OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Choosing an Organization Worksheet

Worksheet Objectives:
1. Identify an organization and situation you want to study over the remainder of the course.
2. Describe the organization and situation.

Complete the following making sure to support your ideas and cite from the textbook and other
course materials per APA guidelines. After the peer review, you have a chance to update this and
format for your Electronic Portfolio due in Module 6.

1) Describe your organization.

The organization I choose to study is Starbucks. Starbucks Corporation is a coffeehouse

company that started in Seattle in 1971 (Starbucks, n.d.). What started as just a single
store near Pike Place Market in Seattle, Washington, transitioned into something greater
when Howard Schultz became apart of Starbucks. Once Schultz raised enough money, he
bought Starbucks in 1987 and grew Starbucks exponentially (Farr, 2017). Starbucks is
now the largest coffeehouse chain and a major reason for that is their organizational
structure. In 2008, Shcultz shifted the organization’s focus from globalization to the
customers and the business financials (Meyer, 2019).

2) Describe how Describe your role in the organization (it can be internal or external).

Within Starbuck’s organizational structure, there are teams. Teams exist throughout the
organization but they are most visible at the lowest level of the organization (Meyer,
2019). I am a barista at a coffeehouse in La Habra, California and I can attest that teams
are one of the most important components of Starbucks.

3) Describe the situation. (see the Canvas instructions for details, especially about how
your situation will be analyzed from five different perspectives over the next five
modules)

The situation I am presenting is the one of how Starbucks was able to overcome
the 2007/2008 economic meltdown. Prior to the meltdown, Starbucks was led by Jim
Donald from 2005 to 2008. Upon replacing Donald, Schultz identified various major
issues with the brand. Those issues, on top of the economic meltdown, led Starbucks to
close hundreds of stores and lay off thousands of employees (Husain et al., 2014). Issues
pertaining to pricing, competition, and customer experience contributed greatly to

1
 Starbucks’ failures and only amplified its struggles during the meltdown. Luckily,
Schultz was able to see what was wrong and what needed to be changed.
With stores closing, expansion plans being delayed, and the economy falling in
2008, Starbucks found themselves in a difficult position. According to Schultz, prior
leadership blamed their poor performance mainly on external factors (Hussain et al.,
2014). Although dairy prices and the economic downturn played significant roles in the
poor business, there were many other things that needed to be addressed internally in
order to repair the damages. In efforts to revive the company after the 2007 and 2008
crisis, Starbucks took a technology-oriented approach that brought many good things to
the company (Hussain et al., 2014). This spproach not only involved in-store operations
but also involved the customers. With the ideas of the customers and the partners that
arose from this shift, Starbucks was able to innovate and move forward from their
failures.

2
 Reference or References