The author became aware of the Burger Man exercise when participating in an Ag-Sat broadcast course in Agricultural Ethics in 1992. The exercise was created by the leader of the course, Dr. Paul Thompson.
Burger Man Profile
Burger Man is a franchise that began by selling the fast food staples of hamburgers, french fries, and milk shakes. As the company has matured and faced other competitors in this market niche, it has, of course, developed a more sophisticated set of products and services. But it has also been challenged on various issues related to corporate social responsibility. Groups representing the rights and interests of animals have criticized the agribusiness methods used by its suppliers. Recently, public interest groups have blamed Burger Man and its competitors for encouraging unhealthy dietary habits among its customers and the public in general. Shareholders, of course, are concerned that the company continue to be profitable and provide them with a good return on investment. Governmental regulatory agencies such as the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) and OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) wish to hold Burger Man accountable for conforming to its regulations. In short there are several stakeholder groups surrounding this corporation, each vying for its particular interest. In this exercise, you will play two roles. First you will be assigned a role as one of Burger Man's stakeholders and make a presentation of your group's interest in mock shareholder meeting that will be held in class. Then you will switch to the role of Burger Man management. Here your assignment will be to articulate the different stakeholder interests and integrate them into a coherent CSR plan for your company.
Burger Man Customers
- Burger Man customers are the consumers who go to its restaurant and enjoy its food services. In preparing your board meeting presentation you need to explore Burger Man's social responsibilities to its customers.
- Are these reducible to providing them an enjoyable product at a reasonable price? Or does BM's social responsibilities go beyond this?
- Burger Man has extensive interactions with its suppliers that include meat packing corporations and agri-business concerns. How should Burger Man choose its suppliers? How carefully should it monitor their activities. To what extent is Burger Man responsible for the untoward activities of these groups?
- How responsible is Burger Man for shaping the dietary habits of its customers? Does it bear responsibility for the health problems that its public develops from bad dietary practices?
Burger Man Shareholders
- Burger Man shareholders are investors who have purchased shares of Burger Man's publicly traded stock.
- What are their stakes?
- What are their responsibilities? For example, how closely should shareholders monitor the actions of their agents, i.e., Burger Man's managers? Are shareholders responsible for holding Burger Man to certain standards of corporate social responsibility? What are these standards and how do they stand in relation to the different models of social responsibility?
- Prepare your presentation around these issues. Address shareholder interests (stakes) and responsibilities.
Burger Man Managers
- Burger Man managers are the agents of the shareholders/owners responsible for overseeing the day-today operations of the corporation.
- What are the manager's stakes? What role do they play in the different models of social responsibility? (Classical, stakeholder, and alliance views?)
- Agency theory argues that the primary corporate governance problem is overseeing and controlling the actions of managers. How closely should shareholders and their board of directors oversee corporate managers? Are managers self-interested agents or stewards of the corporation?
- What are managerial responsibilities vis a vis corporate social responsibility? Should they uncover illegal actions? Should they implement an audit process that assess the corporation's success in carrying out its social responsibilities? Should these responsibilities go beyond the legal minimum?
- Should managers go beyond the legal minimum in monitoring and carrying out corporate social responsibilities?
- Are corporate managers responsible only to shareholders or do their responsibilities extend to other stakeholders? If the latter, how do they balance conflicting stakes?
- Structure your presentation around outlining managerial stakes and roles. Choose a model of corporate social responsibility and argue for its appropriateness to Burger Man.
Government Regulatory Agencies: OSHA and EPA
- OSHA is in charge of regulating workplace safety. EPA is in charge of setting, monitoring, and enforcing standards concerning the environment. (For example, they establish acceptable air emission and water discharge standards.)
- What are the stakes of government regulatory agencies? What is their role in the context of the Burger Man corporation?
- Write your position paper outlining your group's stakes and roles in the context of establishing Burger Man's corporate social responsibility procedures. What would you recommend? How should you back up or enforce these recommendations?
Animal Rights Activists
- Burger Man serves hamburgers, chicken sandwiches, and dairy products. These involve animals. As animal rights activists, you are concerned with steering Burger Man and its suppliers toward morally acceptable treatment of animals.
- What are your group's stakes in this board meeting? What kind of role should you play?
- State your policy on animal treatment? Is it a position of animal welfare based on utilitarian considerations? (Peter Singer provides such a position.) Is it a deontological position based on the assertion of animal rights that impose correlative duties on humans? (Tom Regan takes this position.) Or should you base your arguments on anthropocentric issues such as human health?
- Write a position paper that responds to these questions for presentation in the Burger Man board meeting.
Town X Committee for Economic Development
- Your town, Town X, has three Burger Man franchises. Representatives from the town council are participating in the board meeting in order to ensure that Burger Man's policies on corporate social responsibility enhance the town's economic welfare and development.
- What are your stakes? What are your roles and responsibilities?
- What kind of services and products do you provide for Burger Man? What benefits do your community draw from Burger Man? How can Burger Man activities and policies promote or demote your town's interests and stakes?
- Develop a position paper for the board meeting that addresses these issues? Pay special attention to the goods and risks that your town exchanges with Burger Man.
Exercises in CSR
- Participate in the Burger Man Stakeholder Meeting
- Take your assigned stakeholder group and prepare a short presentation (five minutes maximum) on your stakeholder's interests, rights, needs, and vulnerabilities.
- Listen to the stakeholder presentations from the other groups. Try to avoid a competitive stance. Instead, look for commonalities and shared interests. You may want to form coalitions with one or more of the other groups.
- Switch from the stakeholder role to that of Burger Man management. You are responsible for developing a comprehensive corporate social responsibility program for Burger Man. You job is to integrate the concerns expressed by the stakeholders in their presentation and form your plan around this integration.
- Try to resolve conflicts. If you cannot and are forced to prioritize, then you still must find a way of recognizing and responding to each legitimate stakeholder stake. You may want to refer to the "Ethics of Team Work" module (m13760) to look for time-tested methods for dealing with difficult to reconcile stake. These include setting quotas, negotiating interests, expanding the pie, nonspecific compensation, logrolling, cost-cutting and bridging. You should be able to establish beyond a shadow of a doubt that you have made every attempt to recognize and integrate every legitimate stakeholder stake.
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