Business Communication Starbucks Works With NGOs Collaborating With Activistshow Starbucksworks With Ngospaul Argenti Starbucks Ceo Orin Smith Was

Unlock access to all the studying documents.

View Full Document

Collaborating

with Activists:

TARBUCKS

ORKS

ITH

NGO

Paul A. Argenti

Starbucks CEO Orin Smith was in for an unpleasant surprise at his

company’s annual shareholders meeting in February 2000. The

meeting had always been a fun, all-day affair during which share-

holders from around the country gathered to celebrate the

company’s success. That year, however, Smith and other senior Starbucks execu-

tives heard complaints from Global Exchange, a non-governmental organization

(NGO) focused on human rights. Dedicated to promoting environmental, politi-

cal, and social justice around the world, Global Exchange criticized Starbucks for

profiting at the coffee farmer’s expense by paying low prices and not buying

“Fair Trade” coffee beans. Not only did the activists disrupt the company’s

This article, written in cooperation with executives from Starbucks, ana-

lyzes the company’s ultimate decision to sell Fair Trade coffee and subsequently

work with other NGOs to ensure that small farmers receive a living wage, in an

effort to live up to the standards Starbucks set for itself in the area of social

responsibility.

91CALIFORNIA MANAGEMENT REVIEW VOL. 47, NO. 1 FALL 2004

The Changing Environment for Corporations and NGOs

In the United States and Europe, distrust in corporations is at an all-time

high. Fueled by accounting scandals, exorbitant CEO compensation packages,

and concerns that globalization contributes to ever-widening income disparities

and the homogenization of cultures, public attitudes toward business have been

in a downward spiral since the late 1960s.

Over a thirty-year period, the marketing consulting firm Yankelovich

asked American citizens to answer this question: “Does business strike a fair

balance between profit and the public interest?” In 1968, 70 percent of the pop-

ulation answered “yes.” By 1976, that number had dropped to 15 percent due to

sentiment toward business has only gotten worse in the last few years.

NGOs into the “Trust-Void”

While corporations have certainly acted in ways that have contributed to

negative attitudes about business, these acts, in their own right, would not have

been sufficient to cause corporations the kinds of problems in which many of

them are embroiled. By using the media and the more egalitarian and pervasive

distribution channel for information created by the Internet, NGOs have more

powerful tools than ever to threaten corporate reputations. According to one

global advocacy group focused on sustainability: “[NGOs] are the moral compass

and ethical watchdogs against the forces of government and capitalism that seek

“operate in society’s best interests,” 48 percent

and 52 percent of respondents stated they had

little to no trust in global corporations or large

national companies, respectively. At the same

time, only 32 percent of respondents expressed

distrust in NGOs. Meanwhile, 59 percent of respondents stated that they had a

lot or some trust in NGOs while only 39 and 42 percent trusted global corpora-

tions or large national companies. Seemingly, people are predisposed to trust

NGOs, viewing both their pure motives and statements about corporations as

fact. In fact, most people seem only to question the credibility of an NGO when

the NGO has partnered with a corporation that the public views as having suspi-

cious motives.

Collaborating with Activists: How Starbucks Works With NGOs

CALIFORNIA MANAGEMENT REVIEW VOL. 47, NO. 1 FALL 200492

Paul A. Argenti is Professor of Corporate

Communication at Dartmouth’s Tuck School

of Business. <paul.argenti@dartmouth.edu>

NGOs evolved to influence governments. However, many now realize

that targeting corporations, and key corporate constituents such as investors and

customers, can be an even more powerful way to effect change. Simon Heap, of

the International NGO Training and Research Centre, argues in his book, NGOs

Engaging with Business: A World of Difference and a Difference to the World, that as the

balance of power shifted from governments to multinational corporations, NGOs

had no choice but to change their approach to social problems.

In some ways,

century—are the multinational corporations and the NGOs.”

Given the public’s broad-based disillusionment with business, it is not

surprising that NGOs have gained power and credibility in recent years. As

reported in a recent poll by Edelman Worldwide, an international public rela-

tions firm:

NGOs have moved quickly into the “trust-void” and have taken advantage of the

downward spiral in public perceptions of government, media, [and] corporations

. . . “thought-leaders” are two to three times as likely to trust an NGO to do what

is right compared to large companies because they are seen as being motivated by

morals rather than just profit.

