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Starbucks' structural perspective

Summary

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1. Introduction and purpose of the paper

2. Presentation of Starbucks 3. The theoretical frame/perspective 4. Analysis and reflections 5. Concluding discussion 6. Annexes

Introduction and the Purpose of the Paper We all live in a world of (well or badly) managed organizations. Our day lives are dependent on large public organizations, small businesses, well-known private companies or even voluntary groups. The ways these organizations are structured varies a lot and even in the same business categories companies/organizations differ a lot. The organization that we will evaluate/discuss in this study is Starbucks Coorporation.

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Starbucks initially started in 1971 as a very small structure, run by three partners in a small shop in Seattle. By that time the company then was simply selling whole bean and ground coffee but after taking over the operation of Starbucks in 1987, Schultz decided to expand the company's business, which has now shops all around the world. (From the case “Starbucks Corporation: Competing in a Global Market” written by Professors Suresh Kotha and Debra Glassman, both from the University of Washington, Business School, April 7, 2003 from: http://www.foster.washington.edu/centers/gbc/globalbusinesscasecompetition/Documen ts/Cases/2003Case.pdf)

By writing this paper we want to perform a comparative analysis and apply a structural frame over Starbucks organization. The goal is to understand how Starbucks works and operates; moreover it will provide us a reference of the structural framework of a wellknown company. It’s important to compare several theoretical structural frames with Starbucks organization to understand better why they are so successful. That is why, after a brief historical story of the company, we will explain the theories we choose to use for our analysis. Then, we will draw the evolution and composition of the structure of Starbucks, with analysis and reflections about it.

I. Description of Starbucks The description of the company is based on the timeline from the Starbucks homepage as well as on articles from internet. Starbucks Corporation is a coffee company. It buys, roasts, and sells whole bean specialty coffees and coffee drinks through an international chain of retail outlets. Background 1971-87 Starbucks was founded in Seattle, Washington in the historical Pike Place Market in 1971 by three partners-English teacher Jerry Baldwin, history teacher Zev Siegel, and writer Gordon Bowker. They picked the name Starbucks after the coffee-loving first mate in Moby Dick, then designed a two-tailed siren for a logo and set out to learn about coffee. In 1980, Zev Siegel left the company, Jerry Baldwin took the management for the company and became the Chief Executive Officer and Gordon Bowker continued as an owner. In 1982, Starbucks hired Howard Schultz to manage the company's retail sales and marketing. After a trip he made to Italy, he advised the company they should introduce coffee and espresso drinks as well as beans, but found his bosses reluctant, being still more dedicated to retailing coffee. As a result, Schultz left the company and in 1986, he opened his first coffee bar named Il Giornale. Private Company 1987-92 In 1987, Schultz bought the Starbucks chain and rebranded the Il Giornale outlets as Starbucks Corporation and started to grow quickly. By August of the same year Starbucks had 11 stores and fewer than 100 employees. The first store in Chicago was opened in October and by 1989 Chicago had nine stores with employees trained by Seattle managers. Their methods of expansion were quite expensive but Starbucks market started to grow fast. In 1988 Starbucks initiated a mail-order catalog and by the end of that year, the company was serving mail-order customers in every state.

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Schultz's management philosophy, “hire people smarter than you are and get out of their way”, fed his aggressive expansion plans. In order to take his plans of growth he was

willing to lose money and hired two star executives: Howard Beharand and Orin Smith. In 1990 the headquarters expanded and a new roasting plant was built. Public Company 1992-2008 In 1992, Starbucks went public and it was characterized for being one of the first companies giving stock options to its employees with contract or indefinite as part-time. In that year stores were opened in San Francisco, San Diego, Orange County, and Denver. By the end of year there were a total of 165 stores. In 1994, Starbucks broke into new important markets, such as Minneapolis, Boston, New York, Atlanta, Dallas, and Houston, and purchased the Coffee Connection, a store rival based in Boston. Smith was promoted to president and Chief Operating Officer and Behar became president. The famous frozen coffee dink Frappuchino began to being served in their stores in 1995 at the time they opened new stores in Pittsburgh, San Antonio, Las Vegas, and Philadelphia. That same year Starbucks began to supply coffee for United Airlines and launched a line of Starbucks compilation music CDs that were sold in its coffee houses. Starbucks continued with their national expansion and began an overseas expansion by opening locations in Japan in 1996 with the help of SAZABY Inc. a Japanese retailer and restaurateur. Stores were opened in Hawaii and Singapore as well. In the same year Starbucks developed and sell Starbucks Ice Cream, which became the number one coffee ice cream in the United States. (from: http://www.starbucks.com/aboutus/Company_Timeline.pdf)

