Introduction In the Module 5 SLP, this paper will demonstrate the understanding of a peer-reviewed journal article as it relates to business ethics. My selection was a scholarly peer reviewed article named “Wal-Mart: The Face of Twenty-First Century Capitalism”. Wal-Mart 's historical roots can be carefully mapped out. The company did not become the world 's largest corporation overnight. That process took decades, as several chapters from the book demonstrate (Lichtentstein, 2006). Nelson Lichtenstein 's introductory chapter convincingly implies that Wal-Mart, like the Pennsylvania railroad in the late nineteenth century, U.S. Steel in the 1910s, and General Motors in the 1950s, is today 's "template business setting standards for a new stage in the history of world capitalism" On October 11th, 2003 fifty-nine thousand grocery workers went on strike for nearly nine months fighting with together with their Unions against the major supermarket chains that were cutting wages, healthcare benefits and reduced labor costs. By March 2004, cashiers, baggers, and stockers all went back to work defeated. Wal-Mart was the largest company in the world and was rapidly moving in to the full-sized grocery business co-located with its general merchandise called “Supercenters” (Lichtentstein, 2006). Every organization has its own separate values and principles that set it apart from other organizations. Likewise, an organizations business practices associated with its culture
There are many opinions on the ethics of the Wal-Mart model, both favourable and unfavourable. The article “ROB Ranks Wal-Mart Among Canada’s Best Employers” (McLachlan, 2009, pg. 287) offers a favourable viewpoint of the model, and the article “The Cost of Walmartization” (McLachlan, 2009, pg. 288) offers an opposing unfavourable view. This paper discusses the theoretical approaches used in each article, along with the supporting evidence that was used in an effort to be convincing.
A sociological perspective is a framework for thinking about, describing, or explaining how human activities are organized and how people relate to one another and respond to their surroundings.
The location of the first Wal-Mart in the Fortune Global 500 for the year of 2001 to 2002 turnover of 219.81 billion dollars. Wal-Mart is the largest company in the retail in the world. The company was much larger than its competitors in the United States - Sears Roebuck, Kmart, JC Penney and Nordstrom combined. In 2002, Wal-Mart operates more than 3,500 discount stores, Supercenters and Sam's Clubs in United States and over 1,170 stores in major countries around the world. The company also sells products online via the website, www.walmart.com. Wal-Mart is one of the largest private employers in the world, with the use of force about 1.28 million. The
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
Is Wal-mart the ideal store to shop it? Austrian economic and business professional Karen De Coster and banker Brad Edmonds believe that Wal-mart improves the lives of people in rural areas because it gives them access to a lifestyle that they would not have if Wal-mart did not exist.
Corporate values are ‘the operating philosophies or principles that guide an internal conduct of the organization and its association with its clients, partners and shareholders’. It is also a fundamental and long-lasting belief that specific mode of conduction highly valued by the organization’s membership’ according to IBM corporate responsibility report (2002, What is the value of company).
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
The United States of America represented the land of promise for millions of people around the world, and for many years. For some, the American dream is still existent and continues to lure in millions of immigrants each year. For others however, the American dream is setting, and this might be revealed at several levels, such as the decreasing access to health care, the decreasing quality of the educational act, the decreasing access to jobs or the lower ability for the average citizen to live a life without worry or economic care.
Business practices, in addition to guidelines on the matter of probable controversial impediments are a component of organizational ethics. This type of ethics is frequently motivated by the law; a copious amount of organizations practice ethics in order to be accepted by the community, not to mention in order to ensure a successful business. Ethical values can have a focal point on organizational concerns which assist the company in adhere to respectable practices within their establishment or corporation.
In 2005, Robert Greenwald released Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, a motion picture that divulges how Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., a wholesale department store established by Sam Walton in 1962, absconded from its chasten inaugurations, to ultimately progress and develop into a principal vendor of America, and soon afterwards the vastest transnational conglomerate on the planet, once one grounds their statistics on revenue. However, Greenwald undoubtedly affirms that the policies Wal-Mart has emplaced have not solely been detrimental to the already austere American economy, but also to the welfare of their personnel. Furthermore, Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price congregates on various sociopolitical disputes that validate how Wal-Mart
On July 2, 1962, Sam Walton opened the first Walmart in Rogers, Arkansas. Walmart’s story is the story of American capitalism. According to a 2012 study, more than 140 million Americans shop at Walmart each week. That’s more than how many people were at the 2012 Super Bowl. But there’s more to Walmart than what is on the surface. In this essay, I want to talk about and present the company’s actions.
In 1950, Sam Walton purchased a store from Luther E. Harrison in Bentonville, Arkansas, and opened Walton 's 5 & 10. The town of 2,900 residents would become the headquarters for the world 's largest retailer.
This paper will obtain information about a researched issue that deals with business ethics. The paper will include a summary of the Article and issue. This paper will also touch on the following topics, what seems to be the basis of the issue, what ethical change, deficiency, or conflict brought it about, and how did the organizational leadership come into play. The paper will conclude by proposing a plan for revising the ethical standards and
Chapter 8 opens with the question “Is Walmart a good or bad thing for America,” as the author sums up the influence that the corporation has injected and shaped the modern economic structure with worker, consumer, government and competitors. (Lichtenstein 302-03). The United Food and Commercial Workers Union lost critical battles as supermarkets like Kroger, Safeway and local California markets Vons and Ralph locked out employees and forced them to except reductions in wages, health care and pension benefits. (Lichtenstein
Unlike many of the traditional supermarket chains, Wal-Mart is not unionized, and efforts to organize its workers have failed. The flash point now is with supermarkets, as Wal-Mart rolls out more Supercenters having a full-line supermarket under one roof with a general merchandise store. Wal-Mart sells food at its warehouse format Sam's Clubs, its Neighborhood Markets traditional supermarkets and at regular Wal-Mart stores. Supermarket margins are razor-thin, and labor is a major cost variable. Rivals paying union wages of $10 an hour or more and paying most or all health benefits costs face intense cost pressure from Wal-Mart Supercenters, where workers might make $8 and pay a higher percentage of health costs (Stores, 2016).