OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Structural Frame Worksheet

Worksheet Objectives:
1. Describe the structural frame
2. Apply the structural frame to your personal case situation

Complete the following making sure to support your ideas and cite from the textbook and other
course materials per APA guidelines. After the peer review, you have a chance to update this and
format for your Electronic Portfolio due in Module 6.

1) Briefly restate your situation from Module 1 and your role.

During the 2007/2008 economic meltdown, Starbucks struggled to maintain positive

business. According to leadership prior to Howard Schultz, dairy prices and the
meltdown were major causes of Starbucks’ decline in performance. I currently work as a
barista for Starbucks in La Habra, California.

2) Describe how the structure of the organization influenced the situation.

Starbucks is a big corporation that has more than 30,000 stores worldwide. Prior to the
meltdown, Starbucks was focused mainly on global expansion. Once Schultz took back
leadership in 2008, he stated “the company shouldn't just blame the economy; Starbucks's
heavy spending to accommodate its expansion has created a bureaucracy that masked its
problems” (Hussain et al., 2014). As one can see, Schultz recognized that changes to
Starbucks structure needed to be made. When Starbucks started focusing on expansion in
the early 2000’s, the customer experience declined and sales with it.

Starbucks has a matrix organizational structure, which consists of a functional hierarchy,

geographic divisions, product based divisions, and teams (Meyer, 2019). The functional
hierarchy refers to the grouping of business departments and is intended for monitoring
and controlling operations. The geographic divisions are based on physical location and
are intended for providing managerial support and geographical needs in a more efficient
manner. The product based divisions are responsible for all product line related issues.
Lastly, teams are all throughout the organization but are most prevalent at the lower
organizational level (Meyer, 2019). Taking a look at the different parts of Starbucks’
structure, one can see that there are many components in place to control the many
operations that take place. With this structure, Starbucks was able to address their
problem with the customer experience and provide support where it was needed.

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 3) Recommend how you would use structure for an alternative course of action
regarding your case.

Shcultz’s decision to redesign the structure of Starbucks was a vital one. With the change,
the company was able to give attention where it was needed and promptly. What
Starbucks did was recognize how the lack of customer connection had a big role in their
lack of performance and the structure present was perfect for addressing that. If I were to
use this structure, I would also have used the structure to put a lot of emphasis on slowing
growth. Initially, Starbucks started off as a coffeehouse where people went not just for
the coffee but for the experience. Once Starbucks started to grow, that part of the
Starbucks culture left.

Although Starbucks was able to improve their business, I would have slowed expansion.
If expansion was necessary for growth, then I would have increased the number of café
stores as opposed to drive-thru stores. As someone who works in a drive-thru, it can be
challenging to make connections due to times expectancies. This is important because
being the heart of the city is a hard thing to do if we do not have the opportunities to do
so. Furthermore, operations can get sloppy when there are orders coming in from several
points of sale. As one can see, it is difficult to make sure that everyone can represent the
culture of Starbucks if proper training is not accessible. In conclusion, to prevent these
issues, I would have used the structure to slow down global expansion and put more
emphasis on the teams since they are the ones who brought in a big portion of Starbucks’
revenue.

4) Reflect on what you would do or not do differently given what you have learned
about this frame.

What was done by Schultz was well thought out and strategic. What I would not have
done though was to invest into global expansions. I would have took that money and
invested more into the stores. Some stores are not designed in the best way which can
hinder business. A good idea would have been to establish a communication line like
they did for customers to get their ideas. Although something like this exists, it should be
more open to redesign ideas from the store partners.

Another thing I would do is to equip all partners with everything they need to reach the
standards that are set. Sometimes, standards are not met at my store because of various
things. The geographic divisions could be too large which takes away from what
Starbucks culture is supposed to be like. Instead of straying away from Starbucks’ roots, I
would have put more money into stores to create them in a way that makes them feel like
warm neighborhood stores. Although that would probably slow down expansion, it would
make the experience much more enjoyable.

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 Reference or References