Potential Stakeholder Decision : Wal Mart

Because corporations are established to profit and shareholders invest money with expectations of a greater return, managers cannot be given a directive to be “socially responsible” without providing specific criteria of checks and balances to which needs to adhere. Therefore, it is imperative to the success of a corporation for managers to not act solely but rather to act within the policies of the shareholders.

Walmart employees, customers, and suppliers have seen their fair share of Walmart’s bad side. While Walmart’s founder, Sam Walton, claims to make their employees feel like they “are working for them” and that they care Walmart has done such a horrific job with the way they treat their employees that one day, the workers decided to walk out and go on strike. They walked out on the grounds that they “were emblazoned with the workers’ grievances: poverty wages, miserly benefits, dignity denied” (Eidelson 1). They felt like they weren’t only taking a stand against Walmart, but also taking a stand for the younger generations to come. Walmart’s employees are getting treated unfairly and are underpaid. The CEO’s, Michael Duke, annual salary gives him more money in an hour than an employee who works full-time would make in an entire year. In Bangladesh, over 100 workers “died in a factory without outdoor fire escapes, NGOs blame Walmart for pushing deadly shortcuts” (Eidelson 1). Not only are the employees being poorly paid by Walmart, but they are paying their life to Walmart just to make enough money to barely get by. Walmart even made a pregnant employee work around chemicals that eventually made her ill. After a trip to the doctor, Walmart allowed her to be put on a lighter duty, so they made her a door greeter; however, they

Walmart is one of the biggest retailers in the world as well one of the most criticized. For some they look at the many jobs the corporation creates, or how it’s one stop shop saves the lower class billions a year with their affordable prices and quality products. On the other hand, critics focus on the poor working conditions, and their antiunion actions. In “Up Against Wal-Mart”, Olsson argues that Walmart is not as great as everyone thinks because they underpay workers, don’t provide proper affordable health care, and go to extreme measures to prevent employees from forming labor unions. Olsson feels Walmart’s morals are in the wrong place and they need to improve the employee relations instead of being so greedy. Sebastian Mallaby

At one time, Sears prided itself as “Where America Shops” by staying in touch with consumers and upholding high product, employer, and customer standards. Today, Sears is struggling to remain a prominent American retailer. The company’s present business model reflects a poor grasp of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Riddled with lawsuits, workplace issues, and a poor reputation with the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Sears consumers know today is undesirable.

Kroger’s CSR efforts regarding environmental efforts are more robust than employee stakeholder support. Even with this, Kroger is considered a laggard with environmental CSR standards when compared to Walmart and Target (van der Ven, 2014). A main reason for this could be due to Kroger’s relatively light involvement with CSR focused organizations. Their leadership may simply not be exposed to CSR ideas as much as their peers (van der Ven, 2014). Expanding CSR knowledge, and leadership widening their network on CSR possibilities will give Kroger’s leaders access to industry leaders best practice knowledge.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is something that affects all companies and should be an active factor in the company’s decision making. It is something all corporations need to care about. CSR is when business’ or corporations take part in an initiative or campaign for a cause that will benefit society and/or in some way make the world a better place (Taylor, 2015). Initially, Corporate Social Responsibility started to take shape around the 1950’s, but some say that it dates all the way back to the 1800s, the idea of CSR was seen (Carroll, 2007). One may think that because it is dated so long ago, it doesn’t have an important impact today nevertheless, it is proven that Corporate Social Responsibility is a pathway for entities to self benefit as they are in the process of benefitting society.

One of the major shortcomings of the report is that some of Walmart statements regarding its CSR and sustainability activities differs greatly from what some outside advocacy groups and activists are saying about the company’s CSR efforts. The Food Chain Workers Alliance on June 4th , 2015 published a 120 page report about Walmart called “Walmart at the Crossroads, the Environmental and Labor Impact of Its Food Supply” where it questions a lot of Walmart’s practices. The Food Chain Workers Alliance is an advocacy group with more than 300,000 members who work in all-different stages of the food chain from the farm to the restaurant. Its goal is to develop a more sustainable food system while at the same time fight for the rights of workers.

