Assignment

The role of social responsibility is a critical part of facilitating a stakeholder orientation. The purpose of this assignment is to discuss how a business interacts with its stakeholders.

Theo Chocolate is a Seattle-based manufacturer whose founder Joe Whinney brought organic cocoa beans from Central America and Africa to use in the manufacturing of chocolate bars in 1994. While there, he recognized an injustice in the way that the land and farmers were being exploited and wanted to do something to make a difference.

View the Our Story and Our Cocoa Beans sections of Theo's web site, including the farmer supplier profiles and Segment 10: Theo Chocolate: Cocoa Industry in Congo (3 min 51 sec).

Our Story: https://www.theochocolate.com/mission#story

Our Cocoa Beans: https://www.theochocolate.com/sourcing

Segment 10: Theo Chocolate: Cocoa Industry in Congo: mms://bbmedia.schoolcraft.edu/video/business/theo-chocolate.wmv

Respond to the following and support your response.

1. Define the type of stakeholder that the farmer supplier represents and indicate where Joe Whinney has ranked them in terms of importance. Also, comment on the customer and investor stakeholder interests as it relates to the higher price charged for a chocolate bar. Are they being treated fairly?

2. Assume that you work as a Vice-President for Joe Whinney and he just came to you with the idea discussed in this video. You are in charge of incorporating it into Theo's stakeholder orientation initiative. Using the three sets of activities described in this module (i.e. data generation, distribution, and responsiveness), indicate what you would do in order to complete each step.