The same study revealed that trust in NGOs in the United States is

approaching parity with business and government.

Jonathan Wootliff, Manag-

ing Director of Edelman’s Stakeholder Strategies unit in Brussels and New York,

states: “It is clear that NGOs can demand a seat at the table, without resorting to

the street.”

In addition, the anti-war movement that formed against the war in Iraq

in the spring of 2003 created an opportunity for NGOs to reposition themselves

on college campuses along with other traditional activists. According to Peter

legitimate anti-war movement, under the opposition to “war for oil” theme.”

Another hypothesis that may explain the rise of NGOs, the numbers of

which have nearly quadrupled in the past decade,

is institutional organization

theory, which posits that public expectations of corporations evolve with

changes in the social environment. Arnold and Handelman’s research on insti–

tutional organization theory argues that organizations’ actions fall into two

categories: performative actions (such as assortment of merchandise, competitive

prices, and convenient locations in the retail industry) and institutional actions

Collaborating with Activists: How Starbucks Works With NGOs

CALIFORNIA MANAGEMENT REVIEW VOL. 47, NO. 1 FALL 2004 93

of even high-performative firms and low-performative firms with high-insti-

tutional orientations could outperform high-performative firms. Finally, the

authors note that activists can raise the minimum standard to which customers

The Category Killers

NGOs are in the unique position to be focused on single, specific issues—

“category killers” in a debate with individual corporations. Deri and Wootliff

shed light on NGOs’ emerging role as category killers.

“Category killer” refers

to the ability of an NGO to focus on one issue at a time just as some retailers are

able to beat competitors with multiple products by only selling one kind of prod-

uct and, thus, gaining a competitive advantage. One reason NGOs have gained

Not only are NGO communications usually far more sophisticated than

what corporations produce, they are also more interesting and more likely to

receive positive media attention. NGOs can act with a swiftness that their more

bureaucratic corporate counterparts often cannot. Wootliff, who served as public

relations director for Greenpeace before joining Edelman, puts it this way: “The

advantage, when I was working at Greenpeace, running a communications

department, is that we could put out press releases pretty damn quick [sic]. We

found that corporations would take days. I knew this from having worked in the

corporate world before . . . they had to go through lawyers and the legal and the

legislative departments.”

Along with their ability to focus, gain attention, and act quickly is the

high level of credibility NGOs have cultivated with many constituencies. In

recent surveys released by SustainAbility, a UK-based international consulting

firm that has been studying the relationship between business and society for

over a decade, NGOs scored much higher than corporations, governments, and

the media across a wide variety of issues including the environment, human

“selfless crusades” against what they portray as corporate greed.

Collaborating with Activists: How Starbucks Works With NGOs

CALIFORNIA MANAGEMENT REVIEW VOL. 47, NO. 1 FALL 200494

Assessing the NGO Threat

Although many NGOs may be advocates for the same cause, they are by

no means created equal, nor do they operate in the same way. Depending on the

organization involved and the target of their concern, NGOs play different roles

at different times and use a variety of tactics, from violent protests to collabora-

tion, to enforce their messages. NGOs’ approaches to social issues—and therefore

the threats they pose to big business—differ greatly based on their philosophies

and historical practices. Therefore, their threats carry varying levels of credibility.

In their recently published report: The 21st Century NGO In the Market for

Change, SustainAbility, Global Compact, and the United Nations Environment

Programme offer a framework to categorize NGOs by the following five

approaches used to threaten corporations.

Developing Campaigns Against Business—These campaigns, such as Green-

peace’s attack on Shell following the company’s decision to dump the

Brent Spar oil rig in the ocean in the 1990s, typically focus on a single

issue, target companies with successful and well-known brands such as

McDonald’s and Nike, and are augmented by market trends such as the

homogenization created by chains like Wal-Mart and Starbucks. NGOs

Attempting to Build Market Intelligence—NGOs who focus on building mar-

ket intelligence appear to have developed a more sophisticated under-

standing of the value chain, key business drivers, and market behavior.

They tend to target key constituencies as they try to change how business

acts. For example, People and Planet, a student activist group focused on

the employee constituency, recently infiltrated a series of job fairs run by

ExxonMobil in an attempt to convince potential employees that joining

the company was a bad idea.

Likewise, NGOs trying to stop Monsanto

from marketing genetically modified products in Europe have focused on

supermarkets supplying the end product to consumers.

