The Coca-Cola Company

CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) promotes a vision for the accountability of businesses in a wide range of stakeholders beyond investors and shareholders. The primary sphere’s interests of Corporate Social Responsibility are to conserve the environment and welfare of employees, local communities, and the wider society, both today and in the future.  Corporate Social Responsibility is founded on the concept that organizations cannot act as isolated financial units, operating distance from the social order. The classical views of survival and profitability and competitiveness have, to some extent, become extinct.  The Coca Cola Company has wholly executed all the variables of corporate social responsibility. Although it is not a corporation that utilizes deceitful practices, it can be viewed that it pursues maximization of profits and also trusts in corporate social responsibility initiatives and the input of an organization to the success of a society. The Coca Cola Company has gone further and designed a code of ethical business conduct. The company communicates its business conduct to all concerned organizations.

The Coca Cola Company is dedicated to creating sustainable communities. The company gives back at least one percent of its operating income yearly to different courses, initiatives, and causes. For example, the company’s website reports that in 2014 the company gave back 1.3% of its operating income, which was spent in active and healthy living projects, empowerment of women, education, water stewardship projects, charitable and disaster relief plans among others. In the Middle East, the company also commenced multiple campaigns as part of its corporate social responsibility initiative. The programs range from sponsoring college students who anticipate becoming industrialists via the “Ripples of Happiness” initiative to offering immigrants with safe drinking water, through the “Arwa Price of Water” campaign initiated in 2014. To establish how the Coca-Cola Company will continue to maintain its activities and positively impact the environment, local communities, and the society at large, it is essential to examine its structure, human resources, political frame, and culture.

The Five Basic Parts of the Organization by Henry Mintzberg will be applied to analyze how various roles play vital parts in shaping the Coca Cola Company structure. To effectively understand how the Coca Cola Company’s human resource frame develops positive factors in maintaining employees’ motivation, this paper will use the Hierarchy of Needs by Abraham Maslow, XY Theory by Douglas McGregor’s and Giving of Orders Theory by Mary Follet. Moreover, to explain Coca Cola’s political structure, this essay will use the Power Game and Players by Henry Mintzberg, The Basis of Social Power by French Raven, and Jeffrey Pfeiffer’s Understanding the Power Decision Making. To know hoe Coca Cola’s culture develops its business through developing an ethical environment and expands its existence in the market, this paper uses the Organization Culture Theory of Shafrit’z, Ouchi’s Z Organization, and Organization as Theatre Lee Bolman’s. Through analyzing the above-stated management theories, one will understand better how the Coca Cola Company maintains its productivity in the contemporary changing business environment.

The Structural Framework

The Coca Cola Company, the American drinks giant, holds its position as the globe’s leading and most precious drinks brand. Brand Finance, the world’s top self-regulating brand valuation consultancy, reports that the company recorded a nineteen percent increase in brand value to over thirty-six billion US dollars. Coca Cola Company has further widened its lead, as Pepsi, which holds the second position, suffered an eight percent drop in brand value (The Brand Finance Group 1). Apart from evaluating the cost of a brand, Brand Finance also estimates the comparative strength of products via an objective scorecard of metrics assessing stakeholder equity, organizational performance, and marketing investment. Based on this decisive factor, the Coca Cola Company is the globe’s most influential brand across the non-alcoholic drinks and food industry. With a rich history of more than a century, Coca Cola is still the most used soda on the planet, with an overwhelming 1.9 billion portions, across two hundred nations, enjoyed daily. The company’s latest success can chiefly be credited to the uplift sales of Diet Coke due to thriving advertising and rebranding movements. However, the soda brands have experienced a steady decline in the United States since 2004 due to governments enforcing taxes on sugar-laden products and raise in health-conscious consumers.

