Personality in an organization best defines organizational culture. Culture involves values, assumptions, artifacts and norms of diverse people who associate with the organization. Since organizations comprise of many people from different backgrounds and cultures, the unity created through belonging to the same organization makes them sense the culture of the organization. Therefore, the culture of an organization is seen as a system that drives the people in an organization. At Starbuck, the organization culture remains one of the critical things for managing the company operations. The company culture in this company starts with the top-level management down the line to the subordinate staff. The aspects that comprise corporate culture of Starbucks include detailed focus, teamwork orientation, stability and people orientation.
Through the aspect of the company culture, the management and the team of employees are creating a culture that will develop a new community. According to Koehn (2012), the company works to create a place where people will meet for a cup of coffee, a better place away from home and workplace. The culture embraces one cup of coffee at a time for one person. On the aspect of people orientation, the company works to ensure it creates a great work environment full of respect and dignity to all individuals. The culture also guarantees the quality of coffee is never compromised. The aspect of detail focus is giving back to the society through the corporate social responsibility of the company.
The key elements that contribute to Starbucks Corporate culture include management, employees, materials and customers. Through the competent company CEO, the company has developed a culture that helps the corporation reach global markets. The CEO works very hard to ensure employee and customer satisfaction. Through this culture, the company has managed to go global in its business. The intended culture works to achieve the strategy of focusing on details employee satisfaction through giving out special benefits that reduce turnover in the company (Flamholtz, 2012). Some of the advantages that the CEO, Schultz provided to improve the morale of the employees is that of health benefit. The employees are entitled to health benefits and private stock options. This motivates all the company staff, increasing their commitment to serve the company.
The company CEO is seen to be very intelligent in his strategies in that he emphasizes on a slow expansion strategy to enter new markets. The Mission statement of Starbucks has been developed in such a way that it reflects the principles of the Corporate Social Responsibility. The company got involved in social responsibility activities to boost the prospects of expanding into new markets. For example, regarding environmental conservation, the mission reads that the company is always striving to reduce its environmental footprint, combat climate change and inspire others to do the same. This has made the culture of the company to be known widely because of its recycling, and green building activities. The efforts to help improve the environment through recycling has created significant value for the enterprise. There is still room to improve the measures that are an appeal to the customer at Starbuck. The company’s culture requires all employees to have the right knowledge about the business ethics and all its products as Wang, Su, and Yang (2011) indicate. The company’s leadership and employees have demonstrated expertise in their duties through being mindful of the planet and offering a unique experience to the customers.
The employees have developed a mechanism that allows them to learn the language of customers. Through this, the company has offered the beverage that the clients want and the way they want it. The company CEO has invested heavily in employees for they are the face of the company. Through the company employees, the company has delivered the best quality beverage products in most markets that the corporation serves. According to Tseng (2010), a company culture that supports teamwork promotes better communication among the employees. The improved communication assists the employees to cooperate well with one another on all decisions they make to ensure they deliver what customers want. Customers are key to the business as they help the business grow. The style of coffee at Starbucks in the convenient quantity and quality attract many customers making the company be preferred over others. The most critical action that a company can take to retain customers is through satisfying their needs and offering products in the best manner that the clients like (Ismail Al-Alawi, Yousif Al-Marzooqi, & Fraidoon, 2009). The comments that many customers who have had an encounter with Starbucks reveal that customers are getting the products they want from the company in a convenient way.
One key management competency at Starbucks is employee engagement. Involving employees in decision-making process improves their morale towards work. Hence, they remain committed to their jobs. Through the company CEO, the employees have enjoyed benefits like health benefits that the corporation offers to them and their families. The employees enjoy this benefit and provide the best quality service to the enterprise. The culture of teamwork and employee engagement has made Starbucks a unique company adding competitive advantage over rival companies. Through the company CEO, the business has executed many strategies that cause the company grows. Grant (2016) stated that leaders are important people in the company as they develop strategies and help the employees execute them and take the company to a higher level.
The Starbucks ability to achieve long-term sustainability to achieve coffee leadership in the industry without the current CEO requires a strong business culture. The company CEO Schultz has been there to develop strategies that help the company improve performance. So far, the company has taken the right direction with the current CEO. The employees have played a vital role in ensuring strategies are executed. We cannot associate all the success of the company to the CEO as he works with other people to deliver. The basis of the company success remains solely on the employees. If the enterprise satisfies their needs and gives them the right skills, the company definitely, would deliver more and become the leader in the coffee industry.
References
Flamholtz, E. (2012). Corporate culture and the bottom line. European Management Journal, 19(3), 268-275.
Grant, R. M. (2016). Contemporary strategy analysis: Text and Cases edition. John Wiley & Sons.
Ismail Al-Alawi, A., Yousif Al-Marzooqi, N., & Fraidoon Mohammed, Y. (2009). Organizational culture and knowledge sharing: critical success factors. Journal of knowledge management, 11(2), 22-42.
Koehn, N. F. (2012). Howard Schultz and Starbucks coffee company. Harvard Business School Pub.
Tseng, S. M. (2010). The correlation between organizational culture and knowledge conversion on corporate performance. Journal of knowledge management, 14(2), 269-284.
Wang, D., Su, Z., & Yang, D. (2011). Organizational culture and knowledge creation capability. Journal of Knowledge Management, 15(3), 363-373.
