Outline and critically evaluate the corporate culture and values that the Starbucks Corporation has developed as an international company.

Corporate culture is the shared values, traditions, customs, philosophy, and policies of a corporation. This influences the professional atmosphere that grows from this and affects employee behaviour and performance, it determines how employees think, act and feel. Every organisation has a different concept about the kind of culture that it should have, Howard Shultz CEO of Starbucks worked to instil key values and guiding principles into the Starbucks culture. The fundamental value was “to build a company with a soul,” to achieve this Shultz came up with a philosophy for Starbucks to “never stop pursuing the perfect cup of coffee.” This meant Starbucks had to control the quality of its products across all stores with Shultz strongly opposed to franchising in order to achieve this. Using high quality beans with no chemicals or additives was also central to the core values; this is even true in today’s Starbucks coffee. Following on from Shultz’s keystone value and it is the staff who are central to the soul of the company. The employee’s were selected for their character, personality and skills “to deliver consistent pleasing customer service.” Employee’s adopted Shultz’s core values to provide not just a perfect coffee but to provide an experience to Starbucks customers which led to the success of Starbucks and making customers want to come back. Shultz offered all full-time and part-time employees the opportunity to receive full healthcare benefits and stock purchase plans. By offering these perks and allowing staff to buy into Starbucks Shultz believed that offering employees good compensation and a comprehensive benefits package was driven by his belief that sharing the company’s