Business 1

Assignment 1 Social Performance of Organizations

Lisa Jasiunas

Dr. William Stieber

November 2, 2014

The De Beers Company is one of the wealthiest companies in the world. De Beers leads and dominates the diamond industry in the following; diamond mining, diamond trading, and industrial diamond manufacturing. In 1871 Cecil Rhodes created De Beers. Rhodes rented water pumps to miners then invested his profits by buying up small mining operations. In 2011 the De Beers Group sold their remaining stake to Anglo American for $5.1 billion in cash (http://www.forbes.com, 2011). The diamond company was owned by the Oppenheimer family before the company was for sale. Anglo American now owns 85 percent of De Beers making them the primary stockholder while the Republic of Botswana owns the remaining 15 percent of the company (http://www.forbes.com, 2011).

Mining diamonds involves a lot of factors that can effect a company’s external environment (http://www.brilliantearth.com, 2014). In order for De Beers to operate it has to account for things such as: local and foreign governments, globalization and trade, the ethics of business and labor, the effect on the environment, the perception of society, and the importance of new technology. The De Beers Diamond Company has two important factors to the organization’s external environment are globalization and trade, and the perception of society (http://www.brilliantearth.com, 2014).

When producing a product as fragile as diamonds, a company needs many factors to come in place. Actuality a diamond is just a shiny rock found on the earth. A lot of people play a major role in insuring the value of the diamond. Three groups that have important stakes in De Beer Diamond Company are the stockholders, governments, and customers.

One of the key stakeholders for the De Beers Company was the stockholders. In most companies the most important part of business is making a profit. The stockholders in the De Beers Company had a large...