Ten years ago, when one heard the word “Amazon,” they would likely picture the rainforest in South America with astounding biodiversity. Five years ago, when one heard the word “Amazon,” they might be more likely to picture a Kindle reader or the rapid-fire delivery of brown packages to their doorstep. Now, in 2016, when a native Seattle hears the word “Amazon,” they more than likely would immediately conjure the now Amazon dominated neighborhood of South Lake Union or the futuristic biodomes currently under construction in Belltown in the city of Seattle. Amazon’s physical, economic, social, and political control has allowed this multi-million dollar company to drastically shape and change the makeup of a major US city. From a local standpoint, many native Seattleites are struggling to …show more content…
Through Seattle and more specifically the role of Amazon Inc. within Seattle, the ways in which capitalism is both an economic and social system become exemplified. As a formerly radical city, we question how Amazon has been able to utilize the lack of rent control or income tax to turn this city and population into a neoliberal haven. In this instance, social justice is a matter of exercising ultimate control over an environment, an environment in which power is supposed to be democratically elected by the people. Most of Amazon’s negative reputation starts in August of 2015 with a lengthy exposé, published by the acclaimed New York Times, on the culture and ethic of the Internet giant’s workplace. Kantor and Streitfeld write, “Even as the company tests delivery by drone and ways to restock toilet paper at the push of a bathroom button, it is conducting a little-known
Amazon employees are left feeling angry because they are being given low-paid wages for overworking. This effects Amazon heavily as they are having employees leaving the company and the company it's self has to bring in agency workers as temporary employees. This would mean
In the article, “Amazon.com is a 21st century Deal with the Devil” the author Amy Koss makes her piece an argumentative writing. She tries to persuade the reader that the company, Amazon, is cruel and untrustworthy. The author states,”They’re offering deals and deeper discounts, closing branches, consolidating staff, trying to fend off the inevitable. According to the feds, there have been 60,000 retail jobs in just the last two months.” I disagree with the author’s statement and believe that Amazon is just doing what they have to do, so they can make money and build a stronger business. It isn’t exactly Amazon’s fault that other businesses are closing making people loses their jobs. The other businesses must have their prices very high, making
The article, “Amazon.com Is a 21st Century Deal with the Devil” from Amy Koss, published by Los Angeles Times on June 4, 2017. The death of the American mall is avoidable. It is avoidable by promoting it on the Amazon website, or it is also avoidable by closing down the website. Even if none of this happens, there will always be people who are not lazy enough to get up and go to the mall. There are also a lot of people in the world who do not know about the website amazon.com. For those who do not, it means they go to the mall instead of shopping online.
Facts Surrounding the Case. According to Lisa Mahapatra’s (2013) article, “Amazon.com Has Second Highest Employee Turnover Of All Fortune 500 Companies”, Amazon.com has been placed 2nd in highest employee turnover rates by a special report from Payscale. In addition to this bad press against the company, Steven Barker, a former Amazon.com contract worker, criticized CEO, Jeff Bezos, in an open letter on the CEO’s hiring techniques. The letter states that “The company has a policy of hiring temp contract workers who are let go after 11 months to save on benefits like medical coverage and paid vacation days” (Mahapatra, 2013, para 1-2). Management at Amazon has to research why employee turnover is so high, and then research how to fix this issue to make Amazon more productive and efficient.
Amazon Web Services is a cloud computing platform which was to provide online services to websites (Rouse, 2014). Amazon is comprised of software development and customer service centers around the world (Rouse, 2014). At Amazon, workers are encouraged to tear apart one another’s ideas in meetings, toil long and late and held to unreasonably high standards (Kantor & Streitfeld, 2015).
Since its initial launch in 1994, Amazon has now become the biggest e-commerce store in the world. Despite a slow start during its early years, Amazon has increased its growth around 2014 with $90 billion revenue and 154,100 employees (“The Amazon Effect”). The increasing popularity of the company is backed up by its “unmatched customer service” and cheap prices provided for the customers (Parker). The rapid and sudden grow of Amazon pushed the company to expand its factories and internal systems. According to the New York Times, Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, has been known for his powerful and authoritarian style of leadership; and as of now, Amazon has raised several controversies regarding its actions from tax avoidances, predatory pricing, and the mistreatment of workers. These controversies were a hot topic around the media especially for tech enthusiasts and engineers. The ethicality of the internal practices of amazon and its effects can be evaluated from the three ethical perspectives in philosophy: Kantian theory, Utilitarianism, and Ethical Egoistic perspective.
