Culture and Communication in Starbucks Coffee Company

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speaks highly of the company. The article said that the company “eliminating as many as 12,000 jobs, which is about 7 percent of the work force worldwide”(Schade,2008). After an examination, the article believe that the Starbucks is good at communicating clearly and promptly with the employees, educating the responsibility, mission and values of the company and retaining customers. However, the company also attracted some criticism since it launched the first TV advertisement in 2007. The Nation’s Restaurant News said that “ Starbucks’ first national TV spots are heavy on kindness, a little light on product message”(Cebrzynski,2007).

Chapter Three

The Role of Conflict in Starbucks Company

We learned from the class that the famous scholar Gerald Miller and Mark Steinberg have identified three types of interpersonal conflict, i.e. pseudo-conflict, simple conflict and ego conflict. As for Starbucks, the conflict is not on interpersonal level but on the ethic level. As Starbucks have more coffeehouses in more than 43 countries, it faces many ethic conflicts in its developing process. For example, on July 7, 2011, The Wall Street Journal reported that the employees in the Starbucks are not satisfied with the salary, which is 2.5 dollars an hour and the wage hasn’t been changed for eight years. We all know that communication plays a vital role in solving the conflicts. These conflicts are however a double-edged sword as they can urge the company to communicate with the employees. Facing the cultural conflicts, we have

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learned several tips to handle them in the class. The first is to “assume differences until similarity is proven”; “emphasize description rather than interpretation”, “practice empathy” and “treat your interpretations as a working hypothesis” (Organizational Behavior, Ch.11). In my opinion, Starbucks should pay more attention to communicate with the employees so that the conflicts can be reduced.

Conclusion

Starbucks Company has established an organizational culture focusing on experience and communication. Generally speaking, the communication practice in the company is good in terms of the communication between the customers and the

employees. But the company should work harder to improve the communicating skills for the benefit of the company development.

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Reference

[1] Gebrzynski, G. (2007, December 17). Starbucks’ first TV spots are heavy on kindness, a little light on product message. The National’s Restaurant News, 41(50),

18-18.

[2]Starbucks Coffee Company. http://www.starbucks.com/

[3] Starbucks. (2008, February). Company Recognition

[4] Starbucks. (2008, Februalry0. Company Profile

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