Starbucks Corporation is one of the American Multinational corporations with the most significant market shares in coffee farming and production. For this paper’s analysis, it is the company and organization of choice. This paper analyses leadership theories and how the behavioural leadership theory is the most ideal for Starbucks Corporation. Behavioural human resources interventions in the organization have been highlighted and the challenges the organization faces as a multinational company (Kumaresan, 2019). The list ends with a discussion on how organizations like Starbucks could hire local talent.
Leadership Theories and how Behavioural Theory applies in Starbucks Corporation
The trait theory of leadership posits that leaders are born and possess outstanding leadership qualities from their birth. Because of their leadership qualities, they are better suited to lead than other people. According to this theory, a leader’s traits include business knowledge, flexibility, tenacity, charisma, initiative, energy, emotional intelligence, honesty and integrity, good cognitive and judgment skills, among many other skills. According to the trait theory, all of these skills are innate and appear psychologically in a person born to be a leader (Gandolfi and Stone, 2018). However, those who are proponents of the leadership style admit that the development of leadership is structured. Leadership qualities are identified, they are screened to sieve leaders from non-leaders, and then those who have the potential to lead are trained and nurtured.
In the trait theory, there are various aspects of analytical facts that are postulated. One of the facts is that traits are responsible for producing patterns. The production of patterns has consisted of different domains forming the basis of analysis (Educational Business Articles, 2016). The recurrence and the consistency of the patterns make it possible to trace leadership acumen from various people when they surface. These patterns are elements of an innate being. People do not acquire them; they are born with them.
On the other hand, behavioural theory determined that the success of a leader is mainly dependent on their behaviours and not the natural attributes they possess. It involves evaluating the behaviour of a leader when they are faced with a situation that they must provide a solution (Gilbert and Kelloway, 2018). Accordingly, several types of behaviours then categorize leaders in different domains (Harrison, 2018). For instance, there are people-oriented leaders, task-oriented leaders, dictatorial leaders, opportunistic leaders, participative leaders, etc. Each of the individual leadership domains in this category defines the leader; that is to say, the dictatorial leader is bent on dictatorship.
These leadership theories apply in different organizations in various ways to provide an impetus for success or otherwise. For example, Starbucks is a multinational company and chain of coffee houses and is American (Goh et al., 2020). In the year 1987, Starbucks had only six stores. Presently, it can be determined that the Corporation has over 25,000 stores worldwide since the inception of the leadership of Howard Schultz (Hahn & Kim, 2016). The theory that best applies to the organization’s operations and leadership style is the behavioural theory. One research article documents that their leadership quality is servant leadership (Abdallah, 2018). This is derived from an analysis of their mission statement that states; Our mission is “To inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time” (Starbucks mission statement 2019). Leadership theories help in enhancing performance in an organization.
The mission statement shows the organizational plan to foster and nurture the human spirit through unity, which is achievable through servant leadership which is generally a behaviour. Additionally, Starbucks has recorded tremendous growth since the leadership of Howard took over the management (Page and Schoder, 2019). Howard is documented as a leader who puts the right people in the right place, thinks about the welfare of his employees. He also stands by his values, admits and learns from his mistakes, and exercises the transformational leadership style (Bui and McCarthy, 2015). Other individual behaviours of the manager include flexibility, passion, and boldness (Papia, 2021). These traits are behavioural and are cultivated from how leaders respond to various situations. Therefore, it is formidable to conclude that the behavioural leadership theory defines the leadership style that functions best for Starbucks Corporation.
Behavioural Dimensions for Management and Challenges in the International Environment
There are four behavioural dimensions for management in any business that assists in the realization of organizational goals. These four behavioural dimensions in the human resources department include; managing the human resource environment, acquiring and preparing the human resources, assessing and developing the human resources, and compensation (Banfield, Kay, and Royles, 2018). These dimensions play a crucial role in the management of human resources in an organization.
Human resources need to have a work-friendly environment. Therefore, all the necessary materials to work in a human resource department should be made available (Mousa and Othman, 2020). For instance, a laptop installed with human resources programmed tools is an asset that must be availed (Hovhannisyan & Machado, 2018). Additionally, a work environment that fosters teamwork has to be built because the human resources department collaborates with many other departments.
All the employees of the organization, beginning from the cooperate employees to the casual employees, must be interviewed against their job descriptions to evaluate if they could be productive in their various capacities (Villegas et al., 2019). This is called the acquiring and preparing the human resources department. A recruiting panel that is rigorous should be assigned to do this work. Then, with support from the existing staff, the excellence produced by the recruiting and selection criteria should function to scale the organization to greater profit heights.
