How Action Research Can Bring About Change

Managerial Issues: Action Research

Although I am currently employed in the Navy, I have also worked for private organizations, including, most notably, Starbucks. Starbucks is one of the most famous food and beverage companies in the world, and initially generated a great deal of goodwill as well as sales because of its image as a progressively-minded organization that cared about communities as well as offered tasty and unusual coffee beverages that were a cut above the competition in the fast-food industry. However, many people today believe Starbucks has lost its way.

Starbucks initially promoted itself as a so-called third place, or somewhere between home and work where people could enjoy coffee, company, or simply a relaxing moment with a meal (Rainey, 2022). Today, however, more than 80% of the coffee’s beverages are sold to-go (Rainey, 2022). Additionally, although Starbucks was praised for offering health insurance to part-time employees, Fair Trade coffee, and better working conditions, both its products and treatment of employees have come under fire, as employees complain of unrealistic expectations in terms of how many orders they are expected to fulfill within a short span of time, beverages are criticized for being overly expensive, and the company is criticized for crowding out independent stores and bakeries (Rainey, 2022).

Management must find a way to rebrand the organization and foster more positive feelings among employees for the organization to thrive in the future. The biggest problem is ensuring Starbucks still offers a strong value proposition to customers as a unique product, which is increasingly challenging as more people work from home and more companies have offered similar specialty coffees at a lower price point to Starbucks. The reason management may struggle with this issue is because of the size of Starbucks today. Starbucks began as a company which emphasized a strong personal connection to its customers. It is now an international organization.

Mitigating Problems

Organizational development consultants can offer an outside perspective, which can be helpful for companies which are highly insular. Action research consultants, according to Lurey & Griffin (2013) focus on establishing priorities for change, collecting and interpreting data, analyzing and disseminating the results of the research, creating an action plan, implementing the action plan, and evaluating the results. Starbucks has implemented this approach in the past, when faced with problems, most famously engaging in a wide-ranging retraining of all employees in how to make its coffee beverages, responding to criticisms that the coffee’s quality had declined. It also conducts significant research on the tastes of new nations when it expands internationally, and works with local partners to ensure a smoother launch into a new environment.

Starbucks shows openness to responding to some customer issues, including simplifying its ordering menu with visuals to increase speed of taking orders, identified as a significant time lag (Rainey, 2022). But many aspects of its business model, such as its dependence upon low-cost ununionized wage labor, have caused it to come in conflict with the values of its core, customer base. Additionally, Starbucks has attempted to respond to the need for fast service by creating new express stores called Starbucks Pickup with Amazon Go. But these solutions, although they address specific demands by customers identified with gathering data, do not address the core issue of creating a value proposition based on community (its vision and mission) while still offering speed.

According to McLean (2006), what makes organizational development unique is its planned and systematic nature, which does not seem clear in some of Starbucks’ most recent reforms. The planned and systematic changes must still be congruent with the organization’s purpose for being, which Starbucks always stressed was community, even before offering specific types of coffee. The fact that the stores have focused on grab-and-go alternatives and the increased demand for takeout suggests it has not tackled this challenge.

Action Research: The Most Challenging Steps

A critical component of action research is being able to first establish priorities effectively for the change needed. Starbucks has understandably been focused on cutting costs and boosting profits in the short-term, but it must engage in longer term strategizing to ensure that it can still deliver upon its original value proposition that made it so unique and attractive to customers. If this value proposition does not resonate with buying habits today, it must find ways to rebrand itself beyond yet another mid-priced coffee company.

Starbucks has in some ways, product-wise, become a victim of its own successes. Accumulating data about how and when customers buy has enabled action research to fix some short-term problems, but not longer-range problems about delivering something no other company can. This also requires it to sharpen the final phase of action research, which demands evaluating the change and being willing to make changes to the original plan, if that plan is not delivering as hoped.

Currently, Starbucks has a presence as far-ranging internationally as India and China. Being a neighborhood coffee place while suiting the needs of these different regions may not be feasible in the future, without changing how it expands and partners locally. Its once-unique business practices, such as offering tuition assistance to employees, are now less generous than Walmart, Target, and other companies, which, along with criticisms of its labor practices, has made it look less inviting to its progressive customers (Rainey, 2022). According to Haneberg (2005), setting an organization up for success when engaging in change is half the battle. Starbucks has shown itself willing to change, but the changes it must undertake in the future must be more broad-ranging and far-reaching than the ones it has taken in the past, if it wishes to continue to secure its high market share.