Mormons in Business
20 January 2007 at 5:21 pm Peter G. Klein 3 comments
| Peter Klein |
HBS Dean Emeritus Kim Clark is among a group of Mormon executives profiled in Jeff Benedict’s The Mormon Way of Doing Business (Warner Books, 2007). Mitt Romney’s Presidential bid has generated a surge of interest in the Mormon faith (which, despite its 170-year history, is little known to most Americans), so expect this book to do well.
Most impressive passage so far: “During the same ten-year period [1974-84] that Clark graduated from Harvard University, earned a PhD in economics, and obtained tenure status as a faculty member at HBS, he and his wife had seven children.” Wow.
Organizations and Markets 
1.
Melissa | 20 January 2007 at 6:00 pm
How much more of a WOW it be to read “During the same ten-year period [1974-84] that Mrs. Clark graduated from Harvard University, earned a PhD in economics, and obtained tenure status as a faculty member at HBS, she had seven children.”
2.
Bo | 23 January 2007 at 2:33 am
BINGO! Brilliant!
I have actually lived among Mormon’s in Idaho for a year back in the early 1990s (my first experience in the US as it were). I will not bore you with details of that experience, however, one thing that I did notice (other than above-average number of children) was a tendency not to drink caffeine – since I am now living in Seattle (and being a coffee addict) I am wondering how Starbucks is doing in the good states of Idaho and Utah these days.
As it turns out, there are currently 46 stores in Idaho and 53 in Utah. Washington State has 585 stores…Vermont only has 4…Japan has over 500 and so on.
A bit more digging reveals that Starbucks (of course) has turned this market into an opportunity:
From Broken News, 11/11/2003:
“Seattle – Stan Rohrabach, Starbucks’ Vice-President for Diversity Outreach today announced the launching of a new product line designed to appeal to coffee-challenged minorities and undermarketed demographics. The first product in the new line is called “Mormon Blend®” and is already being test marketed in Salt Lake City.
“We’ve been wanting to increase sales to the very important Mormon market,” said Rohrabach. “Mormon families are huge, upwardly mobile and their church requires them to keep a year’s supply of food on hand at all times. On paper, we should be doing gangbusters business. Unfortunately, their religious beliefs also prohibit the consumption of beverages with caffeine. Well, that kind of cuts down on the sale of cappuccinos. But “Mormon Blend®” is an ingenious mixture of macadamia nuts, soy beans, gristle and hummus carefully roasted and put through Starbucks’ patented quadruple filtration system. The end result is something that is very over-priced and looks like coffee but has none of the tastes, odors and other physical effects associated with actual coffee.”
Other products in the Starbucks development pipeline include KinderKoffee®, a reduced-caffeine product for the 5-8 year-old crowd; ACHTUNG!!!® a high caffeine coffee/jalapeno pepper mix designed with German ravers in mind; and MoFo Macchiato, a specialty drink developed in conjunction with Courvosier for young urban adults.”
3.
Peter Klein | 23 January 2007 at 10:19 am
Thanks Bo. The Onion has some great Starbucks items too, e.g.
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/29030
and my personal favorite:
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28657