Management Information Systems - Case Study Example

In this context, the metrics and standards must not be confused with feeling and religion. Ethical dilemma is a situation when a good step (or approach) from the viewpoint of one set of metrics and standards becomes wrong from another set of metrics and standards or vice versa. Wal-Mart has become a top retailer in the U.S.A. by inventing how to reduce the operational cost, implementing low prices for products and placing the inventory in the shop just in time. When Wal-Mart notices that associates scheduling using manual mode is expensive and ineffective, no doubt it will try to find a way to reduce the particular expense.

Implementation of digital technology for associate work scheduling by Wal-Mart cannot be considered as a wrong moral action. Wal-Mart’s moral action will be classified right, or wrong based on decisions that management implements in stores using the information that they receive from the Kronos system. Management uses information to reduce staff early in the day and increase staff during the midday rush. Management reduces staff again toward the end of the afternoon and increases again for an evening crowd (“Flexible Scheduling at Walmart”, n.d). This scheduling method implies that the Wal-Mart is holding an X number of workforce under its control and distributing all or a portion of it during the day based on the optimization rule on how to maximize the profit.

It should be noted that Wal-Mart is only paying the associates when they are at work. An additional benefit that Wal-Mart is bringing to its shareholders from this operation is money that the Company is not paying to the workforce while keeping them under its control. On one hand, Wal-Mart is fulfilling its responsibility to increase shareholders’ value; on the other hand, it is not fulfilling its responsibility to ensure workers welfare. Thus, the action is resulting conflicting moral obligations;