A Detailed Analysis of Coca-Cola India's Organizational Behavior

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Coca-Cola India's organizational behavior, focusing on a critical incident involving pesticide contamination. It examines the leadership decisions made by Sanjiv Gupta, the CEO, and their ethical implications. The report explores the impact of these decisions on various stakeholders, including customers, employees, and the community. It delves into key ethical concepts such as universalism, profit maximization, and utilitarianism, as applied to the Coca-Cola case. Furthermore, the report highlights the importance of ethical practices, corporate social responsibility, and the role of organizational behavior in shaping a company's success. The analysis includes a discussion of the challenges faced by Coca-Cola India and the strategies employed to overcome them, emphasizing the significance of maintaining quality standards and fostering a positive work environment. The report concludes by underscoring the importance of ethical conduct and its influence on employee morale, organizational commitment, and overall business performance.

Organization Behaviour: Coca-Cola Company India
Student’s name
Institution Affiliation(s)

Introduction
The primary factor influencing the success of an organization is proper
management or leadership. Managers need to have excellent interpersonal skills if they
want their organizations to perform well. Employees always look at the cultural values
and behaviour of their managers. It is, therefore, the responsibility of the managers to
guide their employees on how they should work and relate to each other. That is why
technical aspects of management, such as economics, accounting, and finance, are not
enough (Barkay, 2013). Managers also require interpersonal skills to manage their staff,
as these will determine an organization being successful.
Coca-Cola Organization Behaviour
Six weeks into his new role as President and CEO of the Coca- Cola company in
India, Sanjiv Gupta was faced with a conflict that threatened all the hard work they put
into the marketing campaign they made that put them on top over Pepsi. Clubs,
retailers, restaurants, and college campuses stopped selling coke, which made sales
drop by 30-40% in only two weeks. Tests conducted by the Pollution Monitoring
Laboratory of the CSE found that the product contained pesticide residues going
beyond the global standards by 30-36 times. The pesticides that were found were
known to cause many problems to the human body, and once people heard about this,
they immediately stopped buying it. Some people were already affected by this and
started to experience issues (Cheng, Wei, & Lin, 2019). Gupta was put in a rough
situation, and as CEO of Coca -Cola India, he had to act fast so the damage of the
circumstances wouldn’t come out to be too harmful to the company nor to its customers.

One of the many decisions that Gupta had to make was if he should ignore this
problem, hoping it will pass like the Kinley water issue that happened or if he should
actually give it attention. I think that Gupta would be making a horrible mistake by
ignoring this problem (Acaray & Akturan, 2015). The word was already spread around
that their product was contaminated with pesticides, which are already pushing people
away from buying their product. If they do not give this problem any attention, it will only
show their customers that they do not care about their safety. Gupta may think it will
help their company to try and get everyone to forget about it, but after hearing it one,
two, three times, people will not continue to ignore it. Exxon made the same mistake by
ignoring the information they knew about the carbon emission and how that was a big
cause of climate change. They continued doing what they were doing and kept the
secret to themselves. They thought that if they said something to their customers, they
would lose them. But because they kept that secret to themselves, their customers
found out which ended with the exact thing they were afraid of (Linnander et al., 2017).
If Gupta does not address this situation and tackles it head-on, then the
stakeholders that will be most affected by this are the customers and the community.
The customers will not let Gupta ignore the fact that there are pesticides in the coke. He
may have been able to get away with it one time with the Kinley situation, but there is no
guarantee that it will work again, so why risk it? If the customers start to feeling like they
cannot trust the company, they will not purchase anything from them, and that is exactly
what will happen if Gupta tries to ignore this problem (ReyLópez & Gonzalez, 2018).
The community would also be affected because if Gupta gives no attention to the issue,
then people will continue to get sick and more people will be put at harm. There is no

benefit to not addressing this situation. This is a form of universalism as described by
John R. Deckop. Universalism teaches to treat people the way you would want to be
treated. If there is a problem on the table, no one would want to ignore it, hoping it will
go away. The best way to get rid of a problem is to deal with it, and Gupta should know
that. If the tables were turned, he would like the problem to be addressed just like every
other customer would. That is the way customers would want to be treated (Shanker,
Bhanugopan, Heijden, & Farrell, 2017).
Another decision Gupta needs to make is if the company should focus on
differentiating themselves from their competition, Pepsi, or if they should worry about
their social responsibility first. If Gupta worried about trying to beat Pepsi before
worrying about their obligation to act for the benefit of the society, then it would not put
them in a good place. In an article written by Jack Ma, he mentions that people should
worry about their customers and their employees before they should worry about the
money they will be making. He believes that if you take care of the customers and
employees first, then the money will come on its own and that is what Gupta should do.
Money should not be his number one priority. How society is affected is what he should
be worried about. The stakeholders that would be affected by this decision the most are
the stockholders and the employees (Martelli, Stimmler, & Roberts, 2017). If Gupta did
worry about trying to beat Pepsi, then that will be more money based. They would make
more money over a short period of time, which will make the stockholders more money
and possibly the employees more money. This is an example of profit maximization as
described by Deckop. Profit maximization is about what will help make the most money.
It does not matter how you get there, as long as you get, there is all that matters. If