Engaging Businesses—Many NGOs have discovered that the best way of

leveraging corporate and market change is to get directly involved. As

Randall Hayes, founder of the Rainforest Action Network has said: “If

you [as an NGO] are not talking to business, you are just preaching to the

effort with the company.

Collaborating with Activists: How Starbucks Works With NGOs

CALIFORNIA MANAGEMENT REVIEW VOL. 47, NO. 1 FALL 2004 95

Strive to Make Market Mechanisms More Intelligent—Most interactions

between NGOs and corporations listed so far have been at the level of

individual companies. The fourth strategy focuses instead on trying to

change the entire market. As the late Professor Donella Meadows of Dart-

mouth College said about confronting the WTO: “This is a huge system!

We’re cranking the system in the wrong direction and the control mea-

environmental and social concerns.

Disrupting Markets—Major market changes are atypical in most developed

markets in the short term, but some markets are disrupted over time as a

result of changing attitudes. As an example, the market for tobacco has

changed dramatically over the last forty years. A coalition of NGOs led by

Friends of the Earth International is currently attempting to apply lessons

learned in tobacco litigation to a variety of other industries to deal with

issues such as obesity and climate change.

NGOs’ standard responses, usually reflective of their underlying philos-

ophies, dictate the kind of relationships they develop with businesses. These

relationships can be categorized by the degree of intended disruption (e.g., con-

frontation versus collaboration) and the level of discrimination between targets

(e.g., focused on one versus a number of companies). For the purposes of this

fend off more aggressive NGOs focused on disruption.

Starbucks and Global Exchange: The Battle over Fair Trade Coffee

Starbucks began working with NGOs in 1996, and the company’s rela-

tionships with various NGOs illustrate both the spectrum of business responses

to NGOs and the changing NGO landscape. Though Starbucks has been the

recipient of numerous accolades for social responsibility, the company’s visibility

in the marketplace makes it a target for NGOs, the media, and consumers. As

noted, Global Exchange first focused its spotlight on Starbucks in 2000, criticiz-

ing it for not buying Fair Trade coffee. Since its initial dealings with Global

Exchange, Starbucks has taken innovative steps to work collaboratively with

NGOs to create social change.

Overview of the Coffee Industry

An examination of the coffee industry and some of the market factors

that contributed to the increasing emphasis on Fair Trade Certified coffee helps

Collaborating with Activists: How Starbucks Works With NGOs

CALIFORNIA MANAGEMENT REVIEW VOL. 47, NO. 1 FALL 200496

to put Global Exchange’s attack on Starbucks in context. By 2000, coffee was

the second most traded commodity on worldwide markets after oil

and an

$80 billion industry. The coffee market is fragmented, with many layers between

coffee bean producers and the end-consumer. For example, in 2001, between 50

and 70 percent of global coffee came from small-scale farms, which usually do

market.

Small producers often have difficulties financing their operations

throughout the year and sell their crop prior to harvest for a cash advance to

middlemen, known as “coyotes.” These middlemen provide small farmers with

credit at high interest rates in exchange for bringing their beans to market. As a

result, small-scale farmers are often caught in a perpetual cycle of poverty: low

production levels limit their access to cash which, in turn, hinders the potential

for increasing output.

Like any other commodity product, coffee prices depend greatly on sup-

ply and demand. The cyclical nature of the coffee market also does not favor

small farmers, who are forced out during times of overproduction. When subse-

By 2000, coffee prices had reached the lowest levels they had experienced

in more than 50 years as a result of oversupply.

In 1998, the composite coffee

price was over $1 per pound, but by the following year, it had dropped to less

than 86 cents.

In 2000, it had fallen to just over 64 cents per pound, and over-

supply was expected to continue for the next five years.

Also, the percentage

of the coffee price that ended up in the hands of the farmers was usually very

low due to the many layers between farmer and consumer, particularly the cof-

fee “coyotes.” In the long term, the hope of coffee prices rising was dim.

Starbucks and Social Responsibility

Starbucks is known as a company that puts “people first and profits

last.”

In fact, the number one principle in Starbucks’ mission statement, which

guides all of the company’s business decisions, is to “provide a great work envi-

ronment and treat each other with respect and dignity.”

