Integrating a Corporate Social Responsibility for Starbucks
Tilt (2016) explains that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) involves sustainable management and conduct of a business where it is ethical and socially acceptable, economically supportive and profitable. It is an umbrella concept which encompasses environmental and stakeholder management by upholding good societal performance. For Starbucks to grow into a sustainable organization, a change initiative should be undertaken against its traditional management approach. The organization needs to embrace CSR for it to become a sustainable organization. According to Tilt (2016), there are, however, intra-organization challenges which significantly affect the implementation of the change initiative. To address this issue and the potential obstacles, Lewin's change theory model provides a better platform for the change initiative because the organization's operations will not be disrupted. Morrison (2014) suggests that the theory is based on three steps namely unfreeze, change and freeze.
Change is inevitable and for change to be effective, the individuals involved should embrace it (Tilt, 2016). The first step of Lewin's change theory model is to unfreeze. Unfreezing involves creating the right and perfect environment for change (Morrison, 2014). Starbucks can achieve this by reassessing all operations of the staff for them to acquire a new perspective of the daily operations. Starbucks will, therefore, develop new operational approaches for achieving their objectives. The next step in the Lewin's change theory model, change, is a dynamic step where Starbucks should allocate new tasks and responsibilities (Morrison, 2014). Potential obstacles in the change initiative may present themselves at this stage. However, setting up of the right and the perfect environment for change is a potential solution to this obstacle. Starbucks should then implement the last step of the Lewin's change theory model, freeze, by cementing the organizational changes. The implementation can be done through the setting of new principles. Starbucks will, therefore, be able to integrate a Corporate Social Responsibility and grow into a sustainable organization (Tilt, 2016).
References
Morrison, M. (2014, July 7). Kurt Lewin change theory and three step model - Unfreeze-Change-Freeze. Retrieved February 2, 2017, from Management, https://rapidbi.com/kurt-lewin-three-step-change-theory/
Tilt, C. A. (2016). Corporate social responsibility research: The importance of context. International Journal of Corporate Social Responsibility, 1(1), doi:10.1186/s40991-016-0003-7
