Societal Responsibility of Starbucks Corporation - Essay Example

The relationship of business with the community has had a long and changing role and involves many areas. It starts by creating and supplying an employment base within the community where the business resides; from this point, it expands into involvement in the areas of education, the arts, environment, urban development, job training, volunteerism, minority enterprises, summer jobs for youth, health, housing, alcohol and drug abuse, nutrition, philanthropy, prison rehabilitation, and many other areas. It is almost impossible for any business not to become involved in some kind of community affairs. Some of this involvement is primarily charitable, while other community affairs with which the business becomes involved pay a direct return to the company. It is difficult to separate one from the other because in most instances both community and business reap positive rewards from any business participation in community affairs.

Also, the buyers and sellers in the marketplace often lack the quantity and quality of information necessary to undertake effectively and efficiently the proper transactions to optimize the side effects for the best interests of both parties involved. Under a free market economy, private industry, local governments, and county, state, and federal governments can, and do, sometimes relieve themselves of certain costs associated with the disposal of waste materials by using the atmosphere, oceans, lakes, rivers, and landfills, as free waste receptacles. If it is to the economic advantage of the particular emitter to do so, it will normally take advantage of this free resource. The general theory behind much of it is that business participating in community affairs makes the community a better place in which to live. Making the community a better place to live, helps improve the community for all those who live there and as an inducement for hiring new employees from distant communities, possibly needed experts from other cities (Starbucks Corporation serving More than Coffee 2009).

Societal responsibility followed by Starbucks means that impact on the community is achieved through employees and their skills. Both have been sympathetic to this area and have employed and trained people whenever practical. Today, most programs are operated by individual firms. It is imperative, however, if these people are not to end up in the unemployment lines of the future that the training is in meaningful work areas and not just "handout" jobs where the person is paid something like summer work but gains very little useful work experience. It is just as important to know the community and its needs as it is to know the company's capabilities. Someone within the company must work with the community to become familiar with the community's needs, or the company must establish some type of internal committee or board to study community problems. The committee or board should be composed of people from the company and various representatives of community organizations. Once both company capabilities and community needs are established, then some form of the selection process must be established for determining which project or projects will be undertaken by the company.

Profit responsibility means that Starbucks does everything possible to ensure a stable position on the market and job safety for millions of its employees around the world. Despite this, social objectives and goals exist in an area that is not always easy to assess and objectively appraise. Just because it is not easy is no excuse for not trying to do something constructive about it. To gain some semblance of control in this area and to make certain that social objectives are being met, more companies have started using a social audit to measure, monitor, and evaluate the contributions that the company is making to society. By being able to bring in needed key people from other localities, the business will be able to remain competitive, increase sales and profits, and make more money for the stockholders and Starbucks. The result is that everyone is happy and better off because of community involvement by business, the community, the business and its employees, the stockholders, and the local, state, and federal government