement such kinds of ethical training which helps in maintaining the ethics management of the company by helping the company and also the employees well. Moreover, the company has to make sure that the company maintains good relations with the stakeholders such as customers, employees, investors, suppliers, communities and governments. Additionally, the company has to make sure that the company has been able to maintain good relations with each of the stakeholders and may be able to satisfy the stakeholders in various ways. Therefore, the company has to see to it that the stakeholders may be able to maintain favourable relations with the stakeholders quite well.
Figure 2: Types of Stakeholders (Source: Vandenbussche, 2018)
The company is maintained with the help of different types of stakeholders with the help of whom the company is able to sustain and even to progress well. Furthermore, in order to work in coordination with the stakeholders the company has to be able to maintain coordination, collaboration and even good connections with the stakeholders. Additionally, the company has to make sure that all the stakeholders are maintaining environmental sustainability which may help the company to progress well which may increase both the domestic and international costs. In addition to that, planning theorists in collaboration with the stakeholders relations implement the planning processes so that it helps in identifying and even stating about relational qualities of the stakeholders (Vandenbussche, 2018). Moreover, the company with the help of internal stakeholders, that is the employees and managers, may be able to maintain the internal environment of the company sustainable so that it helps the company in maintaining the good image and also a well built environment. Therefore, the company makes sure that the company has been able to meet the market expectations by maintaining the financial performance of the company and also sustainability of stock with the help of sales growth and keeping the value of the products intact.
The company has been able to maintain customer satisfaction with the help of commitments and responsibilities with the help of various business partners, joint ventures and global channel development process. However, the company has been able to maintain all these with the help of distributors, suppliers and stockholders by maintaining good and valuable supplies not only to the company for making the coffee although also delivering the supplies even to the customers. Furthermore, the company has been able to maintain the food, beverage and other quality products for both the domestic and international markets with the help of sourced and licensed goods. On the contrary, the management of the stakeholders is influenced by identifying and adopting various conditions which might help in strengthening and in the impact of a project (Downar, 2018). Additionally, the company has to look after the external stakeholders such as the government and the media which is helpful for a multinational company and which may help the company to flourish globally. Therefore, the company has to make sure that the company is following the government policies of each country and at the same time have been able to maintain the media outlook to attract the customers.
Ethical theories
Utilitarianism theory
The ethical theories may be maintained by the company so that it helps the company to flourish well in the business both in the domestic sphere and in the international sphere. Additionally, the company may be able to maintain the ethics of the company with the help of various ethical norms which may help the company in flourishing quite well. Moreover, the utilitarianism theory helps in understanding about the ethical and unethical conditions of business in order to understand about the overall good of the company (KHEMKA, 2021). Furthermore, the company used to maintain the ethical conditions of the company quite well which has helped the company to flourish and even maintain good and better stakeholders for the company. Therefore, the company has been able to identify the demands of the customers and also it may help the company to maintain the products accordingly with the help of better understanding of the markets.
Deontology theory
The company has to maintain various kinds of theories in order to maintain the ethical culture of the company with the help of employees and even the leaders of the company. Moreover, in accordance with the theory of deontology, duty is to be maintained and every employee has to maintain the duty towards the company so that it helps the company to progress. Additionally, in order to maintain the ethical behaviour, the company has to make sure the company looks out for the ethical variable in accordance to the situational variable with the help of ethical decision making (Anderson and Burchell, 2021). Therefore, the company makes sure that in order to make a favourable environment for the customers, the employees have to maintain good relations with the customers and also have to make sure that the behaviour of the employees is quite good.
Figure 3: Deontology theory (Source: Anderson and Burchell, 2021)
Virtue theory
The company has to maintain the management skills of the company in order to make a good use of the management style of the company with particular issues to be taken care of. Moreover, the company maintains the virtue of the right and wrong even though by maintaining the good and valuable traits of the company. Therefore, in order to maintain the ethical norms, functionality and versatility has to be maintained with the help of good moral outcomes (Rautenbach and Keet, 2020). Furthermore, the company maintains the ethical norms of the company with the help of ethical training and also with the help of good and efficient suppliers that transport goods and finished products to the stores. Additionally, the company has to maintain that the products as supplied are of good quality which satisfy the needs of the customers as well as help the company in the path of progress.
Rights theory
The company has to see to it that the company is able to progress according to the needs and desires of the customers and with the help of valuable stakeholders the company is able to maintain the quality of the products of the company. Moreover, the company has to maintain certain rights of the company so that the company may be able to take legal actions if there is a breach in the rights of the company. Furthermore, presently the business ethics may be maintained with the help of ethical, social and societal responsibility to balance the broader values of the business. Therefore, in order to maintain the rights of the business the company has to make sure that the employees are well aware about the company’s rights and suits which may help in the development of the company.
Conclusion
It may be concluded that the Starbucks Company is quite a well-known company and is spread throughout the world which has made the company flourish so much globally. Moreover, with the help of ethical value maintenance has helped the company to progress far and wide and also has helped the company to sustain in the competitive market. Therefore, with the help of good ethical norms and with the help of management of ethical understandings of both the employees and the leaders have made the company to flourish more widely and helped the company to sustain. Thus, the company has maintained a good ethical structure which has helped the company to flourish well and even help the company to demote trust and loyalty towards every stakeholder.
References
Anderson, S.E. and Burchell, J.M., 2021. The effects of spirituality and moral intensity on ethical business decisions: A cross-sectional study. Journal of Business Ethics, 168(1), pp.137-149.
Bandura, A., 2002. Selective moral disengagement in the exercise of moral agency. Journal of moral education, 31(2), pp.101-119.
Caldwell, C. and Clapham, S.E., 2003. Organizational trustworthiness: An international perspective. Journal of business ethics, 47(4), pp.349-364.
Downar, W., 2018. Identification and mapping of project stakeholders: criteria and methods. Scientific Journal of the Military University of Land Forces, 50.
Grandelli, K., 2019. A cup of colonialism: A qualitative analysis of Starbucks and Fair Trade Coffee.
Kaptein, M., 2015. The effectiveness of ethics programs: The role of scope, composition, and sequence. Journal of Business Ethics, 132(2), pp.415-431.
KHEMKA, P., 2021. Contemporary Ethical Theories.
Kumar, A., 2019. Sustainable development in SMEs through social media channels.
Rautenbach, G. and Keet, C.M., 2020. Toward equipping Artificial Moral Agents with multiple ethical theories. arXiv preprint arXiv:2003.00935.
Starbucks.com. 2021. Starbucks. [online] Available at: <https://stories.starbucks.com/press/2019/company-profile/> [Accessed 11 December 2021]
Valuiskaya, E., 2019. Corporate Social Responsibility in Business-to-Business and Business-to-Consumer Companies: Nucor Corporation and Starbucks Corporation Case Studies (Doctoral dissertation, University Honors College Middle Tennessee State University).
Vandenbussche, L., 2018. Mapping Stakeholders’ Relating Pathways in Collaborative Planning Processes; A Longitudinal Case Study of an Urban Regeneration Partnership. Planning Theory & Practice, 19(4), pp.534-557.
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