The corporate culture at Amazon can be described as a task culture according to Charles Handy’s theories of corporate culture, where the main focus is on getting results from the work done. Individuals and teams are empowered to take responsibility and make a contribution. As a result, formal job titles are of less importance, as the emphasis is put on their contribution and problem-solving abilities. (Hoang 194). Amazon has created a sense of belonging and unity within its’ workforce by installing the idea that anyone can contribute. This can be seen through the 14 leadership principles that Amazonians refer to as the “articles of faith”, outlining how employees should act. It is at the core of Amazon’s corporate culture; It’s used in daily rituals, in hiring, at meetings and are quoted in food-truck lines at lunchtime (Streitfeld). Most importantly, it applies to all Amazonians and they are told each one of them is a leader (Sanghani). For instance, the co-inventor of the delivery-by-drone project announced in 2013 was a junior level engineer (Streitfeld). Therefore, the task-oriented culture can be the source of the stressful work-environment stress despite fostering motivation and responsibility within the employees.
Amazon, a powerful company, has challenged many of its competitors and nearly causing them to go bankrupt. Jeff Bezos has taken amazon through changes and seemingly all for the better.
Amazon has earned a great reputation in customer service for allowing customers to shop without face to face, avoiding talking to a customer’s service representative agent on the phone, everything it done online. Sales clerk does not exist, everything is ordered with a click of the mouse, and arrives extremenely quick in the mail (Cohen, 2009). Amazon at interval has gotten involved with the customers when they can have too. According to Green, H. (2009), “Amazon stands out most markedly from other companies, and helps explain how the company earned the No. 1 spot on Business Week’s customer service ranking this year”( para. 1).
LaVecchia, O. (2016, November 29). Report: how amazon’s tightening grip on the economy is stifling competition, eroding jobs, and threatening communities. Retrieved September 9, 2017, from https://ilsr.org/amazon-stranglehold/
Before we start, let me ask a question. What comes to your mind when you hear of the word Medea? There are no right or wrong answer, but hold on to your answer. The author, Euripides portray Medea as an egalitarianism. Euripides is known for breaking the Greek sex gender system and he was intrigued by women's position in society.
Amazon focuses on global reach, putting customer first,, and extensive selection of products through its vision which is “To be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online” (Gregory 2016).
While Amazon faces many issues in a rapidly changing economic, political and global environment, this paper will focus on how Amazon can increase loyalty among its customers and continue to differentiate
Amazon’s fulfillment centers are valuable, rare, costly to imitate, and organized to captured value. Thus, they attribute to Amazon’s competitive advantage. Amazon Prime and 1-Click are also valuable to the organization. However, they can be replicated. Walmart launched a membership program to compete with Amazon’s Prime Service. With Walmart’s membership program customers receive free two-day shipping when they spend $35 or more on orders. Amazon Web Services is valuable, rare, costly to imitate and the organization has capture the value of it. Therefore, AWS has contributed to Amazon’s sustainable advantage. Amazon’s brand name and reputation have also given the company sustainable advantage. Amazon acquired enormous brand valuation in a short period of time. It is
Amazon is the big online shopping conglomerate we know today, which is known for their presence in the online shopping scene. They started with Jeff Bezos’ leadership, growing to where they are today. Amazon is a powerful company, however it is not without its problems. The company’s problems regard its strategies with growth, compared to Patagonia, leading them towards unsustainable results (LMPGS). To bring forth my proposal, I will talk about the narrative of Amazon’s start. Also, the definition of sustainability and why it’s relevant to the proposal at hand. Thirdly, a counter-argument will be brought forth on a practice used by companies that counteract sustainability. The proposal to change practices, such as the waste of packages, and the communication with suppliers. Amazon could be made more sustainable by studying other, less growth-oriented companies.