Starbucks bought Seattle Coffee Company, the leading U.K. specialty coffee firm, in 1998 and began rebranding Seattle Coffee's locations under the Starbucks name. Starbucks hoped to use its U.K. base for an invasion of the Continent, expecting for 500 stores in Europe by 2003 (from: http://www.fundinguniverse.com/companyhistories/Starbucks-Corporation-Company-History.html). In 2000 Howard Schultz went from chairman and CEO to chairman and chief global strategist while Orin Smith was promoted to president and CEO from 2001 to 2005. In January 2008, Shultz returned to his roles as President and CEO after an eight-year break, replacing Jim Donald, with strategy of returning to the firm’s roots and bringing back the “Starbucks Experience” after sales slowed in 2007 (from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starbucks).

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Starbucks planned to close about 600 underperforming stores in 2008 and stop U.S expansion plans along with growing economic insecurity. These closings and layoffs effectively ended the company’s period of growth and expansion that began in the mid1990s (from: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2008028854_starbucks02.ht ml).

I. The Structural Perspective We are now going to explore the theories about structural frame, as support of our study we used the fourth edition of “Reframing organizations” Artistry, Choice and leadership, of Lee G.Bolman and Terrence E.Deal, printed in 2008. In a generic way it is possible to say that an organization structure describes the way tasks are divided, supervised and coordinated. Back in 1979, Mintzberg defined organization structure as “the sum total of ways in which it divides its labor into distinct tasks and then achieves coordination among them”. (“Reframing organizations” Artistry, Choice and leadership, of Lee G.Bolman and Terrence E.Deal. Fourth edition, printed in 2008). Whatever the type or the purpose of an organization, they all have basic issues. They must achieve established goals and objectives, increase efficiency through a proper division of the labor and have forms of control and coordination. Moreover they have to fit and deal with unstable environments and rationality must prevail over personal interest or external pressure. When studying organization structure we have to know how the work is allocated (differentiation) and how to coordinate roles and units (integration). We also have to know how the individual and groups efforts are combined, there are two ways: vertically or laterally. In a vertical coordination we have the figure of the authority, the right that someone in a specific role has to take decisions, allocate resources or give instructions. There are a variety of roles and polices that helps all stakeholders to know what they can and cannot do and to ensure that similar situations are handled in the same way. There are also, planning and control systems, which Mintzberg has divided in two major approaches performing control and action planning. The first one imposes outcome objectives without saying how these goals could be achieve and second one gives specific methods and proper schedule for each action and decision. In a lateral coordination we have meetings, which allow all the involved to share opinions, ideas to improve process or help taking specific decisions. Urgency, importance for the organization or size of team may lead to the creation of task forces. A matrix structure is when those doing a task report to both a functional and a projector divisional leader. Networks, is when tasks required by one company are performed by other companies with expertise in those areas. Although efficient, vertical coordination is not always the best choice or the most effective one. Lateral coordination has both strengths and weaknesses because e.g. a meeting although a good opportunity for everyone share ideas if not properly managed might be a waste of time if nothing gets decided or if time is running short to do other tasks. A successfully company is the one that knows how and when to use the different approaches for achieving its goals.

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When creating an organization structure managers will have to face some structural imperatives. The first one is the size and age. A small and young company usually has a very simple structure but complexity and “formality” increase with size or age. Then, we have the core process which must be aligned with structure so as to avoid important disruptions in daily operations. The structure of an organization also has to adapt itself to the environment. While a stable environment might be more easily addressed by an organization with a simple structure, an instable and turbulent one will be, surely, more suited to an adaptable structure. Strategies and goals stand for others imperatives, in this

