Pre-crisis
At Starbucks, we pride ourselves on having a shared corporate culture that stands for what we have achieved as a business over the years. Our culture is driven by equality values that have been the defining guide of our brand (CBS News, 2018). The company proactively enhances respect for everyone, celebrates diversity, and strives towards making inclusivity the heart of all business. Starbucks recognizes the challenges experienced in this journey. As with any behavioral change, the process takes time and mistakes may, unfortunately, happen along the way. By now, our company ought to be standing in the right position. People, all people, are at the heart of everything we do here at Starbucks. The company fosters real dialogues about social and racial justice to achieve real change in our society. The company has made commitments to back meaningful change. This is achieved by equitably serving our customers, and using our marketing channels to help drive the desired change. Driving social and racial justice achievable. Starbucks is gladly aware that our customers are conscious of the types of business they support. We want to be on the right side of things.
Crisis Impact
We made a big mistake. A big mistake that we are deeply sorry and apologetic for. It was an unfortunate act borne out of cultural ignorance. But ignorance is in no way an excuse. Starbucks accepts the responsibility for this error in judgment. The way our company has been portrayed by this mistake does not reflect who we are and the values we stand for (Nilsson, 2018). This perception puts at risk our culture and all we believe in and have been working very hard to achieve. Diversity and inclusivity are etched in the Starbucks brand DNA. Starbucks deeply regrets the negative depictions and mistreatment of our valued customers. The racial stereotypes manifested in the unfortunate event were wrong then and are wrong now, they should never be allowed to happen in Starbucks or anywhere else. This mistake is not going to alter our values and what defines us as Starbucks. The company will use this opportunity to develop a better organization dedicated to diversity and inclusivity. We recognize our sins and pledge to move together toward a future of social justice and racial equity.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Crisis Recovery
Diversity is the lifeblood of our company. Starbucks is fully committed to increase and nurture diversity and inclusivity in our company and turn this event into a learning experience for our workforce and beyond. The mistake done has impacted the Starbucks community in a very emotional way. Our organization prides itself in having achieved 100% pay equity across race and gender. Minorities consist of more than 40% of our employees in the United States (CBS News, 2018). We thought we were in a better position; it’s clear we are not. Starbucks is working on immediate and concrete actions. The company has built a global racial bias awareness program to an organizational-wide system that will allow diversity to bloom (Avila, 2019). Starbucks is in the process of setting up important initiatives with people from different communities to develop the appropriate constructive frameworks to guide our organizational culture. These are the tangible and actionable changes we want to instill in our business. Our goal is to drive progress and shun systemic inequality and racism faced by people of color in the United States and across the globe.
References
Avila, M. (2019). $16.7 Million to save one reputation: how Starbucks responded amidst a racial sensitivity crisis. Pepperdine Journal of Communication Research . Pp 24-38. https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1108&context=pjcr
CBS News. (2018). Starbucks faces brand crisis after arrest of 2 black men. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/starbucks-faces-brand-crisis-after-arrest-of-two-black-men/
Nilsson, K. (2018). Crisis communication through social media, yay or nay? A qualitative study of stakeholder’s corporate reputation. Linneus University . Pp 1-56.
