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The importance of human resources
The role of business ethics in the corporate world
Business ethics quizlet
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Global Business and Ethics
1. Any company doing business in the United States and abroad has a responsibility to be socially responsible. This responsibility is guided by business ethics basic values that guide a firm's behavior. These ethics come into all decisions made by businesses. Including what goes into the products, how they are advertised and sold, and how they are disposed of. Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, is the largest corporation and private employer in the United States. Wal-Mart is consistently listed among America's most admired companies by Fortune magazine. At the same time, it is frequently the target of criticism for its employment practices and its effect on the larger economy and community. How should consumers evaluate these issues? Is it ethical to shop at Wal-Mart? (http://www.scu.edu/ethics/publications/ethicalperspectives/wal-mart.html)
Wal-Mart can both be seen as socially responsible and also unethical. Wal-Mart makes headlines almost everyday with stories of hiring illegal immigrants, gender discrimination, low wages, and pushing smaller stores out of business. This is only one side of the story, however. Passing along the gains of its brilliant distribution system to consumers, its farsighted managers have done nothing less than democratize the American dream. Its low prices are spurring productivity and helping win the fight against inflation. It is America's most admired company. (http://www.scu.edu/ethics/publications/ethicalperspectives/wal-mart.html)
According to Forbes magazine Wal-Mart, last year alone, gave $140 million to non-profit organizations. Also, Wal-Mart received the Ron Brown Award for Corporate Leadership that recognizes with outstanding achievement in empl...
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...rd for trying to remove unsafe and unfair working conditions in factories in foreign countries.
5. I plan on getting into the Human Resource Management field. My field could be largely impacted by companies going more global. I am very interested in working with a company where I not only handle hiring procedures and benefits but also safety procedures. If the company I work for is in the global market I would have to know different safety procedures for domestic and international procedures. The procedures could very greatly because of different international laws. Also, depending on my responsibilities I could be responsible for hiring in these foreign markets. I would have a possible language barrier to deal with as well as matching the best candidate for the job. I would be very excited if I had to undertake all these aspects of a foreign market in my job.
Besides all the points that I have stated, Wal-Mart has had to pay fines due to breaking Child Labor laws and Illegal Immigrant laws; fines up to $11.5 million for just those two types of laws. Wal-Mart is not good for this economy, for the people, and the company, in a whole, is criminal. If the people let Wal-Mart stay on the track it is on, the United States will not have anything but Wal-Marts. Wal-Mart will become a monopoly and put everyone, who started with something more than greed, out-of-business.
But Wal-Mart’s care for us goes beyond that simple relationship. As many of us have seen if we have been to a Wal-Mart, they hire people who normally would not be able to get a job. The company knows that by broadcasting itself as positive and helpful in nature it can increase its revenue and in turn increase the amount of assistance it provides to us the consumer. “In 2004 Wal-Mart donated over $170 million. More than 90 percent of these donations went to charities in the communities served by Wal-Mart stores.’ Even more heartfelt than this, Wal-Mart was the leader in goods based relief efforts for victims of hurricane Katrina. “Walmart’s response to the hurricane was lauded even by its critics: it donated more than $20 million worth of merchandise, including food for 100,000 meals, and it promised jobs for all of its displaced workers.” And the first supply truck to arrive at the superdome was a Wal-Mart truck.
A prior market firm used by Wal-mart (GSD&M) warned Wal-mart of the public image issues they were facing and had not addressed, even though they had been advised of them for over two years. GSD&M wrote in one review to the company that “sadly, after two years of empty rhetoric and ineffective publicity stunts, we now know that Wal-Mart has not only needlessly hurt its Associates and their families, but has pointlessly hurt the image and success that Sam Walton built.” (wakeupWalMart.com, 2007). Wal-mart has acted in a manner that blends with the theory of egoism. This theory “sets as its goal the benefit, pleasure, or greatest good of the oneself alone.” (wofford.edu, 1997). “Egoist use personal advantage…as the standard for measuring an action’s rightness.” (Shaw, 2008, p. 45). Clearly Wal-mart today is acting with interests geared toward their personal advantage and not considering the wreckage it is leaving all around them.
