Walmart is an American Multinational retailer corporation which was founded in 1962, deals with running of warehouses and large discount stores. This corporation was previously known as Wal-Mart store, Inc but was rebranded in 2008 to Walmart. According to Fortune Global 500 list this year, Walmart is the world’s third largest public corporation. More so, it is the largest retail shop worldwide and is the largest private employer with over two million employees. The company is more or less family-owned, controlled by the Walton family who own about 48% of the Walmart. The company has stores in 15 countries making total of 8,500 stores that are all under 55 different names. The trademark only operates in 50 states of the United States and to an extent Puerto Rico. In other countries such as United Kingdom, the company operates under the name Asda, Seiyu in Japan, Walmex in Mexico and India s Best Price. In Canada, Brazil, and Argentina, the company has wholly owned operations. The investments in this of the company outside North America resulted in mixed result where in United Kingdom, china and in South America, the operations where highly successful while in South Korea and Germany the venture of the company were unsuccessful. In 2010 financial year, the company’s largest division, Walmart Sores US, accounted for two hundred as fifty eight billion dollars equivalent to 63.8%. This branch is composed of three retail, the discount store, Walmart Market, and supercenters, which have become exceedingly common in the United States. This paper is a critical essay that is going to look at the ins and out of Walmart company, focusing on the positive and the negative aspects.
Intangible performance of a company in a social setting could mean the social responsibility of a company. A company’s social responsibility is where by a company integrates a form of self-regulation into its business model. The policy of a company social responsibility (CRS) functions built in, self-regulated mechanism in which the company ensures and monitors its activities are compliance ethical standards, the spirit of the law and international norms. The purpose of this CRS is to make sure that the company is responsible of its actions and encourage constructive impact through activities in the environment, employees, stakeholders, consumers and other members of the society that may be regarded as stakeholders (Ihlen, Bartlett & May, 2011). The Walmart Corporation has derived a number of ways to meet its corporate responsibility within the society. Some of the methods they have devised have influenced the society in a number of ways, either profitable to the company, positive or negative.
Walmart has devised a number of plans that have seen the company change a number of its strategies over the years. One of this could be its vigilance in environ mental management. Last year alone the company reduced 80% of waste generated by United States operations, and this prevented 11.8 metric tons of carbon dioxide emitted annually (2012 Walmart GRR – Top 10). More so, the company has managed the environment through its conservation of energy. This has been by their efforts to work into reducing their energy use and the emission of green house gasses. Through the company’s investment in this area, they have ensured a clean environment, brought in new technology in the market and saved it customer’s money. Environmental management has as well been through the management of its product. This is through offering a more sustainable product through examining the full life cycle of a product, through raw materials, how it is made, and how its end product is used (Ihlen, Bartlett & May, 2011).
Another sector where the company has involved itself in social responsibility is through the program involving supporting women around the world. This program focuses on women’s economic empowerment initiative (2012 Walmart GRR – Top 10). This method was introduced a year ago when the company was looking into ways in which they would increase economic opportunities for women. This was by either by improving women’s education, employment and increasing their business opportunities. The company focused on women empowerment because they believed it was the road to breaking the cycle of poverty and the living standard of a family. Through this program, the company wanted to realize a five years plan that would see them source twenty billion from women. This is through sourcing from women owed businesses globally. Empowering about 60,000 women in factories and farms through training, career opportunities and market access, also makes the 5years plan. This program has cost the company a couple of billions, but in the long run, it is going to see the company accumulate profit in the next five years.
Another form of social intangible performance of Walmart is the production of healthier food for its customers. The program serves the customer responsibly because it focused in saving its customers money through a better life (2012 Walmart GRR – Top 10). This is through its efforts in reducing the cost and providing healthier and safe products as well as observing environmental regulation guidelines. The company implemented this program to ensure that no family or individual who would have to choose between healthier foods and food they can afford. For many people around the world, this is not realty, therefore, from this program all families were going to get access to a healthier and affordable food. This program is going to see into healthier foods by improving the quality of the nutrients of the great value brands and national food brands. This through, reducing the amount of added sugar in foods by 10%, reducing 25% of sodium as well as reduce the amount of trans fats generated during industrial processing. Affordable prices, on the other hand, are met the through variety of initiatives such as pricing, sourcing and logistics (Ihlen, Bartlett & May, 2011).