Companies exist to accomplish objectives. These objectives are split into tasks as the foundation for the job. Jobs are assembled into a subdivision. In an organization, departments might be typified by advertising, sales, manufacturing, marketing, procurement, among others. In every branch or department, Lunenburg state that even more differences can be found in the duties workers do (1). Departments are connected to make the organizational structure. The company’s arrangement gives it the outlook to achieve its goals in the environment. Lunenburg defines organization structure as the prescribed relationship between groups and people regarding the distribution of responsibilities, and power in the corporation (1). The Organizational Model of Mintzberg’s model partitions a company into five essential parts, “ideology, strategic apex, medium level, technostructure, supporting, and operating core. The Coca Cola Company is sincerely universal, and its major brand is renowned and used across the globe. The organization coordinates and constitutes itself in a manner that replicates that reality. Concurrently, the organization desires to attain the specific needs of regional markets sensitively, and its coordination also requires to replicate that actuality.

Strategic apex is the first section of Mintzberg’s theory. This section is charged with making sure that the corporation serves its mission effectively and that it caters to the expectations of those in control, i.e., management. The section has three sets of duties. The first one is direct supervision. These are the line managers and strategic management. In its essence, direct control at the first section means making sure that the whole company operates efficiently as a single incorporated entity. The second part entails the management of the company boundary conditions, its relation to its environment. Individuals at the top of the organization, the CEO, inform influential people in the environment concerning the undertakings of the company to create high-level contacts for the institution. Organizational strategies are also designed at the strategic apex section. Policy is the intervening power between a company and its environment. Designing strategies entails an understanding of the environment and the development of reliable models in streams of organizations’ decisions to deal with it.

At the Coca Cola Company, significant strategic verdicts are made by an executive committee of twelve organization officers. The board facilitated to design of the six strategic main concerns set out earlier. The head of the executive committee serves as the figurehead of the organization and chairs all the executive meetings. Besides, he serves in the capacity of the Chief Executive Officer, and such he is an influential decision-maker. Other senior directors are responsible for crucial regions, for example, Africa, India, or have a vital business specialism such as Chief Finance Officer.  The management at the strategic apex also tries to maintain a pace of change that is receptive to the environment. Shared adjustment is the favored instrument for harmonization amongst executives of the strategic apex.    

The second part of the Mintzberg chain of command incorporates middle line managers. The strategic apex is linked to the operating core by a string of middle-line managers with prescribed authority. The chain starts from the top executives just below the strategic apex to the first-line managers (supervisor) who have direct power and symbolizes the organizing mechanism that has been referred to as direct supervision. A single line manager can manage small companies; however, big corporations such as the Coca Cola Company require many line managers. Coca Cola’s organization hierarchy is formed such that a line manager is in charge of several operators to form a basic unit; another director is put in command of the basic units to create a higher-level unit, and so until all groups are brought under a single director at the strategic apex, the CEO. At Coca Cola Company, line managers are responsible for recruiting new staff.

The next section of Mintzberg’s theory is the technostructure. These are analysts like accountants, personnel managers, engineers, and researchers. The analysts design, plan and change workflow and even train recruits on how the work is supposed to be done. The analysts also serve to ensure the standardization of the company. Nonetheless, the more standardization a company applies, the more it depends on the technostructure. Analysts can be classified into three types of control. The first category is the work-study; these standardize the workplace processes. Planning and control analyst standardize outputs, while the personnel analysts regulate skills.

The next phase of the hierarchy is the support staff. The section is made up of many varying subdivision, all specialized, who are available to offer support to the company. They include legal advisors and other professionals outside the operating workflow. The last part of the hierarchy is the operating core. They do duties such as distribution, production, and looking inputs for production.

As an organization whose accomplishment lies in its capacity to connect with local customers, it is sensible for Coca Cola to be organized into a regional arrangement, which entails localization and centralization. The firm has six geographic operating divisions, also known as SBUs (Strategic Business Units), or the corporate (Head Office) section. All of the Strategic Business Units are partitioned into subdivisions. The geographical configurations recognize that markets are physically separated; different areas and regions have different lifestyles and tastes. Also, consumption and income patterns are different, and demand is at various levels of development. The company has designed external and external frameworks to facilitate the achievement of organizational objectives. The regional coordination is the most effective means of promoting such development, permitting attention to local needs while concurrently developing a clear strategic course from the core.  A culture of teamwork, originality, and collaboration implies the Coca Cola Company has a solid base of relations and open channels of communication to enable its growth.