way, structure and process must be both flexible so as to adjust themselves to the changes. Another imperative is the information systems. They have an important role both in implementing the processes and also giving more flexibility to an organization, a good tool. The last but not least is the nature of the workforce, mainly in Europe and USA, because of a higher work complexity and shorter time-to-market. It is nowadays implying a newer kind of employees with higher education levels that also carries with it a more demanding and less stable employment force comparing to the employees of the past. Structural Imperatives are not the only issues managers have to face; they are also confronted with structural dilemmas like differentiation versus integration. Sometimes the more complex a structure is the harder is to maintain the company together while in other situations it’s the stiffness of the organization that holds the key to success. Another dilemma is gaps versus overlaps; sometimes the responsibilities are not very clear or the processes produce an overlapping of roles that lead to several conflicts. Underuse versus overload is also a very important problem that might cast a shadow over several companies. Underperforming employees affect productivity and create a bad working environment to others but a stressed and overloaded team does not perform well in the long run; as usual in management there’s a balance every company needs to find. Another dilemma concerning managers is the balance between clarity and creativity; if the employees don’t know specifically what they are supposed to do they tend to concentrate their work in personal preferences instead of focusing on the organizational goals. Autonomy versus interdependence impacts the way teams behave because if people are too autonomous within the groups the employees might tend to feel lonely and drift away from company culture (if any) but if the interdependence and relationship is high sometimes people also gets distract from their work. The same applies to the stiffness of the organization. You build a very loose organization and you lose focus but if the structure is too tight you kill creativity. The type of organization you implement relates to kind of business you are in: an automotive factory has no space to creativity on the plant floor (process and productivity) while an advertising agency needs all the creativity in the world and must not implement a very stiff organization with schedules and rules (flexibility and creativity). Goal setting also depends on the kind of company you run and the market environment you face. It depends on if you need to set long term goals or tactical objectives is what you seek and it depends on the workforce you are dealing with; for instance a sales force doesn’t perform without very clear objectives.

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Now that we know some of the problems that a manager has to deal with when leading an organization, it is important to study the structural frame. Several authors established their theories upon structural configurations. For example, Henry Mintzberg draws a five sectors organization. At the base, he set up the operating core (people that perform the basic work), then the middle management (managers who supervise the operators), and at the top, the strategic apex (those who set the mission and the values of the organization). On the sides, we have the technostructure (specialists and analysts that help with the evaluation of the outputs) and the support staff that help the work of the others. From this basic schema, Mintzberg defined five different major structures configurations: the Simple one, the Machine Bureaucracy, the Professional Bureaucracy, the Divisionalized Form and the Adhocracy. (See the schemas on Annex 1). All of them have their own strengths and weaknesses and it is the manager’s role to know which is the more appropriate for the company.

But they are several other approaches and structure’s names. The author David Boddy, in his book “Management, an Introduction” printed in 2005 refers to others organizations structures according to the way the work is divided. There is the Functional structure, where people work in specialized departments, the Divisional where people work in departments, none as strategic business units, the Matrix where people are based in functional groups and then work for a divisional group on distinct tasks, a Teams Structure (specialized teams get different tasks) and finally Networks, where the organization just acts as a broker between independent organizations that contract and provide services as required. In that sense we can say that for every structure we can find successful companies. The trick appears to be the balance the manager finds between contingency factors and the organizational structure through which resources are deployed and managed. Moreover, as the result of internal or external changes, every organization, no matter what core or type, has to restructure at some stage in life. Restructure is more than a fashion, in some cases, is really a matter of survival. Mintzberg study still retains much of the traditional portrait of structure as a top down pyramid. Another author, Helgesen, says that the idea of hierarchy is primarily a male – driven depiction, different from the structures created by female executives, “the women tended to put themselves at the center of their organizations rather than the top”. Helgesen has defined the expression “web of inclusion” to demonstrate an organic architectural form more circular than hierarchical. (“Reframing organizations” Artistry, Choice and leadership, of Lee G.Bolman and Terrence E.Deal, page 86. Fourth edition, print in 2008). Restructuring is never an easy option for the manager. Pressures arise from all the Mintzberg’s five groups: Strategic apex asks for more centralization, middle managers want to run their own independent units, technostructure make pressure for standardization, support staff cries for more cooperation and the operators ask for less control. This part enables us to understand better the difficulties that face a manager dealing with the structure of his company. We now know that there are imperatives and dilemmas for instance, that managers have to restructure sometimes and that there are many ways to do so. II. Analysis of the Starbucks Company Thanks to this theoretical part, we are now able to analyze the structural frame of the Starbucks Company. As we have already said in the description of the company, Starbucks began with three academic teachers, Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegel and Gordon Bower. The first Starbucks was just a small store with a core process much different from today; they sold coffee beans and coffee products. Initially they had just one paid employee, Siegel. Baldwin kept the books and tried to manage the small organization and deal the accountancy part. They order the coffee supplies by mail from a little store in Berkeley, California. (http://www.mhhe.com/business/management/thompson/11e/case/starbucks.htm).

