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Designing Starbucks' Organizational Culture

Writer's picture: Rania Said AbdallaRania Said Abdalla

Updated: Apr 22, 2021

A deep dive into Starbucks' culture helped to foster a positive place for its employees and customers.

Image credit: Plunkert “Looking Forward”


Through the Strategic Design and Management Master's Program at Parsons School of Design, my team and I in Design Innovation and Leadership class, my team and I analyzed Starbucks through the lens of the insights and theory on organizational culture. This analysis aims to reflect how and where design capabilities are situated within the organization using Junginger and Ed Schein models.


From the beginning, Starbucks set out to be a different kind of company. One that not only celebrated coffee and the rich tradition but also brought a feeling of connection. Their mission is to inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup, and one neighborhood at a time.


Starbucks has a set of fundamentals that they have been following:


  • Employees First: Employees who are cared for are the ones who care about the customers."

  • Relationships-Driven: its organizational culture that supports warm and friendly relationships.

  • Collaboration and Communication: Starbucks' culture is highly based on efficiency--efficiency has built trust among its customers, which has led to the quality of service.

  • Openness- Forums: created for employers empowering employees while facilitating opportunities for innovation in product development and service.

  • Inclusion and diversity: Starbucks has an anti-discrimination policy that shapes its organizational culture.


Starbucks believes in the importance of maintaining healthy and positive company culture. One of Starbucks' powerful strengths is its culture is adaptive. An adaptive culture is

designed deliberately to create the tone, atmosphere, and expectations of a psychologically healthy organisation, one that provokes the workforce to feel psychologically well. The culture, also, uses the health of the organisation as the stimulus for peak performance. The cultural expectation is that the organisation achieves peak performance through the enhanced psychological wellbeing of the workforce.

And Starbucks focuses on physical and behavior patterns. The most important part is the behavior pattern. Starbucks focuses on teamwork, youth orientation, diversity, personal and professional development, and consistent training on the importance of communication and prevention of discrimination. Since 2018, Starbucks has been conducting racial-bias training and workshops to educate its employees about diversity and prevent discrimination. The May 29 training day at Starbucks involved "175,000 employees at more than 8,000 stores around the country." The program was "designed to address implicit bias, promote conscious inclusion, prevent discrimination and ensure everyone inside a Starbucks store feels safe and welcome," according to the company.


How does Starbucks make its customers feel? When you think of Starbucks, you think of them calling your name--which is made on purpose that employees call your name to establish a connection with you, the store design, atmosphere, and the ubiquitous cups. Starbucks delivers on the strategic goal of being the "third place" where the consumers value outside of home and work. Everything is centered around the consumers.


Starbucks' design is intrinsic to the organization. Design thinking and its methods are being applied throughout the organization since day 1. To deliver this unique designed experience, the people behind the counter understand how their work fits into a common purpose.


Not only are they warm and welcoming to the consumers, but also Starbucks internally created a relationship-driven, employee's first approach, which encourages the staff to form close bonds with each other.













































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