Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
walmart effect essay
The Wal-Mart effect: Poison or antidote for local communities?
The Wal-Mart effect: Poison or antidote for local communities?
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: walmart effect essay
“Our competitors are better because Wal-Mart exists” stated by the chief financial officer of Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is a retail store, which provides groceries, electronics, household appliances, and high quality items to consumers. The retail chain has made a household name within every house by selling products all over the world at a bargain price. Wal-Mart’s strength and pace of growth contributed to a retail store in every city and state across America. Wal-Mart is a powerful conglomerate, which contributes to businesses and people on a global scale through supporting the economy, creating jobs, and bettering the lives of millions. Wal-Mart is a place where millions of consumers shop daily. When people shop at a huge retailer such as Wal-Mart it is evident to see they are helping the economy by keeping the largest retail chain in the nation for business. Wal-Mart supports the economy by having supercenters all around the globe, which creates stores, jobs, income, and profits. A chain of events occurs which benefits the economy, and betters the lives of millions. Wal-Mart “has opened an average of 16 new super centers a month for five years.” [Fishman.Pg 3] The growth rate of the company is substantially higher than any other company in the world. Wal-Mart helps factory workers and companies by providing mass amount of job opportunities. Stated from the passage of Wal-Mart effect by Fishman: “It reaches deep inside the operations of the companies that supply it and changes not only what they sell, but also changes how those products are packaged and presented, what the lives of the factory workers who make the products are like it even sometimes changes the countries where those factories are located”[Fishman.pg2]. The excerpt f... ... middle of paper ... ...ought revolutionizing education to the industry by cutting net losses, increasing profits, and going green which benefits the environment. The retail chain makes the capitalism look glorious. Through all the actions which the store has made have been capitalistic, yet it shows people that capitalism is needed to improve our economy and create jobs. From the intense competition, which creates, supply and demand to the creation of millions of jobs. Are you persuaded now that Wal-Mart is beneficial to our society? Works Cited 1. Pfeffer, Jeffrey. "Human resources from an organizational behavior perspective: Some paradoxes explained." The Journal of Economic Perspectives 21.4 (2007): 115-134. 2. Fishman, Charles. The Wal-Mart Effect: How the World's Most Powerful Company Really Works-- and How It's Transforming the American Economy. New York: Penguin, 2006. Print.
I don't see Wal-Mart as a huge retailer trying to take over the world with cheap prices. I see Wal-Mart as business that has played their cards the way they were dealt. Our economy is poor right now; banks are hurting because people a...
Quinn, Bill. How Walmart Is Destroying America (and the world), And What You Can Do About It. Third Edition. Ten Speed Press, 2005. Print.
Living under poverty circumstances, workers most likely live in small apartments, drive beat down cars, and have filed for bankruptcy. However, at the end of the day they can't get low prices they cant even afford. Although I do not agree with this business model I have a job and it helps me pay for my expenses; I have no choice. Many others in my positions are losing out on gains that we can only hope to share on in the future. Critics should prevent Wal-Mart from opening new branches because ordinary families and their own workers will never in share in those gains under poverty conditions.
Walmart is bad for America, as some say. The Globalization essay that was handed out in class had many good points. It states that Walmart puts many smaller businesses out of service. A recent study by David Neumark of the University of California at Irvine and two associates at the Public Policy Institute of California, "The Effects of Wal-Mart on Local Labor Markets," uses sophisticated statistical analysis to estimate the effects on jobs and wages as Wal-Mart spread out from its original center in Arkansas. The authors find that retail employmen...
The simple question, is Walmart good for America. My classmates whose views differ from mine are more concerned with a few individuals that Wal-Mart may have had an adverse effect on. These people are only a small part of what makes up The United States of America, this question is for the greater good of the country not a few individual who need to better adapt to changing times. Wal-Mart is good for America, because it keeps us involved in world trade, sustaining our economy, the corporation is groundbreaking constantly, applying new innovations and efficiencies, and it keep the interests of the consumer to heart.
Wal-Mart is one of the largest corporations in the world, and leads the pack of American retail stores in terms of size and sales income. The size of Wal-Mart allows the store to provide consumers with lower prices than most other retail chains, and much lower prices than small, "mom and pop" stores. Because of these reasons, is Wal-Mart a help or a hindrance; should Wal-Mart be given special consideration (i.e. tax breaks, location decisions); and should Wal-Mart be held responsible for improving economic and social conditions in communities in which it operates?
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).
Wal-Mart’s mission statement is simple and to the point “We save people money so they can live better”
...be purchased at discount prices, saving people money they can choose to spend elsewhere or even save. While saving customers time and money, Wal-Mart also contributes to the local economy by adding countless employment opportunities to the communities where they are established. Wal-Mart is also there to help local, national, and worldwide charitable organizations through its philanthropic foundations and partnerships. Aside from these benefits, who can argue with the sheer fun of the come as you are atmosphere of the store and its diverse employment standards? Nowhere else can you go shopping and people watch then at your local Wal-Mart store.
Dicker, John. The United States of Wal-Mart. New york: Penquin Group Inc., 2005. 21-59. Print.
Walmart is one of the most successful franchises of all time and continues to take fire from multiple angles, whether it’s about the costing of jobs, the wages, the health insurance, the small business destruction, or the environmental impact, but can always back itself up by negating those claims with facts that proves that it is beneficial to the community.
Wal-Mart is beneficial to many types of people. Wal-Mart is good for the economy and good to it workers. Wal-Mart hires many people from different walks of life and offers their workers many benefits that others retailers don’t offer. Wal-Mart with their low prices benefits consumers and help consumers to save. Wal-Mart is a positive to local economies and improves profits of local businesses. Wal-Mart is not a monster as critics’ states and all these attacks by critics are incorrect. Wal-Mart is not perfect but it is better than most of the other corporations.
“Up Against Wal-Mart” by Karen Olsson, a senior editor at Texas Monthly and who’s article appeared in Mother Jones, introduces her article through the perspective of a Wal-Mart worker. She focuses on the negatives of Wal-Mart by telling the real life struggles of different Wal-Mart employees. “Progressive Wal-Mart. Really.” by Sebastian Mallaby, a columnist for the Washington Post, focuses his article on what Wal-Mart critics say and attempts to defend Wal-Mart by comparing Wal-Mart to other retailers. Even though Karen Olsson and Sebastian Mallaby both examine the negative effects of Wal-Mart, Olsson berates Wal-Mart’s unfair treatment towards employees and the unlivable wages that the world’s largest retailer provides while Mallaby defends Wal-Mart’s actions with reasonable statistics.
In 1962, Wal-Mart opened their first store in Rogers, Arkansas. In 1970, Wal-Mart's first distribution center and home office in Bentonville, Ark. open and Wal-Mart went public on the New York Stock Exchange. Just nine years from that, Wal-Mart's annual sales exceeded one billion dollars. In 1988, Wal-Mart super centers opened across the country. In a merely three years from that, Wal-Mart opened their own store in Mexico City, Mexico; making Wal-Mart an international corporation. Not even sixty years has past, and yet, Wal-Mart is over-powering our country.
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...