Case of Blood Banana

What do you think were root causes for Chiquita’s actions in Columbia?

1. First of all, they don’t want to do business in unstable environment. The terrorism groups need that money to do violence, so Chiquita can do business in peace. It is a business to exchange peace by money.

2. The local government and its army cannot protect the company’s land and employees.
These reasons cause Chiquita to pay money to the terrorism groups.

Do you think Chiquita or its managers had a choice?
Overall, I don’t think they had a better choice. First, the local government and its army cannot protect the company’s land from bombing and employees from abducting and killing. Chiquita does not have armed force to help itself, so they fund the two groups to exchange peace.

Chiquita is a profitable organization, which primary goal is to make money and maintain profitable. Since the abundant banana in Columbia where Chiquita do banana business, Chiquita can lower transportation cost and storage cost, and production cost. If Chiquita change other location to do business, they may ovoid the threat of terrorism and other incidents. However, they will lose the cost advantage they had.

Chiquita, an organization in the society, should take its social responsibility. From this point, they should not give money to the terrorism, which organization threats the nation. Chiquita also shoulder the responsibility of its employees and other stakeholders, such as shareholders, customers, distributors, and so on. For the benefit of these stakeholders, the company should better give money to the terrorism and product bananas in peace so as to provide cheap and good bananas and maximize profit. On the other hand, the government, which receives tax from Chiquita, should have protected Chiquita, but the government did not. On the whole, we cannot simply judge Chiquita was wrong. In fact, they just could not find a better choice. Chiquita is one of the victims of the private
terrorists.

What other companies do you think should be worried about Chiquita’s experience?
1. The companies that are in a dilemma struggling between companies’ survival and government’s political stand should be worried about Chiquita’s experience.

2. The companies that doing business in a complex political environment should be worried about Chiquita’s experience.

What can current CEO Aguirre do to restore Chiquita’s reputation and ensure future competitiveness?

The company can bring fantastic blessings to the region. For example, they can donate food to children who cannot afford food. They can hire people who cannot find job and threats safety and stability of the society and teach them skills. They can fund school, so more and more poor children can get better education. They can carry out green marketing strategy. For example, they can use environmental material packages. They can develop production technology to save the usage of water, electricity, and other energy. They can make advertising campaign to promote their new and good image. They can promote the company as one who cares the wellbeing of the society.