Starbucks : managing a racism scandal /
On April 12, 2018, two African-American men were waiting for a friend at a Starbucks store in Philadelphia. One of them asked if he could use the bathroom and was refused because the two men had not yet bought anything. Later, the store manager asked them to leave if they would not be ordering anyth...
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| Format: | eBook |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
London :
University of Zurich,
2019.
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| Series: | SAGE Business Cases.
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Connect to the full text of this electronic book |
| Summary: | On April 12, 2018, two African-American men were waiting for a friend at a Starbucks store in Philadelphia. One of them asked if he could use the bathroom and was refused because the two men had not yet bought anything. Later, the store manager asked them to leave if they would not be ordering anything from the store. When the two men insisted on staying, the manager called the police. The two men were arrested, marched out of the Starbucks in handcuffs, and held for hours before they were released without being charged. In response to the incident, both the CEO and the executive chairman apologized personally to the two men and offered to support their entrepreneurial pursuit. To prevent any further incidents of racial bias in its stores, Starbucks closed some 8,000 stores in the US for a whole afternoon in May, 2018 to conduct racial bias and discrimination training for 175,000 employees. To demonstrate its commitment to its fundamental principle of 'Everyone is welcome', and as a response to the incident, Starbucks adopted an open bathroom policy, which in itself brought new challenges for the leadership. Starbucks' handling of the scandal serves as a textbook example on crisis management. The case study provides a great lesson for dealing with a crisis or PR disaster as a famous brand, and teaches how to turn a crisis into an opportunity. |
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| Item Description: | Originally Published In Wittman, X. (2019). Starbucks: Managing a racism scandal. S2CSC 026-19-05. Zurich, Switzerland: Swiss Chinese Case Study Center, University of Zurich. |
| Physical Description: | 1 online resource : illustrations. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 9781529734997 1529734991 |