In contrast, many people and organizations have argued that Walmart is not holding true to their original sustainable commitments. According to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, Walmart's greenhouse gas emissions have continued to grow over the last 10 years, and it’s percentage of renewable energy is inadequate compared to other major corporations. Stacy Mitchell, the author of the report and a senior researcher at the Institute believes that the core issue behind Walmart’s lack of action is that they will not change their unsustainable business model to make sustainable advancements. She says that, "Walmart has a highly unsustainable business model, built on shipping goods long distances, selling mountains of very short-lived products,

At one time, Sears prided itself as “Where America Shops” by staying in touch with consumers and upholding high product, employer, and customer standards. Today, Sears is struggling to remain a prominent American retailer. The company’s present business model reflects a sub-par grasp of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Riddled with lawsuits, workplace issues, and a poor reputation with the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Sears consumers know today is undesirable.

Competitive advantage can be defined as a means by which a firm manages to keep making money, add value by providing distinct products and sustain its position against its competitors. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is one of such companies in the retail sector that has achieved sustainable competitive advantage over a period of time. ¬This report focuses on how Wal-Mart has achieved competitive advantage by adopting cost leadership strategy and providing consumer goods at lower prices. The report also discusses how Wal-Mart is taking lead on environmental sustainability by investing in solar power plants, offering environment friendly products in its various stores and encouraging recycling of different products. Wal-Mart’s strategies

Wages and benefits are not the only complaints Wal-Mart is now facing. Recently, Wal-mart was accused of denying women equal pay and opportunities for promotion (Bianco, 2003). Wal-Mart attempts to distract from their past and present diversity issues by devoting an entire section of their webpage to this subject but until Wal-Mart can show statistical proof reflecting their claims of fair wages, good benefits, and equal treatment, the complaints by the unions and consumers will continue. These upper level management decisions are having a negative impact on the company and providing an unhealthy organizational culture for the organization.

Corporations deal with a wide variety of social issues and problems; some directly related to their operations, some are not. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) can be defined as “the actions of an organization that are targeted toward achieving a social benefit over and above maximizing profits for its shareholders and meeting all its legal obligations” (Ghillyer 78). If this is the case, establishing appropriate and practical ethical guidelines in the workplace seems to be a reasonable request as a basis for corporate operations. Wal-Mart should be an example in determining what constitutes the values associated with its fundamental purpose of Corporate Social Responsibility. The four

Wal-Mart now has to rebuild their images, procedures on how they conduct business nationwide and how the use ethical business practices. The New York time article reported, “Wal-Mart announces new ethical and environmental principles complete by 2012”. (Robinson, 2008)

There is no need to introduce its background anymore; I think everyone knows the super supermarket leader’s name which is called Walmart. Here is the point that in this case why the CEO of Walmart Scott announced to do the business sustainability strategy in 2005. The sustainability will be the most focused in the 21century when the environment get worse every day. This strategy seems that Walmart will increase its cost and make a great contribution to the world. There is no doubt that the sustainability is quite good for the world environment we live. On the other side, as the Scott said “being a good steward of the environment and

Starbucks is an American multinational corporation that is arguably considered as the best coffee house in the globe in terms of global performance. The company has for a long time considered CSR as an important part of its operations and currently, it adopts an Anglo-American model of corporate social responsibility. This is an approach to CSR that maintains close links between shareholder interests with the operations of the organization. The company ensures that its CSR initiatives are appropriately audited so that it is able to learn of its CSR performance and not as an effort of complying with legal regulations and this is what makes the strategies adopted by the company very relevant. The corporate social responsibility codes that are derived from Starbucks’ Anglo American model have contributed to great product development by the company, efficient production and quality customer service. All these have been made possible through the company’s Corporate Governance Codes . At starbucks, the codes have provisions for the code of conduct which acts as guidelines as to how the employees at the organization behave. The code of conduct guides the entire organization including the board of