In the next behavioural dimension for human resources, Starbucks should deploy assessment and development of the human resources. In saying so, there is a need for the employees of any organization to develop and sharpen their skills to meet the market demand that changes in the wake of every day. Such programs include training and seminars that open up all the employees’ knowledge levels and shift their productivity by providing challenging insights (Engetou, 2017). Additionally, reviewing the productivity of the company staff at Starbucks should be mandatory and periodic with elements of awards to the outstanding employees.
Reviews allow the organizations to identify employee weaknesses so that plans for training would be scheduled appropriately. Also, the employees find room for improvements after reviews and performance appraisals since they focus on improving weaknesses. Awarding outstanding employees has vast benefits according to the provision of evidence-based researches (Idowu, 2017). They gain the impetus of working the best way they can for productivity’s sake.
Last in the list of behavioral dimensions of human resources is a need to compensate for human resources in any organization. Compensation for employees who form the human resources unit for organizations has been proven to enhance productivity (Ekhsan et al., 2019). Some of how they are compensated include; salaries and wages, promotions, paid leave days, flexible deadlines, organization trips and recognition of outstanding employees (Lazear, 2018; Ekhsan et al., 2019). The list is almost endless. This is one of the behavioural human resources practices that Starbucks should deploy in mass as most of these practices are already in place and functioning correctly.
In the international market, Starbucks faces competition from various firms that also produce coffee and its products. The competition in the market is an international problem (Berger and Blake, 2016). A paper from The Wall Street Journal documents that Starbucks faces many cost problems due to the high cost of labour that it is currently undergoing. Notably, the only measure to compensate for the accrued costs is to increase the prices of their commodities (Haddon, 2021). This intervention is not putting them well economically against their competitors in the world market. Arguably, the competition that is made worse by the increment in prices of their commodities is one of the significant international challenges that Starbucks is currently facing.
Being Multinational Corporation that it is, Starbuck is bound to expand into the foreign and international market. However, the expansion into the international market comes with extensive trade barriers from the international countries. For instance, while opening a store in the United Kingdom, the company faced sociocultural limitations that forced the organization to facelift the store. This came with cost implications which negatively affected the company’s operations (Campbell and Helleloid, 2016). The international challenges among many others that Starbucks must overcome to ensure they remain operable and profitable.
Strategies Starbucks Could Use to Attract Local Talent
In order to attract local talent, companies ought to do a few things. One of the things the company must do to attract local talent is to treat its employees well. For instance, when employees are paid well and provided with health insurance at work, they end up talking about how good their company is (Murphy and Eadie, 2019). As a result, prospective employees begin to make applications in anticipation of being incorporated into the system. In the recent past, Starbucks has been cited it increase the wages of its employees, which has seen them raise the price of their commodities (Haddon, 2021). In other words, they have valued the welfare of their employees above the interest of the organization. This attitude allows for the ability to draw local talent.
Investing in promotional activities allows the company to interact with society and draw attention. For instance, supporting a sporting event is one way of promoting the business brand. The cost implication should be factored in advertising. The prospect does not only sell the organization’s brand, and it does more than that (Fenwick, McCaher and Vermeulen, 2019). Most of the local intellectual’s bank on the wit of the organization to begin making applications to work with such an organization. The argument is that if they can sponsor an event. This kind allows for community interactions, and then they are also willing to make considerations for their employee’s welfare.
Another measure that has proven to be useful for most organizations are working employees to market for vacancies. When employees are involved in the recruiting process, they can invite friends and relatives, who mostly happen to be people from within the organization’s locality. The employees themselves make applications for promotion and retention (Ashraf et al., 2020). Starbucks, for instance, can utilize this arsenal by making adverts and asking their employees to share with people who they think have the right academic qualifications so that they are in a position to apply for the same. This does not mean that they should neglect the formal process of making adverts without canvasing. The strategy of using employee’s functions as an extended avenue to reach out to more prospective employees (Pieper et al., 2019). In doing so, the company widens its scope of reaching out to more local talents.
The last strategy in this submission list is the mass awareness campaigns on the functionality of the organization. When the local talent is not aware of what the company does and whether their talents and qualifications match the requirements for employability in the organization, they are prone to reluctance. However, it becomes easy to apply if the information is available to them concerning how the organization operates, recruits, and the bare minimum qualification requirements (Ali, 2021). This may increase their chance of qualifying for an interview with the organization.
Lobbying for local talent is essential in the sense that it promotes organizational culture. Locals have a vast understanding of the operation within the country in which the Corporation or the company is operating. Notably, they can function in the work environment with limited upheavals (Tlaiss et al., 2017). Additionally, they provide support for the employees who may not necessarily come from of local descent. Organizations must deploy local talent in administering their services for increased profitability that springs from positive work relations they always bring to the table.
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