Ethical Aspects of Wal-Mart - Term Paper Example

? Ethical Aspects of Wal-Mart of the Introduction Wal-Mart Stores, Inc is a conglomerate retail corporation in America; it is branded as Wal-Mart. The company runs chains of large warehouse and large compromised department stores. It is now known to be the third largest public corporation. The headquarters of the company are in Bentonville and Arkansas in United States but the firm operates in many countries in the world generating employment opportunities for more than two million people. It is running successful business almost in all major countries across the globe and perhaps that is the reason why it is known as the largest retailer in the world. This paper tries to through a light on the ethical activities carried by Wal-Mart. The essay also takes into account the case of bribery the firm faced in Mexico and how it curves its way out from the problem. Wal-Mart is often termed as a hypermarket, it operates to sale varied range of goods and services to the consumers; like from dairy products to meat, cellular phone stores to pet shops. ‘Low price always’ is the jingle used by the company commonly, it provides goods at the most competitive and resalable prices (Stone, 1997). It is estimated that most of the consumers of Wal-Mart has no bank accounts and their income is almost less than that of the national average. Founded in 1962 the company was supposed to serve a healthy competition for all the other small retailers in the market. Bribery in Mexico Like all that glitters might not be gold, these are various complains against the giant organization of Wal-Mart. It is believed by many economists that the poor communities in U.S. are unfavorably affected by the special discounts given by throng merchandisers like Wal-Mart. It was analyzed that the company will made small retailers in U.S. more competitive but in reality it is observed that in the city of IOWA, small towns have lost almost 47% of their retail trade after the established of Wal-Mart (Knowledge@Wharton, 2012). It is also claimed that the company is offering bribes to other state officials in order to expand their business wings. Wal-Mart wanted to establish its business in Elda Pineda’s alfalfa field in Mexico (Goodman & Gonzalez, 2012). The company found it to be beneficial to open a business wing in this zone as it is situated in a crowded location of the main entrance of the city and it is only a mile away from the prehistoric pyramids that sketch large strength of people as tourists. It was estimated by the analysts of the company that almost 250 customers would come each hour provided the store of the company was established in the chosen location. There was one big hindrance that came up to the business plans of the company, the elected leaders of the town decided to settle up a new zoning map. The leaders wanted to frontier the growth near the pyramids. It was also estimated that the way in of the city was already very crammed thus it would not be an efficient decision to allow Wal-Mart establish there new store in that location. This annoyed the officials of the headquarters of the company in Mexico. It was in records and interviews that the company responded to the unfavorable zoning conditions by offering a bribe of about $52000. The zoning map would not become an edict until it would come in print in the newspapers. The bribing offices of Wal-Mart bribed an executive before the new zoning map was sent in the media. Thus when the modified new zonal map was issued it gave the legal allowance to Wal-Mart to open its new store in the entrance of Mrs. Pineda's field. The protesters oppose the very entry of Wal-Mart in a location that was very near to the cultural heritage but amidst all the difficulties Wal-Mart de Mexico established their business in the grounds of the city. The business running in the entrance of the city made its crowded traffic worse off, the company almost contended the long-established community markets and ruined them. The news of Mexico was mostly covered with grumble of starvation strikes and sit-ins. Despite of all the agitations in the news and the various problems the secret of illegally changing the zonal map remained undisclosed. Finally when the store was opened in Christmas 2004 it depicted the extreme authority of Wal-Mart in Mexico. All the running investigations were closed by the leaders of the company by 2006. Ethical Activities of Wal-Mart The Department and Primary Industries are now trying their level best to find opportunities in which the successful business corporations create less impact in the depletion of environment and maintain sustainability in nature (DSE, 2013). This is because flourishing growth of Victorian’s depends of well being of the environment. Keeping our environment clean is vital for the aesthetic, ethical and ecological value of nature (Croofot, 2011). This section of the essay will briefly explain the ethical activities of Wal-Mart. It was stated by the economist’s long back before 20 years that ‘going green’ can always prove to be profitable for a company. The Wal-Mart stores are now making level headed modifications in their practices, policies and measures that would help to uphold the use of service animals by people with disabilities (Lane, 2010). These animals play a chief role to serve independence to people with disabilities. Thus the company allows animals in their stores who are well trained, to assist people who are physically handicapped (Feed the Future, n.d.). People Greeters are officials in the company who has the duty of looking after the animals that comes in the store. It can be figured that the animals in the stores of Wal-Mart can often