The Coca-Cola Company: Then and Now
Introduction
This case study is based on Coca-Cola Corporation, the producer of Coke, which is the world’s largest distributor and producer of non-alcoholic beverages. Until the 1960’s, Coca-Cola was a one product company, but then to maintain and increase its market share in the increasing competition by companies like Pepsi, Coke bought Belmont Springs Water and Minute Maid and launched Tabs, Sprite, and Fresca making significant inroads into the diet soda market. In 2009, the corporation generated $31 billion in operating revenues and had a net income of $6.8 billion from it’s over 400 brands sold in over 200 countries (Harvey, 2012). Although Coca-Cola is known as the world’s #1 producer of sparkling beverage, it also known for losing the largest racial discrimination lawsuit in the U.S. history. In April 1999, four African-American Coca-Cola employees filed a law suit against the company for racial discrimination. The plaintiffs, on behalf of themselves and 2200 similarly situated African-American colleagues, alleged they had suffered discrimination in pay, promotions and performance evaluations. Since then in less than ten years, with the help of external task force the corporation has transformed itself in terms of diversity management. In 2010, the corporation was listed as one of the Fortune magazine’s 2010 Most Admired Companies and has consistently earned a place in Diversity Inc.’s top 50 companies for diversity list (Harvey, 2012).
Issues that led to the lawsuit Coca-Cola’s main issue was that it centrally develops which lead to overseeing of the performance evaluation system. This system allows managers to conduct performance evaluation and practice undue discretion with little or no oversight of their determinations. Also, this system permits discrimination on the basis of race in evaluations, and these