TALENT MANAGEMENT

Talent Management at Starbucks



Talent Management at Starbucks

Introduction

Starbucks opened operations in Seattle's Pike Place Markets in 1971 with the future aim of providing coffee to a number of restaurants and surrounding bars. With the recruitment of Howard Schultz who directed the marketing and retail efforts of Starbucks in 1982, the company took a change in direction through the views of Schultz, who after visiting Italy endeavoured to adapt the same principles in order to a strong bar culture. Schultz then utilized Starbucks ability to provide quality coffee beans and opened up a new store called Il Giornale, which brewed coffee from these specific beans. By 1987, Il Giornale had decided to take over the assets of Starbucks and furthermore, further changed its name to Starbucks Corporation. By the end of the year, Starbucks had increased the number of stores to 17 and furthered its location span by entering Chicago and Vancouver (Brewster C, 2007, pp: 26)

The Starbuck's strategic human resource management (HRM) models has been defined as 'the pattern of planned human resource deployments and activities intended to enable an organization achieve its goals'. In order to explain various Starbuck's HRM Models and dimensions of organizational effectiveness, strategic HRM researchers have drawn on models that originated in fields as diverse as strategy, sociology, psychology, and economics, reflecting, in part, the multi-disciplinary nature of this field (Brewster C, 2007, pp: 39).

Discussion

Within the field of strategic HRM, it is proposed that a Starbuck's strategy has important implications for its HRM practices. To find support for this proposition, Starbuck's strategic HRM models have typically drawn from generic strategy typologies such as that of Miles and Snow (1984) who differentiate between prospector, defender, and analyzer companies and that of Porter (1990) who differentiates between a cost leadership and a differentiation strategy. These different types of models are often matched with varying degrees of emphasis on HRM practices that foster either reliable or creative employee behavior and competencies. For instance, Starbuck's reported the matching of a 'control' or 'cost reduction' HRM system with cost leadership strategy and the linkage of a 'commitment' HRM system with differentiation/flexibility strategy in steel minimills (Boxall, 2011, pp: 112).

Starbuck's examined the pursuing of a differentiation strategy through an HRM system that supports employee innovation. They found that in order to encourage innovation, Starbuck tends to provide less incentive compensation and more job security so that failures will not be punished and tend to provide more training to meet both current and future needs (Boxall, 2011, pp: 134).

Models of strategic international HRM

Understanding Starbuck's strategic HRM within the context of multinational enterprises (MNEs) continues to grow in importance. Due to the complexity and heterogeneity of the context in which MNEs operate, unique strategic HRM issues emerge in such organizations; the most salient one being the opposing pressures for global integration on one hand, and local responsiveness on the other. As such, a common influence in these models has been Perlmutter's (1969) work that identifies three distinct attitudes of top ...