Assignment 1: Social Performance of Organizations
Janet Jackson
Strayer University
BUS475
May 1, 2014
Instructor:

The De Beers Company is one of the wealthiest companies in the world. De Beers leads and dominates the diamond industry in diamond mining, diamond trading, and industrial diamond manufacturing. In 1871 a South African man named 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. (DeMarco, 2011). Before the sale the diamond company was owned by the Oppenheimer family. Now Anglo American own 85 percent of De Beers making them the primary
In the Diamond industry no group is more important than the customers buying the product. A diamond is really just a rock found in the ground and only worth what someone is willing to pay for them. The value of the diamond on the customer has plays a big role on the De Beers Company. In order to keep the value of the diamond up De Beers invests in many advertisements and promotion to keep the appeal of the diamond. Throughout the years diamond distributors have produced ads campaigning that diamonds are connected with showing your love or wealth. Ads claiming things like diamonds are a women’s best friend help keep the demand for the stones high and valuable.
Stakeholder Influence
In the diamond industry, companies have had a lot of control over the amount of diamonds out on the market for sale. This has given diamond companies some control over the supply and demand factor of diamonds. However, the stakeholders have lots of influence on the success of a diamond company. Stakeholders associated with diamond companies have the ability to: change laws and regulations; influence better working conditions and demand; and change operations and worker pay. All of these factors will influence the financial performance of an organization such as De Beers.
The governments have control over what laws and regulations diamond companies go by when operating in their jurisdiction. This could have an effect on a company financially. For example, in some