In conclusion, I agree with the noted shortcomings of Wal-Mart. But, I don't think people can argue that it's unethical to shop at Wal-Mart, that anyone who shops at Wal-Mart is unethical or believe it is ethical to point the figure at those who do shop at Wal-Mart. I suggest everyone first check their values and then their investments, and they'll discover they probably are supporting Wal-Mart, a company they believe is evil, via 401Ks or mutual funds.
Wal-Mart represents the sickness of capitalism at its almost fully evolved state. As Jim Hightower said, "Why single out Wal-Mart? Because it's a hog. Despite the homespun image it cultivates in its ads, it operates with an arrogance and avarice that would make Enron blush and John D. Rockefeller envious. It's the world's biggest retail corporation and America's largest private employer; Sam Robson Walton, a member of the ruling family, is one of the richest people on earth. Wal-Mart and the Waltons got to the top the old-fashioned way: by roughing people up. Their low, low prices are the product of two ruthless commandments: Extract the last penny possible from human toil and squeeze the last dime from its thousands of suppliers, who are left with no profit margin unless they adopt the Wal-Mart model of using nonunion labor and shipping production to low-wage hellholes abroad." (The Nation, March 4th 2002 www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020304&s=hightower).
Corporation has is to increase profits for its stockholders. Through a utilitarian perspective, we can see that Wal-Mart is acts in a way to product the greatest possible balance of good over dissatisfaction for their stockholders. Wal-Mart upholds the fiduciary duties to their stockholders by not increasing wages of their employees, instead they take the sum of money and return it back to their stockholders and shareholders such as customers and suppliers. Wal-Mart creates the happiness for the amount of people who invest in the company. Ethics is about the consequences of an action and the consequence of Wal-Mart’s actions creates the greatest amount of good for the people who are the primary stockholders of the corporation.
Today Wal-mart has a higher GDP than the entire country of Switzerland, but don’t worry they’re pretty neutral about it. But there has also been news about how they treat there employees. In 2004 an article was released entitled Everyday Low Wages: The Hidden Price We All Pay for Wal-Mart, and soon after Washington got involved. The bad publicity took a toll on Wal-mart and in fact is still today, Maryland passed a law in January, 2006, that said larger employers, such as Wal-mart, must spend at least 8% of their payroll on health benefits for their employees, and now many other states have followed suit. The bad publicity also made it so 8% of customers shop elsewhere because of what they’ve heard, this has caused lower expected sales around the holidays during 2004, and 2005. Some things they’ve done is in 2006 they paid employees on average 9.36 dollars, while other major retailers like Target and Sears pay on average 11.08 dollars. While this can be easily denied by Wal-mart, another way they have gained bad publicity is from something called off-the-clock work. If they had not finished their job they had to clock out and then still finish their job, meaning they wouldn’t get paid for
Many have complained about Walmart shrewd business practices to maintain its competitive edge and the loss it has brought to communities because of jobs lost to overseas suppliers. In the documentary, the question of Is Walmart good for America can be summed up in the statement that “Walmart is giving the American people what they want, low prices, to save money and to live better.” Walmart defends against those who would argue that Walmart has been bad for working class Americans because it has lower their standard of living. Walmart however states that that they have rather raised the standard of living for the American people by providing affordable products to its consumers. Brink Lindsey, economist in the documentary sums it up as “Walmart is good for America. Walmart is doing what America is all about, what the American market economy is all about, which is producing things consumers want to buy. Walmart is offering consumers a wide range of goods at rock bottom prices and therefore meeting the market test.” (PBS Frontline,
Walmart has had a long-standing presence in America society since the middle of the 20th century, seen as a place to get everything done, Walmart has become a fixation in our society. From grocery shopping, to changing your oil and even filing your annual tax returns, Walmart is always there, everyday. Started by Sam Walton in 1962, it began as a small operation catering to a small Arkansas community. It was started on principles very similar to small local businesses in small towns. Today Walmart has gotten a different, darker reputation. On the surface, Walmart may seem like the solution to everyday issues. Low-income families are attracted to the low prices, and people who work odd hours benefit greatly from the 24 hours a day that many Walmarts are open. Lately, Walmart has also managed to be publicly recognized as a store that sells many of today’s green products, including organic food, environmental conscious cleaning products, as well as, paper products made from recycled paper. However, underneath all this, Walmart has a different side. Exploitation of its workers is widespread amongst Walmarts who do not belong to a union, especially in the United States. Wal...