Howard Schultz, who purchased Starbucks from its founders in 1987 and

was Chairman and Chief Global Strategist in 2000, managed the business by his

philosophy that if you “treat people like family . . . they will be loyal and give

Collaborating with Activists: How Starbucks Works With NGOs

CALIFORNIA MANAGEMENT REVIEW VOL. 47, NO. 1 FALL 2004 97

their all.”

In return for the company’s good treatment of its partners

(Starbucks’ term for employees), Starbucks had a turnover rate of just 60 per-

cent in 2000, compared to the restaurant industry average of 220 percent.

Furthermore, 82 percent of partners claimed to be “very satisfied” and 15 per-

cent as “satisfied” with their jobs when asked by outside audit agencies.

Just as treating partners well is one of the pillars of Starbucks’ culture, so

is contributing positively to the communities it serves and to the environment.

Starbucks made this commitment not only because it was the right thing to do,

but also because its workforce was aware and concerned with social and envi-

Your Heart Into It.

To support coffee-producing countries, Starbucks contributes to CARE, a

worldwide relief and development foundation, specifying that its support go to

coffee producing nations.

By 2001, Starbucks had contributed more than $1.8

million to CARE.

In 1998, Starbucks began a partnership with Conservation

International, a nonprofit organization that promotes biodiversity in coffee-

percent above the market price and increased exports by 50 percent.

Collaborating with Activists: How Starbucks Works With NGOs

CALIFORNIA MANAGEMENT REVIEW VOL. 47, NO. 1 FALL 200498

Starbucks Mission Statement

Establish Starbucks as the premier purveyor of the finest coffee in the world while maintaining

our uncompromising principles while we grow.

The following six guiding principles will help us measure the appropriateness of our decisions:

Provide a great work environment and treat each other with respect and dignity.

Embrace diversity as an essential component in the way we do business.

Source: <www.starbucks.com/aboutus/environment.asp>

Throughout the 1990s, Starbucks continued to institutionalize its commit-

ment to social and environmental responsibility. In 1992, the company devel-

oped an environmental mission statement to articulate more clearly how it

interacts with the environment. Starbucks hired Sue Mecklenburg in 1994 as

the first Director of Environmental Affairs, where she was given the task of

Global Exchange and Fair Trade Coffee

Starbucks’ commitment to social responsibility did not go unnoticed. In

2000, the company was listed 46th on the list of “100 Best Corporate Citizens”

by Business Ethics. The same year, Starbucks was also 88th on Fortune’s list of

the “100 Best Companies to Work For.” However, despite these endorsements,

Global Exchange launched a grassroots campaign directed toward Starbucks in

early 2000.

Global Exchange, as the popular leader of the “corporate accountability”

movement, primarily targets companies that move their assets toward the

The concept of fair trade began after World War II as church–affiliated,

non-profit organizations purchased handmade products for resale from Euro-

pean producers.

Fair trade is an economic model based on fair labor compen-

sation and mutual respect between producers and consumers. By the late 1990s,

the fair trade movement had gained a foothold in the United States, and in early

1999, TransFair USA, a third-party licensing organization, launched its Fair

Trade Certified coffee label. According to TransFair USA, the impact for United

Global Exchange’s fair trade campaign originally did not have a corporate

angle. While activists were successful in educating pockets of consumers, the

organization’s leaders soon realized that they could increase consumer aware-

ness by directing blame for the farmers’ woes and linking poor labor conditions

to a company’s core product. Global Exchange decided to take an anti-corpora-

tion approach to this issue and focused its attention on the most visible brand in

specialty coffee: Starbucks.

Collaborating with Activists: How Starbucks Works With NGOs

CALIFORNIA MANAGEMENT REVIEW VOL. 47, NO. 1 FALL 2004 99

industry. Also, Starbucks was based in the United States, making it an easier

target for Global Exchange, which uses tactics such as demonstrations in front

of retail locations and attendance at shareholder meetings.

The strong Starbucks’ brand provided yet another reason to target the

company. Interbrand and Business Week magazine ranked Starbucks 88th in its

list of “Best Global Brands” in 2000 and also named it the fastest-growing brand.

Despite Starbucks’ high visibility and respected brand, the company attracted its

share of critics. Starbucks’ critics pointed to “questionable” real estate practices,

which they claimed put local establishments out of business and focused on

Starbucks as one of the brands responsible for a homogeneous culture.

rallies and demonstrations.

