Ben and Jerry's Homemade Inc.

Ben & Jerry's Homemade Inc. case demonstrates the importance and challenge of sustaining the company's corporate social responsibility. In 1978, Ben & Jerry was an independent ice cream shop that was locally favoured for it laid back, care-free, corporate culture. The company embraced its philosophy of "being real" and "down to earth" (Wicks, Freeman, Werhane & Martin p. 266). Essentially, Ben & Jerry's long term commitment to social welfare and bringing happiness to the community has made the company successful throughout the years. In particular, the company was recognized for its efforts to provide its employees with a good wage, health benefits, free college tuition, and fitness memberships (Wicks, Freeman, Werhane & Martin p. 265).

Ben and Jerry designed a foundation to help various disadvantaged groups, environmental issues, and organizations that supported social causes. In fact, 7.5% of the company's pre-tax profit was contributed to this foundation (Wicks, Freeman, Werhane & Martin p. 266). This was supported by Ben & Jerry's corporate philosophy that entails its commitment to support product, social, and economic mission (Wicks, Freeman, Werhane & Martin p. 266). As a result, when the company went public it was bought by various stakeholders because it was valued for its corporate objective and values.

An ethical dilemma appeared as the company's sales and market share kept growing, it was highly difficult to keep its promise to stockholders and employees to stay independent. In 1999, Unilever and Dreyer's Ice cream were interested in purchasing Ben & Jerry's (Wicks, Freeman, Werhane & Martin p. 277). The company had to determine the most appropriate decision that served in the community's best to interest to ensure that employees, customers, and stakeholders were not being let down. Ultimately, being bought out by another company could potentially result in altering the company's mission, eliminating jobs, and disappointing stockholders.

Cohen and Greenfield had to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of their available alternatives. On one hand, the company could sell themselves to Dreyer's Grand Ice cream which is America's largest ice- cream producing company (Wicks, Freeman, Werhane & Martin p. 275). However, the previous distribution agreement had caused the company to be dependent on Dreyer for approximately 70% of its operations (Wicks, Freeman, Werhane & Martin p. 272). According to Ben and Jerry's CEO Perry Odak, "it is very dangerous when a company depends on one corporation for the majority of its business procedures (Wicks, Freeman, Werhane & Martin p. 272). Evidently, Ben and Jerry's Inc. was beginning to lose control over its decision making processes and this could potentially harm the company's brand image. Alternatively,