Starbucks’ Racial-Bias Crisis: Toward a Rhetoric of Renewal

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis paper seeks to reframe crises as moments of organizational opportunity instead of moments of organizational threat. The predominant crisis communication approach involves defensive posturing, image restoration and corporate apologia strategies to protect and defend organizations in crisis. Some organizations, however, engage in crisis discourse that focuses on evolution and growth instead of issues like blame and liability. This paper employs Robert Ulmer, Timothy Sellnow and Matthew Seeger’s discourse of renewal to examine Starbucks’ crisis response to the April 12, 2018, arrests of two black men waiting for a friend in one of the coffee chain’s Philadelphia locations. While Starbucks has not characterized it as such, the organization demonstrated a renewing response. Through the Starbucks case, this paper illustrates how crises challenge organizational practices and offer platforms for organizational rebirth, development and long-term survival. Through Kantian ethics, this paper suggests duty-driven responsibilities for enacting renewal discourse and practical implications.