Sue Mecklenburg, now Vice President for Business Practices at Starbucks,

characterized Global Exchange’s targeting of Starbucks as an attempt to pick

“low hanging fruit.” Because roasters and retailers of the specialty coffee indus-

try were already accustomed to paying a premium for their coffee, they were

Collaborating with Activists: How Starbucks Works With NGOs

CALIFORNIA MANAGEMENT REVIEW VOL. 47, NO. 1 FALL 2004100

Definition of Fair Trade Coffee

TransFair USA defines Fair Trade coffee according to five basic guidelines:

A Fair Price: Producer cooperatives are guaranteed a fair price (a floor price of $1.26 per

pound for regular coffee and $1.41 for certified organic coffee or 5 cents above the pre-

vailing market price).

Democratic Organization: Producers must belong to cooperatives or associations that are

transparent and democratically controlled by their members.

Source: <www.transfairusa.org/content/works/wrk_index.jsp>

supermarkets where there was no visible platform to target the brands. Demon-

strations at Starbucks’ stores could disrupt the flow of operations and create an

embarrassing situation for the company.

Nonetheless, Global Exchange’s campaign took Starbucks by surprise. In

November 1999, Paul Rice, a representative of TransFair USA, pitched Fair Trade

coffee to Starbucks representatives. Rice seemed cautiously optimistic after these

meetings. “I didn’t have any expectation that they would sign up immediately,”

Rice said. “They had concerns and I knew it would take a couple of months to

James.

A few days later, James attended the Starbucks’ annual shareholders

meeting with other Global Exchange employees, including Medea Benjamin,

who had led Global Exchange’s campaign against Nike. During the open forum

portion of the meeting, Benjamin took the microphone and asked why Star-

bucks wouldn’t offer Fair Trade coffee. As James describes it, “Things got heated

and we were physically removed from the meeting. However, we met with Sue

Mecklenburg afterwards and explained our demands. If Starbucks didn’t offer

way to get the CEO to buy into Fair Trade coffee,” said James.

Addressing the Global Exchange Threat:

Evaluating Starbucks’ Alternatives

In the face of Global Exchange’s threat, Starbucks had to assess the NGO’s

credibility, then evaluate the potential ramifications of this threat to the com-

pany, and, finally, consider how to respond.

As evidenced in Global Exchange’s campaign against Nike, this NGO had

established a reputation for successfully executing unrelenting, aggressive, and

damaging campaigns that ended in the targeted company’s capitulation to its

demands. Starbucks understood that Global Exchange posed a credible threat

and would pursue its campaign until Starbucks relented.

Collaborating with Activists: How Starbucks Works With NGOs

CALIFORNIA MANAGEMENT REVIEW VOL. 47, NO. 1 FALL 2004 101

to Starbucks’ quality standards. In this case, Starbucks’ need for access to high-

quality coffee conflicted with its pride in being a socially responsible company.

Treating partners (employees), customers, suppliers, and communities with dig-

nity and respect was essential to the company. Starbucks’ reputation for both

quality coffee and social responsibility was on the line.

In their recent California Management Review article “The Power of

Activism: Assessing the Impact of NGOs on Global Business,” Debora Spar and

Lane La Mure suggest that businesses base their responses to NGO threats on

how those threats would affect the company’s transaction costs, brand, and com-

The threat to Starbucks’ brand and competitive position also appeared

daunting. Starbucks was concerned that the quality of Fair Trade coffee that

Starbucks was able to source could turn out to be very different from the rest

of its 30 whole-bean coffee line. “Honestly, we didn’t want to put our brand at

risk,” said Tom Ehlers, Vice President of the Whole Bean department. “This was

an uncharted category and, as marketers, we were concerned about endorsing a

product that didn’t meet our quality standards.”

If Starbucks were forced out of

the high quality niche, its competitive position would erode, opening it up to

competitive threats from smaller players, such as Peet’s Coffee, which were small

enough to escape Global Exchange’s notice. In addition, claims of human rights

violations would smear the company’s reputation and therefore damage its

brand.

An analysis using Spar and La Mure’s criteria of transaction costs, brand,

and competitive positioning thus appears to point to a strategy of capitulation.

However, this analysis does not consider the full ramifications of Global

Exchange’s threat. The threat goes deeper, with the potential to affect some of

Starbucks’ most important constituents, jeopardizing the company’s reputation,

mission, and business model. Recognizing this, Starbucks took a broader per-

spective and evaluated the threat not just as a financial issue, but as a communi-

cation issue that would affect multiple constituents in different ways.

