Should a company’s CEO use the vast tentacles of the local
retail stores to prompt public discourse on race in America? Even though
improving race relations is a good cause, extending a CEO’s personal influence
beyond the products societally requires its own justification. For a week in
March 2015, baristas at 12,000 Starbucks coffee shops implemented CEO Howard
Schultz’s intent to “spark customer conversation on the topic of race.”[1]
Schultz even made a video in which he told the baristas how they should steer
their respective conversations. If this sounds a bit like George Orwell’s Big
Brother in the novel, 1984, the
question may be whether such societal influence is legitimate from a position
of management in business.
The full essay is at “Starbucks: A Shaky Management Wading into Social Issues.”
1. Bruce Horovitz, “USA TODAY, Starbucks Tackle Race Relations,” USA Today, March 17, 2015.
