Can Starbucks really be big and good at the same time?

How big? How good?

Can benevolence coexist with the demands of Wall Street? My examination of the Starbucks Coffee Co. for my book, "Wrestling With Starbucks: Conscience, Capital, Cappuccino," gave me more to contemplate than the foam on my morning cappuccino. It offered a provocative look at the double helix of profit and principle that defines the company, and may ultimately determine its fate.

Starbucks, I discovered, teeters between a thirst for global product reach -- nearly 16,000 stores in 43 countries -- and a genial internationalist vision; between documented union-busting and employee-friendly processes; between cultural hegemony and community sensitivity. What ties all these issues together, though, is a singular paradox: Starbucks wants to "grow big while staying small" -- to be everywhere and intimate, powerful and virtuous, formidable and lovable, all at the same time. And that's one venti order.

The dichotomy, which runs the fault line between capital and conscience, originates with the company's dynamic and driven founder Howard Schultz. His dad held a variety of blue-collar jobs and was, Mr. Schultz relates, "a bitter man, shaped by the experiences he had as a working adult." He had no health care to cover the medical costs of a broken ankle and no pension when he died. From that experience, Mr. Schultz learned a double lesson: Make good money and provide good health care. Succeed, but not at the expense of decency or the dignity of others.

Guided by Mr. Schultz's vision, Starbucks instituted health benefits for part-time employees, promoted environmental standards and, when the coffee market tanked early in the decade, instituted above-market payments to sustain coffee farmers. Meanwhile, the company grew exponentially and profited exceedingly. Every $1,000 invested in 1992 returned a dazzling $46,700 in 2006; so the protectors of capital were happy to stand indulgently by.

But what happens when the stock begins to slide? In other words, what happens now? Even in the first half of this troubled fiscal year, with stock value hovering at barely half its 2006 share price, Starbucks managed a respectable 12 percent growth in net revenues. However, in a free market economy, being modestly profitable and modestly decent is not enough. Maximum shareholder return is the law, while humanitarian principles, much like stoplights in Mexico, become merely suggestions. Shave a point or two off your profits to provide health care or pay more to your coffee growers, and Wall Street will slap you around.

"You don't have to go public, you don't have to grow as big as possible," said Bo Burlingham, editor-at-large of Inc. magazine. "But if you decide on that route, you need to do it with your eyes open. It's not that they can't choose public good, but they have to live up to the promises to their stockholders. When you go public, your responsibilities have the potential to come in conflict with your ideals."

Therein lies the crux of the Starbucks dilemma: The pressures for profit are systemic, while the claims to principle are based on the benevolence of the company's founder. And that may not be enough. As Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, observes: "You look at a guy like Howard Schultz and you say, 'OK, you're a really good employer, but you're a corporation.' When does somebody come into Starbucks and say, 'Schultz was a good guy, but these $50,000 for manager salaries are too high; and these health- care costs are really getting out of control.' … What is it that institutionalizes the good practices so it's not noblesse oblige?"

Mr. Schultz recently reclaimed the role of Starbucks CEO, vowing to return the company to fiscal health while retaining its commitment to social responsibility. But with insurance costs going through the roof and large equity funds trolling for companies to pillage, workers and coffee farmers have little to back them up but the company's intentions of good will. And those intentions are under severe pressure.

Already, efforts to make the company leaner and meaner are affecting the work force; as store closings are announced and opportunities for promotion diminish, longtime "partners" are feeling more like disposable workers. When I first started to assess Starbucks, an astonishing number of employees gave the company kudos despite its flaws. Today, not so much. I recently took copies of my Starbucks book to some of the baristas and store managers I had interviewed. "I don't know," one of them told me. "When I started six years ago, this was the best job of its kind. Now it's all about the money. It's like nobody cares about us any more."

That's the real price of the market, for Starbucks, and for all of us. As long as we mandate the sustainability of capital and leave human sustainability to choice, our conscience will be at risk. As one employee told me, the company is "hemorrhaging at the heart." Staunching that wound may be every bit as hard as changing the Starbuck's financial outlook -- and just as urgent for the survival of a company that wins both our business and our affection.