Organizational chart

The following is the company’s organizational chart:

Figure 1.1 The organizational Chart of The Coca Cola Company shown above.

The Human Resources Frame
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

The Coca Cola Company is among the leading multinationals in the food and beverage industry across the world. Currently, all thriving establishments have a specified and effective way of motivating their employees. At the Coca Cola Company, one of the means of promoting workers is via the working performance; the company motivates works through enhancing their occupational opportunities and awarding them. These strategies play a vital part in creating a working environment where it can inspire not just engagement but also achievement. Coca Cola also trains its staff on various skills. Coca Cola must hire the right people that have a similar vision and attitude with the organization. Abraham’s Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs will help understand the basic human needs.

Abraham Maslow tried to synthesize a vast body of research to human motivation. Before Abraham Maslow, scientists mainly paid attention on aspects like achievement, biology, and power to describe what drives, powers, and sustains human behavior. Huitt reports that Maslow posited a chain of human needs founded on two groups, growth and deficiency needs (1). In the deficiency needs, every lower requirement ought to be satisfied before progressing to the following advanced level. Once all the requirements have been met, if at some point in future, a deficit is discovered, the person will work to get rid of the deficiency.

The first level of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is the physiological needs. Physiology needs are primary wants that are vital to humans. The needs comprise of shelter, clothing, food and water, procreation and also sleep. Fundamentally, the human society will become extinct without the physiological needs. The Coca Cola Company values the needs of the community and society at large and that’s why they have sponsored water projects, education programs and housing programs for refugees.  The Coca Cola Company gives its workers a sufficient income so that they can cater for their basic needs. Employees obtain benefits like benefit package and yearly incentives.

The second level is security and safety needs. As a person climbs the ladder to the second phase of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, he/she realizes that the needs begin to become a bit intricate. At the second level, the needs of security and safety become principal. Individuals crave for order and control in their lives, therefore, the requirement for safety and security contributes significantly to behaviors at this stage.

Examples of needs at this stage include health and wellness, safety against accidents, and financial security. Acquiring health insurance, getting a job, having money in savings account, and relocating to a safer region are cases of acts motivated by the safety and security needs. Coca Cola Company’s long-term success lies on the company’s dedication to working to make sure that the safety of their employees, public, visitors and operators are catered for.  Coca Cola Company believes that a healthy and safe place of work is basic right of all people and also a business imperative. The company’s workplace rights guiding principle obliges that the company takes full charge for upholding a productive workplace, in all departments of the organization by doing what they can to reduce risk of injuries, accidents, exposure to health risks for all its associates and contractors. Besides, the company collaborates with bottling agencies to make sure that safety and health risks are reduced for their workers.

Social needs lies on the third level of Maslow’s pyramid. They include acceptance, love and belonging. At this level, human behavior is driven by the need for emotional relations. Romantic attachments, family, social groups, friendships and religious organizations are some of the things that satisfy this need.  To evade challenges like loneliness, anxiety, or depression it is essential that people loved, treasured, and accepted by others. Personal relations with family, associates, and loved ones plays a significant part as does, participation in other groups such as sports team, spiritual groups and other group activities. Coca Cola Company plans team build exercises for workers to boost teamwork. Besides, the company has clear channels of communication, which are vital for addressing social needs. Besides, workers are encouraged to develop friendships with one another due to the accepting environment created by the organization.

The esteem needs take the fourth position of Maslow’s pyramid. At this stage, individuals develop the urge to become appreciated and respected.  According to Huitt prestige and esteem needs can also be called ego needs in human setting. Naturally, individuals pursue for esteem and esteem in human settings when it is clear they have a sense of security in their social circles, such as families and work groups.  Esteem needs also include other factors such as personal worth and self-esteem. The Coca Cola Company helps in boosting the self-esteem of workers through training activities. The expression of the desire for status, recognition, and respect motivates a strong desire in individuals to actively engage in organization activities, and community development initiatives. Coca Cola Company gives workers recognition when they have done excellent work which boosts their self-esteem.