Gupta focused on trying to be better than Pepsi before worrying about their customers,
then that would mean he is only focused on the money he would be making just like the
stockholders always are (Serôdio, McKee, & Stuckler, 2018).
A final decision that Gupta needs to make is should Gupta put most of his focus
into making sure their product is clean and safe for their customers? The answer is
absolute, yes. Sanjiv Gupta made a statement saying “Maintaining quality standards is
the most important element of our business, and we cannot stand by while misleading
and unaccredited data is used to discredit trusted and world-class brands”. They are
making sure that their product is safe should be their number one thing on their list. The
stakeholders that would be most affected by focusing mainly on ensuring this product is
safe and clean are the customers and the community. Customers need to know what
they are putting into their bodies is clean, and since Coca- Cola is promoting that their
product is safe, that should be the number one thing that they make sure of. This is an
example of utilitarianism, as Deckop describes (Odukah, 2016). Utilitarianism is doing
what will cause the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. Ensuring that
the product is clean and safe will not only leave the customers satisfied, but it will also
leave the company in a better place. It will let people trust their brand again. Confirming
safety in their product should be Gupta’s top priority.
Ethics of the Coca-Cola Company
Coca- Cola India went through many obstacles to get to where they are. After
having allegations like the one they had could really have ruined their reputation forever.
But if you look around today, Coca- Cola is still everywhere ready for us to purchase. If
Gupta makes the right decisions and put his focus towards what is most important then

Coca- Cola will have no problem becoming even more successful. The decisions that
employees make and behaviour they portray significantly affect an organization
regarding ethical concepts, principles, and rules (Serôdio et al., 2018). Proper
knowledge, skills, and values to incorporate business values and principals in ethics are
required to make the right decisions and behaviour. Since unethical practices may cost
an organization a lot of money to repair its damaged reputation, the emphasis is made
on proper ethical behaviour in organizations, which has been increasing over the years.
Ethical problems are problems of choice. Companies should not be merely motivated by
profits but aim to conduct their businesses honestly and respectably. An organization
that prioritizes on ethics sees a rise in employee morale, organizational commitment,
and a retained workforce.
Coca-Cola is a world brand, and as it rose, criticisms arose with concerns related
to health effects, environmental issues, and business practices. They have tried to fix
these problems by creating corporate social responsibilities in communities around the
world. Organizations can gain more advantage by practicing ethical behaviour as they
have a responsibility to all its shareholders. With the presence of social media in this
digital age, it is paramount that organizations are careful with their activities as any form
of unethical behaviour will come out and fixing the damage it will not be easy (Cheng et
al., 2019). Organizations must ensure a high standard of ethics by both managers and
employees. This can be guaranteed by developing a proper code of ethics, providing
seminars on ethics and recognizing employees according to notable ethical practices.
Conclusion

Analyzing the organizational behaviour of a company is very important. This is
because corporate behaviour in understanding the employees’ actions and performance
is key to the success of a company. In addition, the various factors that influence
organizational activities such as the mode of communication between employees,
ethics, nature of authority and the emotional intelligence of employees are crucial as
this determines the growth or failure of a company. Organizational behaviour also helps
the management learn how to communicate with their employees by motivating them,
thus creating a good working environment. This sets for growth and development of the
company leading to positive outcomes. A company should demonstrate its
responsibilities to stakeholders within its corporate policies. Organizational behaviour
provides a platform where organizations are determined by how they treat their
employees and the frameworks they use to determine the performance of organizations.

References
Acaray, A., & Akturan, A. (2015). The Relationship between Organizational Citizenship
Behaviour and Organizational Silence. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 207,
472–482. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.10.117
Barkay, T. (2013). When Business and Community Meet: A Case Study of Coca-Cola.
Critical Sociology, 39(2), 277–293. https://doi.org/10.1177/0896920511423112
Cheng, K., Wei, F., & Lin, Y. (2019). The trickle-down effect of responsible leadership
on unethical pro-organizational behavior: The moderating role of leader-follower value
congruence. Journal of Business Research, 102, 34–43.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.04.044
Linnander, E., Yuan, C. T., Ahmed, S., Cherlin, E., Talbert-Slagle, K., & Curry, L. A.
(2017). Process evaluation of knowledge transfer across industries: Leveraging Coca-
Cola’s supply chain expertise for medicine availability in Tanzania. PLOS ONE, 12(11),
e0186832. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0186832
Martelli, P. F., Stimmler, M. K., & Roberts, K. H. (2017). Organizational Behavior☆. In
Reference Module in Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Psychology.
https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-809324-5.06506-8
Odukah, M. (2016). Factors Influencing Staff Motivation among Employees: A Case
Study of Equator Bottlers (Coca Cola) Kenya. Journal of Human Resource and
Sustainability Studies, 04, 68–79. https://doi.org/10.4236/jhrss.2016.42008
ReyLópez, J. P., & Gonzalez, C. A. (2018). Research partnerships between Coca-Cola
and health organizations in Spain. European Journal of Public Health.
https://doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/cky175
Serôdio, P. M., McKee, M., & Stuckler, D. (2018). Coca-Cola – a model of transparency
in research partnerships? A network analysis of Coca-Cola’s research funding (2008–
2016). Public Health Nutrition, 21(9), 1594–1607.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S136898001700307X

Shanker, R., Bhanugopan, R., Heijden, B. I. J. M., & Farrell, M. (2017). Organizational
climate for innovation and organizational performance: The mediating effect of
innovative work behavior. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 100, 67–77.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2017.02.004