Introduction
The case presented brings to forefront the issues relating to the biases and differences based on race, gender and culture. The case specifically highlights the one time where Coca Cola had to pay a humongous sum of $192.5 million to Linda Ingram and three other African American former employees of the company in a case filed against the company on the grounds of racial discrimination. According to these plaintiffs, the top officials of the company Coca Cola would continually abuse them by way of name-calling, even hindering their career growth. This particular case brought to light one of the most basic issues that the ethnic workforce faces in the corporate work culture of America. According to the grounds mentioned within the case in question, the African American workers were targeted to be kept under the general pay scale criterion as compared to the white employees. This difference in pay scale was almost equivalent to a sum of $26,000 annually. Adding further to these woes, the African American employees were subjected to much ridicule and hostility resulting in a massive increase in the incidents of stress-related illness (such as depression, panic attacks etc) among this community.
Post the case, Coca Cola was advised to pay up for all the damages even while initiating an equality program within its institution mandating equal work and growth opportunity for all races, gender, age, religion etc., while also promoting inclusion, freedom and respect for all. While the issue was resolved at that time, several other ethical dilemmas were seen to have come up for the policy makers.
Some such dilemmas were: How and where can the policy makers promote the work culture of inclusion and respect amongst the work force? Who should be the one initiating the change? Who should be included as advisors? How can the pay scale, career development and promotion be justified and under what circumstances? How does one combat the issues of personal bias against corporate values?
Mentioned above are only a few of the dilemmas about the execution of the policy to be fair and equal to all, especially in light of the fact that all the employees working have a pre-conditioned way of thought when it comes to the matter of race, religion and gender.
It was realised that the cases of harassment based on race increased by a 100% between 1990 and 2000, about the time when reports of racial hiring had reduced by 20%. This clearly points to the fact that while the company managers were emphasizing on improving diversity at work place, the thought process of the people was still working on the old grounds. According to the analysis presented within the case study, it was realised that the best way for any company to bring in inclusion, equality and fairness in conduct was to include it all in the very elements of the work culture it showcases. In case of Coca cola, even though the company became a worldwide presence, catering to a plethora of cultures and nations, with workforce strength of 29,000, the company culture still imbued the scent of southernism, which was hierarchical and formal in nature. This led to the African American workforce within the company to feel neglected and as being given limited growth opportunities, thus resulting in dissatisfaction. Pay scale difference became one of the major concerns. While the company did convene a conference to understand the issue of racial discrimination felt amongst its employees in 1995, the findings were never worked upon. It was a year later, in 1996, that Linda Ingram felt the shocks of racial discrimination, when her supervisor admonished her for her work and pointedly blamed her colour for it. She reported the case as was company's protocol, which resulted in her supervisor being fired from the job. The aftermath is what resulted in Ingram filing a law-suit against the company. Post the firing of her supervisor, Ingram's co-workers ignored her and stopped talking to her completely. Ingram's pleas for a change of department went unheard, which resulted in a lot of subsequent sick-leave and eventually a disability leave that Ingram applied for. According to Ingram, the Coca Cola executives did not have any mechanism to deal with issue related to racial biases and hence, despite Ingram's repeated pleas, nobody came forward to help her out of the situation. Even after the issue was made public, the then Coke President Ivester declined the issue on e-mail and in public. It was only after Ivester was fired from his post and new President Doug Daft brought in that the case was resolved and the huge sum paid to the plaintiffs. Adding on to this, Daft also agreed upon ushering in a new work culture and addressing policies related to racism.
Analysis
With a thorough up on the case-study, it is quite evident that while the previous President, Ivester was a marketing whiz, his took the issue of racism extremely casually. One needs to understand the basic mindset of a person. The attitude of a person is learned from his childhood and it takes a lot of effort and guided conditioning to change that pattern of thinking (Hofstede & Hofstede, 2005). With this basic understanding of human nature, solving any behavioural problem becomes easy. Had Coke taken this in consideration and them worked out its moves towards establishing a friendly and equality-based work environment for all its workers, the process would have been a success. Instead, they chose to put a few anti-racist laws in place and chose to sit down upon the entire issue altogether. They never focussed on implementing equality-based law and work culture which are so important for promoting and fostering harmony in multi-cultural workforce (May, 2006). That was the first big mistake. The second mistake was to not consider the findings of the meeting held by Ware to address the racial issues. Any person is deemed a positivist who follows a set of instructions, uses statistics, and works on the basis of warranted data and facts (May & Mumby, 2005). Iverest worked on the exact opposite phenomenon despite being given a chance to work by way of positivism. Had Ivester worked by adopting the positivist philosophy, thereby believing on the findings instead of his own conception of the issue, the subsequent action and the end result would have been very different from what ultimately reigned.
Reference List
Hofstede, G. & Hofstede G.J. (2005). Cultures and Organizations: Software of The Mind. New York: McGraw-Hill.
May, S. (2006). Case Studies in Organizational Communication: Ethical Perspectives and Practices. California: Sage Publications.
May, S. & Mumby, D.K. (2005). Engaging Organizational Communication Theory and Research: Multiple Perspectives. California: Sage Publications.
