Green Mountain Coffee Case Study
Success Begins with Three Conscientious capitalism underscores the importance of aligning stakeholders’: employees, customers, shareholders, suppliers, community, and the environment, interests into the company's decisions by refocusing on purpose instead of profit, which incidentally results in a successful bottom line (Sacks, 2009). The operating philosophy of conscientious capitalism incorporates three assumptions: interconnectedness, holistic wealth, and traversing time through multiple generations. Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (GMCR) has integrated this ethical continuum into their operational strategy, which has led to their current success.
Interconnectedness
GMCR embodies interconnectedness through their annual summit meetings that employ an Appreciative Inquiry (AI) 4-D model and through their organization’s cultural commitment. At the summit meetings, multiple internal and external company stakeholders convene to strategically plan for the future, assess stakeholder value and contributions to success, as well as reflect on company and industry historical trends, all which promote the positive core of GMCR (Neville, 2008). Interconnectedness is also evident by the embodiment of GMCR’s inaugural five core beliefs: a passion for coffee (recreating Stiller’s first experience of the perfect cup of coffee), financial performance, a destination workplace, ethics, and commitment to social responsibility (Neville, 2008). By engaging the stakeholders, especially with annual trips to the “origin”, GMCR creates a unified allegiance to social and ethical responsibility that produces positive ethical and financial outcomes for the company.
Holistic wealth
GMCR epitomizes holistic wealth in the form of value-based management (VBM), which can be defined as an integrated management control system that measures, encourages, and supports the creation of net worth beyond capital accumulation and profit (Beck & Britzelmaier, 2011). One way that GMCR uses VBM to
Interconnectedness
GMCR embodies interconnectedness through their annual summit meetings that employ an Appreciative Inquiry (AI) 4-D model and through their organization’s cultural commitment. At the summit meetings, multiple internal and external company stakeholders convene to strategically plan for the future, assess stakeholder value and contributions to success, as well as reflect on company and industry historical trends, all which promote the positive core of GMCR (Neville, 2008). Interconnectedness is also evident by the embodiment of GMCR’s inaugural five core beliefs: a passion for coffee (recreating Stiller’s first experience of the perfect cup of coffee), financial performance, a destination workplace, ethics, and commitment to social responsibility (Neville, 2008). By engaging the stakeholders, especially with annual trips to the “origin”, GMCR creates a unified allegiance to social and ethical responsibility that produces positive ethical and financial outcomes for the company.
Holistic wealth
GMCR epitomizes holistic wealth in the form of value-based management (VBM), which can be defined as an integrated management control system that measures, encourages, and supports the creation of net worth beyond capital accumulation and profit (Beck & Britzelmaier, 2011). One way that GMCR uses VBM to
References: Beck, V., & Britzelmaier, B. (2011, September 1). A critical review on surveys of value-based management. International Journal of Management Cases, 13, 270-286. Retrieved from http://0-ehis.ebscohost.com.ilsprod.lib.neu.edu/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=a407bbb2-587b-426d-8b85-8db864ac53b8%40sessionmgr11&vid=5&hid=23 Neville, M. G. (2008). Positive deviance on the ethical continuum: Green Mountain Coffee as a case study in conscientious capitalism. Business and Society Review, 113, 555-576. Sacks, D. (2009). John Mackey’s Whole Foods vision to reshape capitalism. Retrieved August 23, 2012, from http://www.fastcompany.com/1460600/john-mackeys-whole-foods-vision-reshape-capitalism