Cross Culture Perspectives: Wal-Mart

Let’s look how Walmart contributes to society and its different parts: clients, suppliers and employees.

Wal-Mart, the multi-billion company and the second largest employer in the world, is the most controversial corporation in the world. Wal-Mart is a global powerhouse and affects many people around the world. Wal-Mart is constantly getting attacked from unions, human rights groups, small towns and small businesses. Wal-Mart is accused of treating their workers poorly and driving small businesses out of business. But however these accusations are false or over exaggerated. Wal-Mart offers families and low income people quality products. Also, they pay their workers competitive wages and treat them with respect. Wal-Mart opens their stores in rural and under developed areas. Wal-Mart improves the lives of the people who live rural area and

However this case directly shows Wal-Mart’s often criticized treatment of employees and its sometimes inhuman business ethics. A company must make a competitive return for its shareholders and treat its employees fairly. This is known as corporate social responsibility.

Wal-Mart is an American multinational retail corporation and one of the leading discount department retail stores (Wikipedia). It is the highest- grossing company in the United States (Fortune 2008a), and is by far one of the most successful companies worldwide. Wal-Mart offers a place to buy the majority of our goods under one roof like electronics, furniture, clothing, pharmacy, sports, food, books etc. Wal-Mart sells good at lower price than the others and this is even shown by its slogan “save money, live better”.  It drives out smaller and sometimes even the expensive stores out of business due to its lower prices. Wal-Mart provides jobs for thousands of

As the world’s largest retail store in the world, Walmart wants to be in every market that they can be prosperous in. They know they rule the United States market, so why not try to expand overseas and dominate those markets as well. Now that they have reached limits on expansion here in the U.S., the next step was to test the water in other nations. As they began to go international, there were many critics saying they will never make it because their business practices and culture wouldn’t work in other countries. Yet the company’s globalization efforts progressed at a rapid pace. Its more than 4,263 international retail units employ more than 660,000

Wal-Mart founded in 1962 by Sam Walton is now the largest American retail corporation. With thousands of chains of stores and warehouses Wal-Mart monopolized the American retail industry. In addition, Wal-Mart is the second largest retail corporation in the world employing of two million employees world-wide. As one of the most valuable corporations in the world Wal-Mart continues to improve their sales annually while offering some of the lowest prices available. Wal-Mart’s famous low price guarantee, come at a high expense of the environment, the small businesses, education, the rights and safety of the consumer, but most importantly their employees. Although Wal-Mart has plays a dominate role in American economy, this “American”

Wal-Mart is commonly known for its low prices, clean appearance, and large variety of products; however, the super store has constituently been the center of many ethical issues. From working conditions, wages, benefits, product issues, and even bribery, Wal-Mart has been shrouded in ethical disputes for years. In the next few pages I intend on discussing these issues, the impact they have had on the company, and the actions that management has taken in response to them.

Wal-Mart is affordable, convenient, fast, and many more things to the average American, however, Wal-Mart has failed to hold up ethically in the global market. Not only are small businesses in America poorly effected by their malpractices, but countless young workers in China, Bangladesh, and Mexico are morally and financially bankrupted. The current American Wal-Mart employee starts their wage at around $9.00 an hour, which is hardly something to complain about in today’s economy. The issues we have had with Wal-Mart about maltreatment of workers in the U.S, seems to be subsiding.

Case 5.1 discusses the Frontline documented Wal-Mart and its effect on globalization. Wal-Mart is a major corporation and it has been one of the top ranked retailers in the world. Wal-Mart has been criticized for how it handles its global affairs, and how the workers are affected by the decisions the company makes.

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. is the world 's largest retail enterprise, with total revenue of $421.8 billion and a net income of $16.4 billion in 2011. 1 It is also the world 's largest employer, with 2.1 million employees worldwide in 2010 2, not including workers hired by its providers. In my opinion, Wal-Mart provides a clear illustration through which to look at how many multinational companies (MNCs) take part in an illegal and unethical behavior. They use their bargaining power and market control to pressure countries to overlook environmental degradation and violation of national labor laws. They dictate expected pricing for products, particularly through imports from overseas countries. Labor is fulfilled mostly by underage and underpaid employees. In the United States, since 2005, Wal-Mart has paid about $1 billion in damages to U.S. employees in six different cases related to unpaid work. 3 Furthermore, Wal-Mart opposes any form of collective action, even when employees are not seeking unionization, but simply more respect. 4 The fact that Wal-Mart opposes unions exist. The company has a long history of fighting them, to the point of closing stores after employees organize. Managers have been instructed to talk to their teams about why unions are so unwanted in their business. Overseas, the company was involved in a series of scandals, including multiple cases of bribery. In April 2012, The New York Times published a story that

Wal-Mart is one of the top 10 largest corporations. Wal-Mart must predict what is needed and wanted in communities. Executives have to be able to see the needs like in Brazil. Wal-Mart has gone in and created social retailing school and provide skills and services in

After reviewing the three videos that were recommended for me to watch about Walmart, I later had a different perspective of Walmart as a company. With Walmart opening in many countries and towns it has lessened the amount of the small businesses in the area by competition. 5,000 Walmart are opened and still counting. This is an ethical problem to a certain extent. Small business owners know that they are small and that there will be some type of competition, but they probably never imagined that the competition would be a multimillion dollar company. That is not ethically Walmart’s fault. Where Walmart has a problem with is the amount of money and benefits that they give their employees. Walmart doesn’t compensate their employees the amount

Wal-Mart’s sheer size gives it unrestrained economic power which allows it to drive down costs in the retail and manufacturing sectors and to enact its own standards with regards to its work force.

Social responsibility is very important for companies. Companies should not be solely focused on maximizing profits. They should develop the business with a positive relationship to the society in which they operate. Organizations must behave ethically toward social, cultural, economic, and environmental issues. Walmart has succeeded with social responsibility. The company goes beyond compliance to make a

Wal-Mart is certainly credited with changing the retail world as we know it with its low prices and big stores with huge selections but it has come at a price. They have struggled with issues that question the ethics as a company and legal issues that question how they manage people. These issues will continue to hurt their organization unless a complete change in management thinking and actions are changed. As a socially responsible organization, their management planning in this area is second to none. Lets hope they take the same effort in improving their image when it comes to ethics and legal issues.