Page 139 - Introduction to Business

CHAPTER 3 Business Governance, Ethics, and Social Responsibility 113

EXHIBIT 3.3
Shareholders Coca-Cola Corporation and
Its Stakeholders

Suppliers Employees

Coca-Cola
Corporation

Bottlers Consumers

Communities
Customers where it does
business

with local groups in the planning of new projects, such as new pipelines or oil
drilling. For example, before recently building a new pipeline in the Philip-
pines, the company aggressively consulted with local groups about how the
pipeline should be routed. Ultimately, the pipeline, which was completed in
the fall of 2001, was carefully routed to avoid sacred burial sites, coral beds,
and fishing grounds. 22
Shell has become concerned with local community stakeholder interests only
fairly recently and in part due to public pressure. In the mid-1990s there was con-
siderable public protest, especially in Europe, against oil drilling plans the com-
pany announced (without any local community input or consultation) for the
North Atlantic and Nigeria. As a result, the company now takes a clear stakeholder
approach to local communities in doing business. As Mark Wade, a Shell executive,
has put it, the mid-1990s protests “triggered our understanding of the importance
of building relationships.” 23
There are, of course, numerous other ways that businesses contribute to, and
positively interact with, their local communities. Some companies, such as Target
Stores, donate a percentage of sales to the local communities in which they do busi-
ness. Other firms focus specifically on the arts and culture, perhaps sponsoring
local ballet troupes or symphonies. Tate & Lyle, a large British corporation, has been
particularly active in developing child reading programs in the places where it
operates and ensuring that children in those communities have books in their
24
homes. Since 2000, Starbucks Corporation has designated the month of September
as Make Your Mark month, during which Starbucks employees (and the customers
it is able to recruit) devote thousands of hours to a wide variety of volunteer proj-
25
ects in the communities where the company has coffee shops. Some companies
that operate throughout the world vary their local community activities, depending
on the country in which they’re operating.
One of the most unique local community stakeholder approaches is the one
taken by Atlantic Stewardship Bank of Midland Park, New Jersey, the primary sub-
sidiary of publicly traded Stewardship Financial Corporation. The bank has a for-
mal Tithing Program (www.asbnow.com/tithing.htm) whereby it tithes itself, or
takes 10 percent of its pretax income or profits, and shares it with local “Christian
and not-for-profit organizations” chosen by its board of directors. Some of the
recent recipients of monies from the bank’s Tithing Program include Brookdale
Christian School, Bloomfield, New Jersey; Eastern Christian High School, North

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