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The first Starbucks store had, according to “Mintzberg’s five”, a Simple Structure, like almost every company that begins its activity. This structure was a result of the

structural imperatives such as the small and the young life of the company. The external environment did not seem the best one to open several stores or a bigger one, as most of the American consumers did not have the habit or even the curiosity to drink or learn about coffee. And they did not have as well a clear strategy or goals. This simple initial structure had only two levels, the strategic apex and the operating level. It was a structural configuration similar to Mintzberg’s simple structure but upside-down, the strategic apex was bigger (three men) than the operating core (one unique employee). This type of structure provided them some advantages; it was a structure with lots of flexibility (the three could run the entire operation), the responsibilities were clear, the cost were not too high and they could easily notice and evaluate daily problems. But this structure also carried some disadvantages, with three bosses too dedicated to day-to-day operations and distracted by immediate problems, neglecting long-range issues (“Reframing organizations”, Bolman & Deal, fourth edition, p79-80). When Schultz joins the picture the big leap forward he had to take was to change Starbucks core, moving from selling coffee beans to selling coffee and provide other services to make the company grow. After a trip Schultz made to Italy he believed that it was possible to transport some of fantasy of the Italians cafés but a simple structure was not the more suitable one. As the company grew and changed its core process, it had to restructure. For Schultz the idea of changing a visit to Starbucks into a special moment, a place to meet friends and enjoy, required an important change of nature of the existing work force. That is why he created the role of Baristas, normally young employees who had a proper education. It is at the same time that information technology role started to emerge as a crucial part of Starbucks strategy. Starbucks then change to a machine bureaucracy structure. Between the strategic apex and the operating core (which they already had) emerged a middle management, and also a support staff and a technostructure. Baristas became the new operating core and the employees who supervise, coordinate, control and provide the resources became the middle management. For some routines tasks, this kind of structure could be efficient and effective but one problem of this structure is operating core personnel’s motivation (“Reframing organization”, Bolman & Deal, fourth edition, p80-81). In Starbucks one of the ways to try to keep the employees happy and motivated was to extend health care benefits to part-time employee because according to Howard Schultz they were vital to Starbucks, constituting two-thirds of the company’s workforce. Like most of the companies with this type of structure, Starbucks has to deal with some tensions between local managers and headquarters; it is not easy to find a solution to cope with both the needs of the individual units and global objectives. That is one of the reasons that motivated Starbucks to start asking their employees for ideas and suggestions on how to improve the organization.

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With the international expansion of Starbucks came the creation of a new subsidiary, Starbucks Coffee International (SCI), to orchestrate overseas expansion and begin to build the Starbucks brand name globally, via franchisees (from http://www.mhhe.com/business/management/thompson/11e/case/starbucks.htm). As a result of this expansion Starbucks’ structure evolved to a sort of a Divisionalized Form. The reasons of such a change are the variation in size and age (getting bigger and older)

but also in the core process because the company is not anymore selling just coffee. Indeed in a Starbucks shop you can now buy cakes, tea, or even ice cream: the time of selling just coffee beans is rather far away. This new structure offers economies of scale, ample resources and responsiveness without undue economic risks (“Reframing organizations”, Bolman & Deal, fourth edition, p83-84). One of the major problems with this kind of organization is the possibility of headquarters to lose some touch/control of the operations in the other countries. “Divisionalized enterprises become unwieldy unless goals are measurable and reliable vertical information systems are in place” (As referred to Mintzberg, 1979 in “Reframing organizations”, Bolman & Deal, fourth edition, p85). As Kathy Lindemann, SVP of Operations for Starbucks International stated to US News and World Report in 2003, “Our approach to international expansion is to focus on the partnership first, country second. We rely on the local connection to get everything up and working. The key is finding the right local partners to negotiate local regulations and other issues. We look for partners who share our values, culture, and goals about community development.” Although all the shops have the same policies and rules, the food is adapted to the local tastes, for example in Asia Starbucks offers Curry Puffs and meat buns. The company also fits its interior décor to the local architecture, especially in historic buildings. “We don't stamp these things out cookie-cutter style,” said Peter Maslen, president of Starbucks Coffee International to US News and World Report in 2003. Now that we had an overview of the global structure of Starbucks from its beginnings to today, experiencing simple structure, machine bureaucracy and then divisionalized frame, we can focus on more detailed matters. Thanks to various examples we will be able to determine if nowadays, all around the world, Starbucks is using a vertical or a lateral coordination. As in many companies, Starbucks use vertical coordination, is ruled by a Chief Executive Officer (Howard Schultz). He is the one standing as the authority - he organizes, he runs the group, he decides the strategy and sets the goals. His task is not the easiest one since he is finger-pointed as the responsible when the company faced hard times and he had to find a “quick fix”. One way used by H. Schultz to supervise the whole organization is to forbid franchised shops. It is a mean to be sure that every shop produced the same coffee and follow the same rules. Some would say that it leads to a lack of creativity because managers of their own shop cannot make what they want. They are not allowed to be autonomous; they must stick to the rules and sell exactly the same coffee or tea. But thinking in a global perspective, Starbucks shops are interdependent and if they don’t follow one guideline, the company will lose its image, its personality.

