¶ … stakeholders at Starbucks. The internal stakeholders include the senior management team, the shareholders, managers and employees, and the Board of Directors. Schultz works closely with all of these groups in order to manage the company. As the firm's inspirational leader and visionary, Schultz guides the senior management team and works closely with the Board, on which he sits. Through the Board, he deals with the shareholders. Overall, all of the internal stakeholders recognize that Schultz is the face of the company and is responsible for all aspects of the company. He has a high level of personal credibility and that helps when he speaks to the different internal stakeholders.
External stakeholder management is a little bit more challenging. There are a number of external stakeholder groups, including various governments, franchise owners, customers, suppliers and other interested groups that monitor the company for its environmental and labor policies. Some of...
The latter are critical, especially to the international expansion plans. The company uses contracts to ensure that the franchise owners' interests are aligned with those of the company. The arrangement with the suppliers is more or less the same. There are some differences, however, especially with the coffee farmers. Starbucks has at times in its past come under some criticism for the rates that farmers get paid for their beans. This has spurred Starbucks to engage with its critics, build stronger relationships with its key suppliers, improve the amount of fair trade coffee in its system and more. Schultz initially did not want to have policy dictated by external interest groups, but has taken a more proactive approach in the past decade or so with respect to engaging these groups and ensuring that Starbucks…