Starbucks was battling a “category killer” that used communication as a

powerful weapon. To fight this threat successfully, Starbucks had to evaluate its

Partners (Employees)—Starbucks’ partners chose to work for a company

with strong values because many were concerned about corporate social

responsibility. Maintaining both high partner morale and customer ser-

vice was essential to Starbucks’ continued success. If Global Exchange

Collaborating with Activists: How Starbucks Works With NGOs

CALIFORNIA MANAGEMENT REVIEW VOL. 47, NO. 1 FALL 2004102

executed a successful campaign against Starbucks, partners could lose

faith in the integrity and values of their company. Alternatively, Starbucks

recognized that its partners would likely embrace the move to sell Fair

Trade coffee as yet another sign of caring for its communities.

Customers—Customers flocked to Starbucks for high-quality coffee, the

experience, and convenience. Nationwide protests could, at a minimum,

damage Starbucks’ image as a socially responsible company or, at an

extreme, disrupt business operations and make it physically difficult for

Suppliers—In weighing the Fair Trade coffee issue, Mary Williams, Senior

Vice President of Coffee at the time, had concerns with how the farmers

she worked with would react when they discovered that other farmers

received the same price without being held to the Starbucks quality stan-

dards. As Williams explained,

“The relationships I have with farmers were built over the last 20 years. It’s

taken some of them years before I would use their beans consistently and pay

them $1.25 or more. Now I was being asked to use another farmer who I did-

n’t know and pay him the same price without the same quality standards?”

Community—In addition to sustaining and growing its business, Starbucks

supported causes “in both the communities where Starbucks stores were

located and the countries where Starbucks coffee was grown.”

The Fair

Trade coffee decision had implications for both. Starbucks firmly believed

that when it opened a store, the company added value to that community

because the store “becomes an instant gathering spot, a Third Place that

draws people together.”

As each Starbucks store drew most of its busi-

Shareholders—While Starbucks placed “people over profits,” shareholders

were still an extremely important constituency group.

The company’s

ability to differentiate a commodity product through quality, image, and

social responsibility allowed the company to profit. The Starbucks brand

itself was a key driver of the company’s profitability. To maintain that

profitability, Starbucks had to ensure uninterrupted business operations

Collaborating with Activists: How Starbucks Works With NGOs

CALIFORNIA MANAGEMENT REVIEW VOL. 47, NO. 1 FALL 2004 103

of coffee—where it comes from and how to make it come alive for the

customer. We weren’t really sure where Fair Trade beans would be com-

ing from,” explained Tim Kern, Whole Bean product manager.

Besides

confirming the marketing message and being able to communicate it

effectively to both employees and customers, Kern wasn’t sure Starbucks

could change its product offerings as quickly as outsiders thought the

company could.

The Media—Starbucks also had to consider the media, who typically

endorsed the NGOs’ campaigns and gave them prominent coverage. The

media almost inevitably cast the activists as the “good guys” working for

Starbucks’ decision came down to priorities. On one hand was the com-

pany’s mission to be socially responsible; on the other was its desire to sell high-

quality coffee. The company did not want to sacrifice either objective, nor did it

want to alienate any of its constituents. Sourcing requirements did not allow the

company to immediately provide Fair Trade coffee. Global Exchange, however,

was unwilling to compromise on its demands and claimed not to understand the

business impediments Starbucks faced in meeting them. Time had run out.

Starbucks’ Decision:

Good Faith Effort or “Too Little,Too Late”?

Starbucks faced a spectrum of possible responses to Global Exchange’s

demands, ranging from ignoring the NGO, to fighting back, to capitulation.

Based on precedent, Starbucks knew Global Exchange was tenacious and would

not disappear if the company pursued the first option. While Starbucks could

Ultimately, Starbucks CEO Orin Smith pursued a middle ground alterna-

tive between fighting back against Global Exchange and completely capitulating

to the NGO’s demands. To appease Global Exchange, Starbucks agreed to sell

Fair Trade coffee in its domestic company-owned stores, with the understanding

that they would reevaluate the decision in a year and decide whether to con-

Collaborating with Activists: How Starbucks Works With NGOs

CALIFORNIA MANAGEMENT REVIEW VOL. 47, NO. 1 FALL 2004104