“Doing the right thing and doing things right” (Devin) spoken by their CEO at a conference on their profits and annual reports, however this does not pertain to their employees or their suppliers even though he states “the Wal-Mart way is to stay the course, because Wal-Mart is too important to individual families that are stretching a budget, to important to the suppliers who employee millions of people, to important our associates who we value and love so much." (Devin). Wal-Mart values its employees and suppliers so much; “since 2011, Wal-Mart has spent over $35 million and hired more than 300 outside lawyers, accountants, and investigators to deal with bribery issues” (Sethi) and Wal-Mart’s “penalties under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and Securities Exchange Commission regulatory filings are likely to be in the $100 millions, which is such a small fraction of Wal-Mart’s earnings” (Sethi). If only this mega retailer could reinvest this negative...
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is in the discount, variety stores industry. It was founded in 1945, Bentonville in Arkansas which is also the headquarters of Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart operates locally as well as worldwide. It operated 1209 discount stores, 1980 super centers, and 567 Sam’s Club by January 31, 2006. It has also extended its operations to many international countries. It runs its retail stores in two forms: Sam’s Club and Wal-Mart Stores. The Sam’s Club sells assorted product lines such as hardwares, electronics, jewelry, and to mention a few. The Wal-Mart stores also offer similar products in addition to the following: health and beauty products, apparel for women, men and children, household appliances etc (www.yahoo.finance.com). The Vision Statement, Mission Statement, Values and Code of Conduct, Corporate Governance: Directors, Executive Management, Committees and Stakeholder will be the key elements that will discussed in this report as it relates to Wal-Mart. In addition to that, the major trends in the general/macro environment and industry will be analyzed.
There is only a small portion of the CSR that mentions bribery and/or corruption, we feel this is a weakness because Walmart has had some very public scandals involving bribery, most recently in getting their Mexico stores built. The weakness of not addressing the disadvantage their suppliers have because of Walmart policies. K. Evans states, “Wal-Mart subjects its suppliers to strict regulations on product quality and employee working conditions, for example, which add production time and increase overhead for the suppliers. Their competitors, meanwhile, can operate at lower costs and turn out products more quickly” (Evans). We found the lack of emphasis on employees to be a weakness in the CSR because there is no mention of employees being able to earn shares in the company, or any opportunity for advancement. Lastly, when we were reading through the Global Report we realized that it mostly focused on North American operations and fails to address the operations they have in other parts of the world. Why is there no discussion about the other places that fall under their umbrella but are outside of North
While keeping in mind they are a business which rely on profits. Walmart is a popular company that is known for their low prices. This corporation is also known for giving back to communities by making charitable contributions of 100,000 grants annually, as well providing disaster relief to various countries burdened by disasters and donated $100 million dollars to neighborhoods and law enforcement agencies. They also provide employees with college grants to obtain a two or four year college degree, Walmart is investing in their employees by giving them an advantage in their future. Walmart has also found ways to reduce waste by creating materials that are nontoxic and are recyclable friendly. With the use of sustainability, strategic philanthropy, causing marketing, shared values and stakeholder that is why this company was ranked number one by Forbes list in
The success of Walmart is openly related to its leadership and culture. The company’s indispensable viewpoints on economics and worth of money. It was recognized to be a culture that flourished on its thoughtfulness to aspect and repeat cost saving that are passed straight to the shoppers (Ckewa, Martin & Wells, 2015).
Walmart has been plagued with issues that have only been detrimental to its image, and it is because its ethical culture of