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All this does not erase creativity. Indeed, employees can feel free to send cards with their ideas, claims or other types of remarks to their managers. It is not mandatory to precise your name. Moreover, managers have to answer to a signed card in two weeks timeframe. This system shows that the head of the company cares about its employees’ feelings and wants to listen and help them. It stands for a part for lateral coordination. But the company goes farer; it asks employees to criticize it and had formed an entire department dedicated to answer the remarks. The Starbucks Mission Review program,

allows every employee to express himself and to comment on whether company decisions are consistent with the company's Mission Statement and Guiding Principles. The company thinks that the point of view of every partner is usefull not only on the local scale but also in the daily operation of the whole company. In the same line, in 1990, a People Growth Team was created (from http://www.greatplacetowork.com/education/innovate/honoree-2005starbucks.php). It was a way for “partners”, as Starbucks called its employees, to give

their feedbacks about the evolution of the company. It was an opportunity for them to express themselves. The team has been formed with people from various hierarchical levels which once again proved the efforts of the company to access a better communication between all the members. About the planning and control systems, there are two ways of acting: by performance control or by action planning. The first one focuses on the results and the second one focuses on the process. In this case they are both relevant because each one was used by the company. In Starbucks, the CEO highlights the importance of the value of the product, the wellbeing of the employees to then be able to reach the satisfaction of the customers which is the key to the success. He insists on the way to make the coffee, gives the rules about how to decorate the shop, how to organize it. Those details should lead us to say that the action planning system is the Starbuck’s one. However the main goal of the company is to spread all over the world, building news shops in various countries. But those philosophies are linked because such an expansion wouldn’t be possible if there wasn’t an action planning system with it. Indeed focusing on the process is a way to insure the safety of the company, if people are not satisfied with it, there is no use to want to spread. Actually we can say that the company is using both strategies to reach its goal, it focuses on process and results. Nowadays the trend has changed, the time of opening shops in various countries, like three by day, has gone. The whole world is moved by a financial crisis. For instance, in July 2008, Starbucks had to close 600 stores in United States because the sales were not enough highs to make profits. New goals were implemented; the idea to spread was push aside. Schultz decided to concentrate on the process to ensure the satisfaction of the customers and that they will continue to visit his shops. This new trend was the start for a new strategy. H.Schultz was asked to come back as the CEO because he stands for “the” leader of Starbucks. Indeed he always has been the one who gave the main line to follow. With the financial crisis, he chose to change the strategy, he leads Starbucks trough a new goal. Spreading was no more the point but focusing on process replaced it. He wanted his employees to focus on the value of the product, the well-being of the Baristas such as to give to the customers a well-being impression while getting in his shops.