Although Walmart has provided some profitable and positive corporate responsible programs, it has failed to address some socials issues that have led to many critics on the companies face. Over the years, the company has been perceived negatively in some accusations of all modes of indecency. These accusations include Discrimination in favor of Latinos, Blocking unionization, discrimination against women and not providing health care insurance to low income workers (Ihlen, Bartlett & May, 2011). These among others are examples of intangible social performances that the company is involved.
Impacts and Implications of the Company actions on Society and
Stakeholders.
The framework of a stakeholder in a company is composed of internal and external stakeholders. Where, internal stakeholders are such as the board directors, employees and managers while internal stakeholders are the customers, regulators, special interest groups and other concerned groups. Ethical issues may develop within Walmart exist due to conflict in belief and value patterns about right and wrong within the stakeholders. Through implementations of these corporate social strategies, the company’s stakeholders have been affected as well the society. A company like Walmart is composed of multiple stakeholders, and they affect and influence Walmart’s approach on social responsibility awareness. Aside from being the biggest and growing company in the world, Walmart, represents a wide range of domestic and international corporate social responsibility concerns. The company’s stakeholders are responsible for the many policies and decisions that are implemented in order of maintaining the company’s business strategy of minimizing costs (Werther & Chandler, 2011). When considering the impacts of Walmart’s social responsibility on it various stakeholders one looks at perspectives such as suppliers, prices, variety, quality, and competitors. Over the years, Walmart has suffered criticism in a number of cases, for example, insensitivity to local communities and employees. This accusation caused the company to suffer affecting its growth in turn affecting the stakeholders. More so, the need for consumer’s affordable foods has been achieved. The method used to achieve this will have a long lasting effect on the company, and will be likely viewed as negative by stakeholders. During the implementation of social responsible programs, the stakeholders generate the strategies they need to follow to avoid a failure while trying to be responsible. Losses incurred affect the company, and in the end, it affects the stakeholders; therefore, they are always vigilant on where the creating program will place the company in the future (Werther & Chandler, 2011).
When looking at the impacts of social responsibilities of this company, we ask is Walmart suitable for society? Many of the consumers of this retail company want low priced and healthy foods. One of the corporate responsibilities the company has progressed in is the provision of healthy and affordable food. More so, through corporate responsibility, the society has benefited in the provision of jobs in regions that are economically deprived, wide range of product, lower prices of goods to consumers, increased productivity, and redefinition of supply chain management. In the environment, the company has showed social responsibility being accountable to any actions they take that impact negatively on the environment (Werther & Chandler, 2011) Most of the responsibilities carried out by Walmart show the company’s role in social accounting.
Conclusion
The purpose of social intangible performance is to show that the company is capable of taking responsibility for its actions. Furthermore, corporate responsibility does aid in achieving the organization mission as well as uphold the company’s customers and help in realizing and guiding the company’s stand. By providing health insurance to its employees, Walmart showed responsibility to its employees. More so, taking on environmental conservation is a critical step in taking on its responsibilities full. Companies today need to realize the importance of corporate responsibility. Walmart Corporation is following into the steps of Social Responsibility guidelines. The first step is philanthropic, which is giving back to the society. Second step involves ethics, where the company follows the acceptable behavior judged by stakeholders. Third step involves legality measures, which entails abiding government measures and the law and lastly economic which involves maximizing stakeholder wealth and value.
2012 Walmart GRR – Top 10. (n.d.). Walmart Stores – we save people money so they can live better..
Retrieved July 31, 2012, from http://www.walmartstores.com/sites/responsibility-
report/2012/top10.aspx
Ihlen, Ø., Bartlett, J., & May, S. (2011). The handbook of communication and corporate social
responsibility. Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell.
