Negative Impact Of Wal-Mart On Small Local Businesses Report

A social problem is a situation hat a majority of the people view as being undesirable. All the people in a given society may agree about a social problem while some problems may only appear undesirable to a certain group of people. A social issue is a matter that touches on the entire society, as opposed to an individual issue. The similarity of social issues and problems are that both have magnitude that touches on the society at large. A social issue is a matter that touches on society and the consequences of it are yet to be felt. A social problem is a matter that affects the society and its effects are manifest and can be quantified.
Wal-Mart stores, though, has been accused of pushing small business out of town wherever it opens new branches; eliminating more jobs than it creates and increasing the tax burden to the affected communities. The multinational has also been accused of paying its workers below poverty lines wages; contributing to overall poverty of the society. These accusations against Wal-Mart have created a social problem to the small businesses and their employees; the implications of which affects the society in several ways. When small businesses close, they affect the source of income to the owners and workers.
The social problem identified with the business strategy of Wal-Mart is of a social conflict nature. Social conflict is where different parties opposes each other in the society for power. The parties oppose each other in social interaction, alternatively exerting social power in order to achieve scarce or mismatched goals while preventing the opponent to achieve the same. The action is tilted deliberately for carrying the actor’s self interest against resistance from other parties. Wal-Mart exerts its power of financial resources to offer customers cheap prices while the small businesses fight hard to prevent their customers from leaving. Since social conflicts are based on power, being the one with more financial muscle Wal-Mart finally wins and takes almost all of customers in the locality. The causes of this conflict are because Wal-Mart is capable of pricing its goods cheaply and eventually monopolizes the retail business and take away all customers in the location. The small businesses can not be able to offer the same prices to their customers like Wal-Mart and eventually looses all their customers and business to Wal-Mart.
The social conflicts that exist between Wal-Mart are of social magnitude and have economic implication too. To solve the problem and the implications are critical in addressing the social issues involved. Accordingly, there should be regulation on how much a chain store can discount its products to avoid un-healthy business competition. The regulators should seek to know whether discounts offered by Wal-Mart makes business sense or are intended to push small chains out of business. The other option for small businesses is to form a strategic partnership with suppliers to ensure that they too can get their supplies at a cheap price. Wal-Mart has a strong partnership with its suppliers that make it possible to acquire supplies at discounted prices. This enables them to offer competitive prices to their customers than small businesses. Either or both of these approaches will ensure that the disparity in prices offered by Wal-Mart and the small businesses is drastically reduced.
Sociological imagination helps in finding the most appropriate approach to a social problem based on its social context. There is little that small businesses can achieve through competition with a multinational such as Wal-Mart. Legislation can help regulate and discourage unfair business competition. Alternatively, since businesses operate in free markets, the other viable way is to advice the small business on how to be more competitive.