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If we want to analyze deeper the leadership role of Schultz we can use the Blake and Mouton grid (“Reframing organizations”, Bolman and Deal, fourth edition, p346-347). Those two men think that the leadership is based upon the concern for people and tasks. This ideology has been said too restrictive, because focusing on only two perspectives. However, it could be interesting to try to place Schultz in such a grid. They described accurately five ways of being a leader. The minimal management refers to a low

concern about people and tasks. The indulgent management is concentrated upon people, setting aside task matters. For the integrative manager, both individuals and tasks are very important. The authoritarian one mainly focuses on tasks. Actually, in the middle of all this kinds, there is the compromise management, the manager who feels concerned by both but not in an excessive way. After our analysis of the Starbucks’ structure, we learned the way Schultz leads his company. As he points out the well-being of his employees as a very important thing for the satisfaction of the customers, (we can remind all the advantages they have: stock options, health system…), we can say that he is concerned about people. But now with the financial crisis he has become more worried about the tasks. A leader adapts his strategy to the situation he has to cope with, and so did Schultz. At the beginning, he focused on his staff; he was more an indulgent manager. With the financial crisis he had to focus more on the process and he changed to a compromise management. As a conclusion of this part we can say that Starbucks has to continuously evolve and to make its organization change in relation to the world surrounding it. Like every corporation the most difficult task is to find the right balance between the vertical and the lateral coordination and this is the leader’s task. Focusing on the first one can make employees ill at ease, stressed; it can lead them to a minimal investment on themselves. On the other hand, the lateral coordination is not perfect. Even if a great communication is a key to the success (which they have) a fine balance point has to be achieved in order to keep Starbucks as one of the most successful enterprises in the world.

Conclusion: To resume our study, we did a SWOT analysis about the structure frame to easily understand which are the main Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.

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Positive

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Negativ

Internal

External

Strength

Opportunity

Good vertical coordination with an authoritarian figure who settled roles and policies so as to keep a group personality. Focus on the well-being of the employees so as to diffuse a welcoming atmosphere. Capacity of adaptation to the environment: dealing with the crisis, Shultz implanted a new structure bye giving new guidelines concentrated on the process more than the result.

Weakness

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. Focusing on the quality of their product.

Threat

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SWOT ANALYSI S

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Need to restructure and this step is always a huge challenge. Seeing as an American spreading company, standing for the globalization. Some employees still feel se aside in the decision making process

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• e

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The financial crisis The risk to by focusing on the process put aside employees problems. The growing feelings of rejection of the globalization and indeed big companies such as Starbucks. The concurrent for example the one of Mc Donald’s starting to cell coffees.

Now that we master the Starbucks’ structural frame, we can compare it to the others perspectives. That is to say: symbolic, politic and human frame. We will then be able to point out the one which, from our point of view, seems the most important for the Starbucks Company. We will also base our reflection upon “Reframing organizations” of Bolman & Deal. The symbolic frame focus on how people make sense of the chaotic and ambiguous world that we live. Based on social/cultural anthropology, it points out questions of rationality as the only way of understanding the organizations. The symbolic/culture frame is very important, is the basic organization glue, it creates in a company sense of belonging and sense of uniqueness. The loyalty of any brand is emotional; Starbucks is losing a lot of costumers because they cannot see anymore the old values that made Starbucks so famous all over the world. She underlined this paragraph and added a question mark, so I don´t what is she meaning with that. This frame is very important to study a company like Starbucks. One of the five symbolic frame suppositions is that in many cases is most important what it means and not what happens (“Reframing organization”, Bolman & Deal, fourth edition, p253), some events (such as drinking a coffee) are often more important for what is expressed than for what is produced. In the history of Starbucks we see myths (the name Starbucks, is one of them), vision (“to make the best coffee in the world”), heroes, humor and play in the stores, some rituals and ceremonies (drinking a coffee could be for many people a kind of routine which gives sense to each day). The symbolic frame is another perspective interesting to study because in contrast to the traditional views (structural), which emphasize rationality and objectivity, the symbolic perspective highlights the tribal aspects of a contemporary company like Starbucks. (“Reframing organization”, Bolman & Deal, fourth edition, p277) The structure of the company itself must even be looked at through the symbolic perspective, not just the structural perspective. The current structure of Starbucks has a pretty tight control over what the different unites in the rest of the worlds are allowed to do.

