The central facts of this case revolve around the birth and success of the Wal-Mart chain of stores. Sam Walton targeted small sparsely populated rural towns with less than ten thousand occupants. Sam Walton aimed at growing the business and establishing more Wal-Mart stores in big cities across the globe. Wal-Mart took advantage of the Environmental Awareness Program and the Buy American plan to convey their environmental awareness. The aforementioned facts about Wal-Mart raise several assumptions. It is believed that it’s through eliminating other small merchants that Wal-Mart attained its position. Additionally, the Environmental Awareness and the Buy American programs helped communicate Wal-Mart’s ethical responsibility.
Despite its success, Wal-Mart has faced a range of obstacles. In regard to its entry into the foreign market, Wal-Mart has already established about 400 European stores in Germany and the UK. Recently, with the assistance of Seiyu Ltd, Wal-Mart made efforts to enter the Japanese market (Carroll, Brown & Buchholtz, 2018). Sadly, the market has been cruel to foreign organizations. Additionally, the prevailing Japanese market is generally crowded but weak. Since Wal-Mart sought to expand into South America and Europe, it will require partnering with other retailers to access customers easily and prolong its dominance. Most importantly, Wal-Mart fights to keep its employees through connections that existed with various government agencies and Capitol Hill.
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There are several stakeholders concerned with Wal-Mart’s public affairs scheme. In broader categories, the stakeholders can be categorized into the market and non-market investors. Market stakeholders include the stockholders, the Wal-Mart executives, the employees, and the communities surrounding Wal-Mart, various consumers, non-profit organizations, retailers, online retailers, and gasoline retailers (Carroll et al, 2018). The stockholders are actually the investors owning Wal-Mart shares that are interested in getting a return on their investment. Just like common stockholders, Wal-Mart’s top executives also hold an economic stake. Since they are among the investors, they are also interested in increasing the company’s performance because part of their compensation results from the good performance of Wal-Mart’s stock. Although some employees might have various stocks in Wal-Mart, most of them have a financial shares in the company since their occupation is their main income source. They are focused towards ensuring that Wal-Mart performs well as this will sustain their jobs and income source. In fact, Wal-Mart has over 885,000 employees across the nation.
The communities surrounding Wal-Mart have also have a stake in the company’s performance. These communities depend on Wal-Mart for jobs and for a place where they can buy their necessities at low prices. Absolutely, if Wal-Mart was not present in these communities, some people would still be jobless and families would be paying hefty prices for the day-to-day goods they need. On the other hand, consumers also have a stake in Wal-Mart’s performance. Being the leading grocery retailer in the country, many people depend on Wal-Mart for their daily grocery supply (Wells, 2015). Essentially, the Wal-Mart foundation finances numerous non-profits organizations. Therefore, if it performs poorly, then the Foundations relying on its funding will not perform well either. Consequentially, the non-profit organization in the communities within which Wal-Mart is located expect to be financed by the Wal-Mart Foundation.
Other retailers also have a market stake on Wal-Mart’s good performance and expansion. Owing to its purchase ability, Wal-Mart has lowered its prices to the extent of pushing smaller retailers out of the business since they cannot compete with Wal-Mart’s prices which are relatively low. A considerable number of online retailers also have an economic stake in Wal-Mart’s performance. Wal-Mart partnered with the gasoline in 1996. Apparently, it has contracts with various companies including Tesoro Petroleum, Sunoco, and Murphy Oil USA (Carroll et al, 2018). These oil companies have partnered with Wal-Mart since they are unable to compete with the company’s prices and convenience.
Wal-Mart also has stakeholders like international retail stores, politicians and labor unions. Labor unions stakeholder contain a political stake which restricts workers from unionizing. Additionally, the company also take care of its employees by offering benefit plans and compensation. Basically, Wal-Mart is against the labor unions’ interference. Wal-Mart’s expansion into the international retail market has been the company’s major issues. Seemingly, Wal-Mart has various stores around the world including countries like Germany, China, Brazil, Korea, Canada and United Kingdom. Absolutely, Wal-Mart must therefore work well with Public Relations organizations in those countries to avoid any repercussion against when expanding their business into those countries (Talaulicar, 2009). For numerous reasons, politicians also have a non-market stake in Wal-Mart. For instance, they may not want Wal-Mart to open a store in their district, which can be good for the community. On the other hand, politicians might rely on Wal-Mart for funding.
Wal-Mart’s Social Responsibility entails how the company runs its business processes to give a generally positive societal impact. Fundamentally, Wal-Mart has ethical, economic, legal, and philanthropic responsibilities. Wal-Mart has done several corporate citizenship initiatives like fund-raisers, donations, and college scholarships. In regard to its legal responsibilities, Wal-Mart is famous for being the most sued organization in the U.S. owing to its questionable labor practice and low wages. Considering ethical responsibilities, Wal-Mart’s involvement in the Environmental Awareness and Buy American plans show its commitments and effort in ethical responsibilities. Most importantly, Wal-Mart has fulfilled its economic responsibilities because of its recording of being a highly profitable business.
Wal-Mart had been expanding its business at a high rate. For this reason, the company has been contributing to the loss of jobs in the U.S. In connection to the Buy American program, Wal-Mart should develop and execute courses of action that help alleviate social issues and benefit the society. Wal-Mart should stop expanding its business aggressively and focus on making meaningful changes to the business. By adapting the business’ attitude and appearance to the society within which Wal-Mart’s stores are located, the society can also support the company’s growth. When expanding to a new region, Wal-Mart should consider the new area’s culture and language as they inform the community’s traditions and business culture. To conclude, Wal-Mart should stick to its strategy. However, the company should purchase from local manufacturers to avoid restriction, buy buying more locally, they will be providing more job opportunities for the locals and alleviating the unemployment rate.
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References
Carroll, A.B., Brown, J.A., & Buchholtz, A.K. (2018). Business & Society: Ethics, Sustainability, and Stakeholder Management (10th Ed.). Cengage Learning. ISBN: 9781305959828.
Talaulicar, T. (2009). Global retailers and their corporate codes of ethics: the case of Wal-Mart in Germany. Service Industries Journal, 29(1), 47–58. https://doi.org/10.1080/02642060802116388
Wells, A. (2015). Walmart: Friend, Foe or Something in Between? Industrial Maintenance & Plant Operation, 76(9), 6. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=109971032&site=ehost-live