OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Choosing an Organization Worksheet

Worksheet Objectives:

1. Identify an organization and situation you want to study over the remainder of the course.

2. Describe the organization and the 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.

Name and describe your organization.

The organization I chose to focus on is Starbucks Coffee Company, a world renowned and
highly praised coffee chain worth $101.67 Billion according to Macrotrends. Due to their size
and reputation, it can be assumed many people know the history of Starbucks, beginning in 1971
in Seattle, Washington, founded by Jerry Baldwin, Gordon Bowker, and Zev Siegl. (Britannica)
It wasn’t until the 1980’s that Howard Schultz decided to join the company as their head of
marketing, only to become their CEO in 1987, two years after starting his own successful coffee
chain. Schultz would remain active CEO until the year 2000, where he would then take a step
down and “would remain as a chairman.” (Britannica) Schultz would return as CEO in 2008 and
repeat this stepping down and returning process two more times, officially being replaced by
Laxman Narasimhan in 2023. (Britannica) As of 2021, the coffee chain “had a presence in
dozens of countries around the globe and operated over 32,000 stores.” (Britannica) The massive
growth of this once small business is now a household name and staple in the coffee industry.

Describe your role in the organization (it can be an internal or external role)

My role in the organization of Starbucks is an external role as a former employee (partner) as I

analyze the situation from both internal and external perspective. As a former employee I
resonate with some of the struggles of existing employees and their demands for more pay,
secure labor hours, and increased benefits. From an external perspective, it is hard to believe that
a $100 billion company is failing to meet the expectations of their employees. It is apparent that
Howard Schultz has had some instabilities in his time as CEO and the employees and company
as a whole have been affected by this. Although the company has profited and grown immensely,
the morale of the company has seen better days since this all began in 2000.

Describe the situation, including information you think will help the reader understand the
most important elements of the situation. (This will require selectivity: part of the art of
case writing is separating the essential facts from the mass of information that might be
included).
Starbucks is bigger than ever, and employee’s are unionizing to secure higher pay, consistent
hours, and improved benefits. The official union workers site for Starbucks,
(sbworkersunited.org) has said that since their first store attempted to unionize in August 2021,
“over 300 stores have followed their lead and filed for their own union elections, and over 200 of
those stores have won their unions.” (sbworkersunited.org) Compared to their total corporate run
stores in the United States of 8,947 according to Statista.com, the 300 stores only account for
about 3.3%, however, the unionization has gained significant traction since its formation in
August 2021. The most important element of this situation is the welfare of the employees
involved in the unionizing efforts and to ensure that if their demands cannot be met entirely, they
will be given options to meet some of their expectations. The workers that are participating in the
unionization are hoping to have a voice in the rights and terms of their employment with the
company, and create a better future for themselves, as well as the company.

Resources:

Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. (n.d.). Starbucks. Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved October

22, 2022, from https://www.britannica.com/topic/Starbucks

Locke, S. (2022, July 27). Number of Starbucks stores in the U.S. 2021. Statista. Retrieved
October 22, 2022, from https://www.statista.com/statistics/218360/number-of-starbucks-
stores-in-the-us/
Starbucks net worth 2010-2022: SBUX. Macrotrends. (n.d.). Retrieved October 22, 2022, from
https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/SBUX/starbucks/net-worth

Starbucks Workers united. Starbucks Workers United. (n.d.). Retrieved October 22, 2022, from
https://sbworkersunited.org/