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But structure is not only linked to symbolic, politics has also a huge influence upon it. Indeed, the political frame is important because it is focused on strategy and tactics for

dealing with conflict. A manager must be a politician, must has the skills and a good strategy to achieve noble purposes. It is as well a very important perspective to study, in such a big organization the CEO should have the ability to identify relevant relationships, invent options for mutual gain, negotiating and bargaining, try to maximize and take the best of his employees. Howard Schultz is the one standing as the leader in this company. He organizes, he runs the group, he decides the strategy and sets the goals. He is taking the responsibilities. Finally, we have the Human Resource perspective which in our opinion is the most important frame to study our company. Starbucks could have a very good structure, a CEO that act like a good politician, and even could have a strong symbolic part behind the company, but without people, without a good team of employees, little would get done. Indeed, the CEO of Starbucks always points out the well-being of his employees as a very important thing for the satisfaction of the customers. Howard Schultz and his HR teams always try to hire the right people, to be selective, to give them formation and the tools they need to serve the costumers in the best possible way. In the same line, Schultz focused on giving many advantages to his employees like the health care system or some stock options for instance. One of the main secrets for the success of the Starbucks is the Baristas, with their sympathy and knowledge about coffee they can transport the costumers to the fantasy of the Italians cafes. To conclude we can say that every frame has an important role in an organization, the degree depends of the company. For the one we studied, the human resource seems to be the key one as the success of the shops rely on the employees’ behaviors: if they feel good and convey a relaxing and welcoming ambiance, the deal is won! This study let us get aware of the importance of each frame of an organization and the need of coherence between them as they are strongly linked. As a final conclusion we can underline the use of organizations. People and organizations need each other; but organizations exist to serve human need and not the other way around.

Annex 1: Mintzberg’s five

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Simple structure

Machine bureaucracy

Professional bureaucracy

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Divisionalized form

Adhocracy

Annex 2: References: Books and texts:

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“Reframing organizations”, Artistry, Choice and leadership, of Lee G.Bolman and Terrence E.Deal. Fourth edition, print in 2008 by Jossey-Bass.

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“Management, an Introduction”, David Boddy, from Prentice Hall, third edition, 2005.

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• Case “Starbucks Corporation: Competing in a Global Market” written by Professors Suresh Kotha and Debra Glassman, both from the University of Washington, Business School). Revised April 7, 2003

Websites: •

Website visited the 09/09/09 at 12p.m: http://www.greatplacetowork.com/education/innovate/honoree-2005starbucks.php

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Website visited the 09/09/09 at 13p.m: www.starbuck.com

• Website visited the 18/09/09 at 14p.m: “Starbucks’ case study”

http://www.mhhe.com/business/management/thompson/11e/case/starbucks.htm

•

Website visited the 09/09/09 at 12p.m: http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/Starbucks-Corporation-CompanyHistory.html

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Website visited the 09/09/09: “Starbucks Corporation: Competing in a Global Market” http://www.foster.washington.edu/centers/gbc/globalbusinesscasecompetition/Documen ts/Cases/2003Case.pdf

•

Website visited the 09/09/09 at 13p.m: Allison, Melissa “Starbucks identifies 600 U.S. stores it's closing”

(July 2nd, 2008)

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2008028854_starbucks02.ht ml

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Articles from the economist:

 Website visited the 02/09/08: “Burgers or beans” http://www.economist.com/research/backgrounders/PrinterFriendly.cf m?story_id=23  Website visited the 02/09/08: “Coffee” http://www.economist.com/research/backgrounders/PrinterFriendly.cf m?bg=797292  Website visited the 02/09/08: “Trouble brewing” http://www.economist.com/research/backgrounders/PrinterFriendly.cf m?story_id=8776372  Website visited the 02/09/08: “Not enough froth” http://www.economist.com/research/backgrounders/PrinterFriendly.cf m?story_id=10490218  Website visited the 02/09/08: “Perky people” http://www.economist.com/research/backgrounders/PrinterFriendly.cf m?story_id=131284

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 Website visited the 02/09/08: “Coffee with your tea?”

http://www.economist.com/research/backgrounders/PrinterFriendly.cf m?story_id=808595  Website visited the 02/09/08: “Coffee wars” http://www.economist.com/research/backgrounders/PrinterFriendly.cf m?story_id=10498747  Website visited the 02/09/08: “Direct from the source” http://www.economist.com/research/backgrounders/PrinterFriendly.cf m?story_id=11058477  Website visited the 02/09/08: “Grounds zero” http://www.economist.com/research/backgrounders/PrinterFriendly.cf m?story_id=11670630  Website visited the 02/09/08: “Comeback kings?” http://www.economist.com/research/backgrounders/PrinterFriendly.cf m?story_id=12896749

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 Website visited the 02/09/08: “Just add water” http://www.economist.com/research/backgrounders/PrinterFriendly.cf m?story_id=13145808