OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Ethical Communities Worksheet

Worksheet Objectives:
1. Describe the four ethical communities
2. Apply the ethical communities to your personal case situation
Cassidy Carmichael
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.
• Briefly restate your situation from Module 1 and your role.
My role within Starbucks is shift supervisor. I have been in the shift supervisor role for
going on four years now. I started as a barista but since I had manager experience at a different
company before I worked for Starbucks, they promoted me to shift only after about five months.
My role is to take care of the cash drawers each morning, along with some paperwork type of
things like submitting product orders. I also control the floor and I make sure that everyone is in
a role that they can be successful in. The situation that I want to analyze for the remainder of the
class is the sudden loss of support from the corporate side of things that has happened within the
last few years. Starbucks started to become a lot more strict and somewhat harsh with their rules
and expectations. I know for a lot of places the pandemic helped them change some things for
the better, but it was kind of alarming to me while at Starbucks. Suddenly we had two partners
get fired right on the spot, along with not having free access to food and drinks while not on the
clock, a benefit we had during COVID times, the absurd amount of labor that was cut, along with
changing the minimum hours that you needed to work jumped from 15 hours a week to 22 hours
a week.
• Describe how the ethics of the organization influenced the situation.
Ethics influenced this situtation because I believe that Starbucks thought that cutting
labor to help them save money was the right choice for their company. I haven't looked
up how much money Starbucks had lost due to the pandemic, but this was probably their
way of trying to make up for it. This choice I believe wasn't very ethical for the partners
who work for Starbucks. Many partners got their hours cut a lot and even though
Starbucks paids us more than minimum wage, this was really hard for a lot of people
because they weren't able to live life comfortably. I knew a few partners personally who
had to find another job just so they could make ends meet. As a shift supervisor I also had
gotten in trouble for not cutting labor when I felt like we needed the labor that day.
• Recommend how you would apply one of the ethical communities for an alternative
course of action regarding your case.
The ethical community that I would use for an alternative course of action is caring. "A
compassionate family or community requires servant-leaders concerned with the needs
and wishes of members and stakeholders." (Bolman, 1997, page 417) This ethical
community stood out to me because I feel like Starbucks always preaches about all the
 good things they do for their partners and customers, which there is a good amount of
things that they do that I am grateful for, but I think the labor shortage was the thing that
caused a lot of partners stress due to not being able to pay their bills. At the end of the
day Starbucks is a business and they have to worry about making money, but since they
are the most successful coffee company, I know that there is room in their budget to
ensure jobs for all partners.
• Reflect on what you would do or not do differently given what you have learned
about ethics.
After learning about ethics, I think Starbucks does consider ethics when it comes to their
problems. I think this situtation they were thinking very money hungerly and not
considering the partners. If I could do anything differently it would be to make sure that
all the partners were taken care of because they are the people who the customers see day
to day!

Reference
Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (1997). Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and
leadership. Jossey-Bass Publishers.