become out of control and show signs of threat to the health and safety of other customers in the store. In order to avoid such a problem there are officials who controls such animals so that the business environment of the store remains unaltered. Further the customers can also make a call in 1-800-963-8442 if they get disturbed by the action of any service animals in the stores. Considering the global financial crisis the company has recently changed its catch phrase to ‘Save Money Live Better’ and has significantly cut down on the prices of their products. This has proved to be ethically good for the common buyers who can now purchase a wider basket of goods and services at lower price. With recessionary phase of the economy disposable income of almost all the consumers has fallen but reduction of a wide range commodity prices not altered the net social welfare of the common mass. Environment friendly activities The company of Wal-Mart has adopted the motto of ‘Go Green’. Reducing sustainability has become a part of nucleus culture for Wal-Mart. The company’s chief executive Mr. Ellison simply explained that maintaining sustainability is just the habit of reducing waste. With the elimination of wasted a company can always fruitfully save money. One of the first projects undertaken by Mr. Ellison was reducing the size of Chinese toy packages. It was found that by doing so the company could save in millions. In order to achieve energy effectiveness the company has declared to take numerous measures to protect environment in 2005. It has attempted to reduce the green house gas emissions by 20% in the coming seven years. Wal-Mart has now become the biggest buyer of crude cotton and the best seller of organic milk in the world (Burrough, 2011).The company has also established its own electricity generating unit named Texas Retail Energy from where it is supplying electricity at lower cost almost at whole sale prices to its stores. About 200 million buyers who pass through the stores of Wal-Mart buy florescent bulbs. These bulbs use almost 75% of less electricity than luminescent bulbs. The stores sell resolute laundry detergent that uses about 50% of less water than the normal detergents (Rosenbloom & Barbaro, 2009). They also sell large quantities of medicine drugs that use 50% of fewer packages. Wal-Mart’s fortune was almost drooping when it clinched its green initiates at the beginning (Department of Justice, 2013). The progress report of the company for sustainability in 2010 shows that the company had sharply reduced the use of bags made of plastic; it donated food worth almost 127 million pounds to food banks that would almost be discarded in the previous years. The company has largely helped in saving paper by reducing the print out of its reports on store by almost 350 million pieces. It has also reduced the use of phosphates in laundry and dish washers (Glover, 2010). It is believed that being a giant retailer in the market Wal-Mart taking active measurements to preserve the values of environment will have a crowding out effect by making other companies all over the world do the same. Conclusion In the modern epoch of globalization and liberalization expansion of business is always good for the growth of macro and micro benefits of an economy. So Wal-Mart emerging as a classy business retailer can sufficiently help in the economic welfare in the globe. It should also be considered that whenever a business concern becomes gigantic like Wal-Mart it often influences its economic power in the decisions and policies set by the state (Webhost, 2011). Thus the operations of such massive corporations must always be scrutinized by legitimate facts. It can thus be concluded that by abolishing the bureaucratic activities Wal-Mart can efficiently help in make the retail market more cost effective and competitive. References Burrough, B. (2011, May 14). Behind the greening of wal-mart. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/15/business/15shelf.html?_r&_r=0. Croofot, A. (2011). Walmart rolling back on ethics. Retrieved from http://www.neumann.edu/academics/divisions/business/journal/Review2012/Crofoot.pdf. Department of Justice. (2013). Wal-mart pleads guilty to federal environmental crimes, admits civil violations and will pay more than. Retrieved from http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2013/May/13-enrd-611.html. DSE. (2013). Sustainability: Why we need to build the Sustainable State. Retrieved from http://www.dse.vic.gov.au/conservation-and-environment/sustainability. Feed the Future. (n.d.). Usaid and Walmart. Retrieved from http://www.feedthefuture.gov/model/usaid-and-walmart. Goodman, A., & Gonzalez, J. (2012). The bribery aisle: how wal-mart used payoffs to get its way in Mexico. Retrieved from http://www.nationofchange.org/bribery-aisle-how-wal-mart-used-payoffs-bribe-its-way-through-expansion-mexico-1356021619. Knowledge@Wharton. (2012). Everyone's problem: looking beyond the Wal-mart bribery case. Retrieved from http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2999. Lane, R. (2010). Professional ethics. Retrieved from www.westga.edu/~rlane/professional/lecture17_csr1.html. ? Rosenbloom, S., & Barbaro, M. (2009). Green-light specials, now at wal-mart. Retrieved from http://www.urbanfarm.org/blog/view/491-green-light-specials-now-at-wal-mart. Stone, K. E. (1997). Impact of the wal-mart phenomenon on rural communities. Retrieved from http://www2.econ.iastate.edu/faculty/stone/10yrstudy.pdf. Webhost, (2011). Walmart is always bad. Retrieved from http://webhost.bridgew.edu/jhayesboh/badbusiness.html. Glover, D. (2010). Valuing the environment: economics for a sustainable future. Ottawa: IDRC. Read More