Coca-Cola's Water Neutrality Initiative
Business and Society
DISCUSSION CASE: Coca-Cola’s Water Neutrality Initiative
Q1. What was the public issue facing The Coca-Cola Company in this case? Describe the “performance-expectations gap” found in this case-what were the stakeholders’ concerns, and how did their expectations differ from the company’s performance?
Public issue – ‘is any issue that is of mutual concern to an organization and one or more of its stakeholders’, this according to the text Business and society. The public issue in this case was concerning the quality of water TCCC was using, how safe if was for its consumers, and the deprivation of water from local villagers.
Performance-expectation gap – ‘a gap between what the firm wants to do or is doing and what stakeholders expect.’ In the above case, the stakeholders were concerned with TCCC’s water consumption claiming it deprived local villagers of supplies for drinking water and irrigation, and depleting groundwater by its processes. They also raised concerns with the quality of its products, which they believed contained dangerous levels of pesticide residues. The corporation’s actions clearly did not match up to the stakeholders’ expectations.
Their expectations differ from that of the company’s performance in that, they expected the company to provide safe products through conservative practices only to realize that its products may contain pesticides, and that it was depriving villagers of water and depleting groundwater by its activities.
Q2. If you applied the strategic radar screens model to this case, which of the eight environments would be most significant, and why? After applying the strategic radar screens model to this case the most significant would have to be geophysical environment. I say this because stakeholders were concerned about the negative impact TCCC was having on the physical surroundings for example the depletion of a natural resource, water.
Q3. Apply the issue
DISCUSSION CASE: Coca-Cola’s Water Neutrality Initiative
Q1. What was the public issue facing The Coca-Cola Company in this case? Describe the “performance-expectations gap” found in this case-what were the stakeholders’ concerns, and how did their expectations differ from the company’s performance?
Public issue – ‘is any issue that is of mutual concern to an organization and one or more of its stakeholders’, this according to the text Business and society. The public issue in this case was concerning the quality of water TCCC was using, how safe if was for its consumers, and the deprivation of water from local villagers.
Performance-expectation gap – ‘a gap between what the firm wants to do or is doing and what stakeholders expect.’ In the above case, the stakeholders were concerned with TCCC’s water consumption claiming it deprived local villagers of supplies for drinking water and irrigation, and depleting groundwater by its processes. They also raised concerns with the quality of its products, which they believed contained dangerous levels of pesticide residues. The corporation’s actions clearly did not match up to the stakeholders’ expectations.
Their expectations differ from that of the company’s performance in that, they expected the company to provide safe products through conservative practices only to realize that its products may contain pesticides, and that it was depriving villagers of water and depleting groundwater by its activities.
Q2. If you applied the strategic radar screens model to this case, which of the eight environments would be most significant, and why? After applying the strategic radar screens model to this case the most significant would have to be geophysical environment. I say this because stakeholders were concerned about the negative impact TCCC was having on the physical surroundings for example the depletion of a natural resource, water.
Q3. Apply the issue
Cited: Lawrence, Anne T., and James Weber. Business and Society: Stakeholders, Ethics, Public Policy. 14th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2013. Print.