Self-actualization is the last stage at the peak of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs pyramid. This level focuses on the wish of individuals to enhance their abilities and talents. Also referred to as self-realization, this level assists people to advance the wish to maximize their abilities that are concealed in them. Self-realization turns a reality when individuals develop their desire of maximizing their abilities, talents and gifts that are concealed in them in the community. The needs further motivate employees to be inventive in various spheres to enhance social and economic conditions.  Coca Cola provides training to employees for them to develop new abilities and realize their full potential. The training also facilitates workers to be promoted within the organization. The company also has a universal system that provides employees with opportunity to develop and sharpen world-class skills.

Douglas McGregor’s XY Theory Y

Generally, studies of psychological relations involving organization management and subordinate workers are quite vast.  Prior to considering distribution of duties, a corporation ought to first decide on how to deal with members of staff (Mohamed et al 715). For an organization to attain improved performance, a robust understanding of employee relationship ought to be practiced. Therefore, several approaches have been developed related to the psychological relation between subordinates and managers in an organization. McGregor’s theory X and Y that focus on the motivational aspects that influence workers conduct is among the theories. McGregor first explained this theory in his volume “The Human Side of Enterprise”.  The XY theory refers two techniques of management, Theory X (authoritarian) and theory Y (participative).

Theory X, executives incline to assume a negative view of their juniors and assume that they hate work and are naturally unmotivated. Due to this, managers think that employees need to be impelled, rewarded or penalized regularly to ensure they complete their tasks. Organizations that manage their work using theory X their work is repetitive. Besides, remuneration and performance appraisals are normally based on concrete outcomes, like product output, or sales volume. Even though theory X is largely considered old-fashioned, big companies like Coca Cola may realize that adopting it is inevitable as a result of the sheer number of employees and rigid targets they have to meet. The second approach by McGregor thought people to be responsible, eager to learn self-motivated to accomplish their work and creative. The proponent believed that the classical way of handling employees viewing them as unthinking ought to be changed. Changing these assumptions can make executives to tap employees’ vast abilities. McGregor highlighted that what is important was how employees were treated in the workplace.   The Coca Cola Company gives its employees an opportunity to contribute their ideas and take control and responsibility.

Mary Follett’s Giving of Orders Theory

In the article “The Giving of Orders” issued in 1926, the author Mary Parker Follet claims that the employee and the employer ought to investigate the situation and learn the law of the situation. Managers should stop acting as if the worker is under them. Workers mind-set, experience and training, previous conduct, the environment of the work situation ought to be carefully considered before orders are issued. Follett calls for depersonalization of orders. Instead of issuing commands from on high, bosses can do better by having face to face discussions that analyze the situation, and both parties should consent to take orders from the state of affairs. Follet further claims that nobody likes to be bossed. An employee who is being bossed lacks self-worth and thus becomes defensive and acts angry.  Follett encourages managers and employers to learn to devise techniques through which they can discover the order integral to a certain situation. Coca Cola managers develop a conscious mindset towards experience, education and training.

Understanding Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, McGregor’s XY theory, and Fillets Giving of Orders Theory, The Coca Cola Company continues to create positive factors in motivation and sustaining the workforce.

The Political Frame

Works cited

Lunenburg, Fred C. “Organizational structure: Mintzberg’s framework.” International journal of scholarly, academic, intellectual diversity 14.1 (2012): 1-8.

Mohamed, Ramesh Kumar Moona Haji, and Che Supian Mohamad Nor. “The relationship between McGregor’s XY theory management style and fulfillment of psychological contract: A literature review.” International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences 3.5 (2013): 715.

Huitt, William. “Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.” Educational psychology interactive 23 (2007).

The Brand Finance Group. Always Coca-Cola: World’s Favorite Soda Tops Brand Ranking. Retrieved from: https://brandfinance.com/news/press-releases/always-coca-cola-worlds-favourite-soda-tops-brand-ranking/ 2020