Cultural Dimensions of Wal-Mart - Case Study Example

The cultural dimension affects not only the human resources, but the company is also affected by the culture of the country/ region of its operation. There were widespread protests in December 2006 against the game, "Left Behind: Eternal Forces". This game was being marketed by Wal-Mart. The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations urged Wal-Mart to stop retailing this game. Their contention was that this video game propagated religious violence. The group reminded Wal-Mart of its corporate social responsibility to take along people of all culture and faith (UPI Security & Terrorism, 2006).

Headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas Wal-Mart Stores (Wal-Mart) is the largest retail chain in the world. Since it caters to a wide variety of customers, its HR strength too belongs to a wide range of culturally diverse groups and communities. The company operates retail stores in the form of supercenters, discount stores and neighborhood markets. Wal-Mart has its footprints in many big markets like US, UK, Canada, Brazil, Japan, China and Mexico. Besides the physical stores, the company also provides an opportunity to its customers to buy the products online from its website.

Since the company's market base is very wide, it is very crucial for the company to take care of the cultural values and emotions of different communities, ethnic groups and societies. For example, now a days the company is actively pursuing its ventures into the Indian market. From the marketing perspective Indian market is said to be a potential market, therefore taking fullest advantage of globalization of economy and rapid liberalization of Indian economy, most of the big companies/ MNCs are making it a point to see that their venture into Indian market sees light of the day as soon as possible.

Wal-Mart too is in talks with a leading Indian business group Bharti Enterprises Ltd. (Bharti) for exploring business opportunities in the Indian retail industry. Indians are supposed to be very much protective about their values and cultures, for example though a vast majority of Indians enjoy non-vegetarian food, but some non-vegetarian items like beef and pork a strict no-no in the public domain, because of religious reasons. These items are not supposed to be advertised in the media, not to be sold publicly.

Wal-Mart will have to take care of such sensibilities.In the context of cultural dimension, the 'Wal-Mart effect' is known to have a range of effects signifying the ways in which Wal-Mart carries out its business operations (Fishman, 2006). The Wal-Mart effect in essence is the reshaping of shopping habits, draining out of viability of traditional local shopping areas, downward pressure on the prices, and the success of a large business at the expense of its rivals. The company therefore tries to take into account the local character.

Some of the strengths of Wal-Mart are its strong market position in US, a world class supply chain, and a strong portfolio of private label products. Farra (2006), states that while the principles of retailing could be universal but the actual implementation of these principles varies from country to country based on country, culture and context. A study conducted by A T Kearney finds out that from 2002-06,