...John Edwards ENGL 1013 Composition 1 4/28/2012 Argumentative Synthesis “Up Against Wal-Mart” “Progressive Wal-Mart. Really.” Profiting an average of 1.8 million every hour, managing 2.2 million employees in over 11,000 stores in 27 countries, according to Fortune Global 500 list in 2014; Wal-Mart is the worlds largest company by revenue. Author Karren Olsson, “Up Against Wal-Mart”, hearsays for Wal-Mart employees and their supposedly unfair treatment. This opinion of Olssons is quite convincing; especially considering the borderline argument that Wal-Mart should become a union workforce due to their off the clock, low paid, overwhelming workloads. Sebastian Mallaby, author of “Progressive Wal-Mart. Really.” and columnist for the Washing Post, finds views such as Olssons comically dysfunctional. Mallaby’s brief article overrides these skeptical cruel theories towards Wal-Mart by explaining globalization. Wal-Mart’s globalizing economic decisions for the underprivileged leads Sam Walton’s idea wanting to not only build America but moreover, build the world. Confident in Wal-Mart being a cruel company, Olsson provides multiple miserable quotes from employees. For instance, introducing her essay is the portrayal of Jennifer McLaughlin, one that “wears wide-leg jeans and spiky plastic chokers, dyes her hair dark red, and works at Wal-Mart”(606). McLaughlin’s day-to-day demands from managers may be to “hop on a mechanical lift to retrieve something from a high shelf, catch...
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...Karen Olsson’s Up Against Wal-Mart: Advocacy for the People Karen Olsson the author of an essay called Up Against Wal-Mart where Olsson posits the employees of Wal-Mart are quite literally “up against Wal-Mart”. Olsson goes on further to provide authoritative evidence to Wal-Mart's questionable practices in regards to the treatment of its employees. More specifically Olsson goes on to point out the success that Wal-Mart has achieved; the questionable practices involved in preventing employees from unionizing; and lastly the quality of life of the underpaid and overworked employees of Wal-Mart. According to Olsson Wal-Mart’s growth from a single retail store in 1962 to 3,372 stores as of 2006; is owed to the visionary and founder of Wal-Mart, Sam Walton (608,611.) To better understand the mentality of Wal-Mart in its current state of questionable staffing and pay you first have to understand how this company originated. As Olsson explains it Walton who constantly looked for ways to maximize profit and minimize expenses based his business on a fairly simple yet successful business model. That model being one in which high sales volume at lower prices generates greater profit margins. Walton’s frugality extended beyond just the selling of goods and making profit. He looked for ways to keep overhead down, payroll down, and even the personal indulgences a CEO of company might typically have. Olsson paints this very image of Walton: “The company grew, in no small part, by . . ....
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...WALMART Andrew Louis Webster University MNGT 5650 Kenneth Chapman Wal-Mart study Case#1 1. What threats and challenges is Wal-Mart currently facing? From the beginning, Walmart did not have many threats. However, not only the competition is different, several global retailers such as Target, Carrefour, Costco, and Amazon, are working hard to keep efficiency. They are trying to work together to shrink the prices difference between them. Walmart has facing difficulties from every single angle. Not only the company has internal labor relation problems, but also it has some external threats from its competitors. The company must work hard to get possible solutions against its competitors, and to solve any internal problems regarding its labor relations. Even though Walmart does not have any problems with its good sales performance, it does not stop the company to have issues with sales. Walmart needs to pay attention because there are too many claims from women regarding the lawsuit discrimination for several reasons inside the company such as pay, promotions, and training. The company has no other recourses to re-evaluate the situation to make its employees feel better as far as the coverage is concerned. There are several companies in the United States that offer better health insurance coverage than Walmart does. As a result, a re-evaluation is necessary so that associates can pay less with a higher contribution of the company. Life insurance is important for...
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...The culture and organizational behavior of Wal-Mart has many consumers questioning the integrity of the company. Wal-Mart has seen itself in some of the nations largest suits. Wal-Mart has been harshly criticized in the public eye for over a decade now. The companies brand is a stake and Wal-Mart is fighting to change their reputation it day in and day out. It appears that Wal-Mart grew too big too fast and never planned on this rapid growth. They were not prepared for what the growth entailed and made several large detrimental mistakes along the way. Wal-Mart opened its doors in 1962 by founder Sam Walton. In just 5 short years he had expanded his company to 24 stores in its home state of Arkansas. Wal-Mart saw increasingly rapid growth in the United States and expanded to international territories in the 1980s. Wal-Mart has become the world’s largest corporation and is consistently listed as a Fortune 500 company. Given its size Wal-Mart handles relationships with stakeholders, unions, communities, religous affiliations, and political groups. Wal-Mart is constantly in the public eye and is being criticized for its business policies and procedures. These complaints have stemmed from worker’s compensation law suits, employee benefits lawsuits and failure to comply with the equal employment opportunity act. Advocacy groups called Wake-Up Wal-Mart and Wal-Mart Watch were formed in 2005 in efforts of bringing realization to Wal-Mart’s disgrunteled employees (cite pg3#3)...
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...Is Wal-Mart an evil empire? Wal-Mart is the largest retailer in the world, the biggest private-sector employer in North America, and one of the most dominant and influential corporations in the America. It has become one of America's most successful retail chains by offering everyday goods at low prices for working families, and despite all of its financial successes, the company can’t open a store without enduring -- and overcoming -- a flood of protest groups. These groups might defend the environment or local store owners, or they might defend the store’s future employees, since Wal-Mart’s reputation for unfair labor practices involves sexual discrimination, denying unionization and offering wages so terrible that some employees have to rely on social services to get by. Although Wal-Mart portrays an image of servitude and charity to the community, this multi-million corporation is responsible for inhumane, unjust and shameful practices in the United States and abroad, and whether people Love it or hate it, Wal-Mart is, in many places and for many people, inescapable. Much like work and taxes and eventual death. There is no question that Wal-Mart's relentless drive to squeeze out costs has benefited consumers, but Some experts contend Wal-Mart's "everyday low prices" are causing a clash between the interests of Americans as workers and the desires of Americans as consumers. "If people were only consumers, buying things at lower prices would be just good...
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...Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is the largest retail company in the United States and has been ranked number one on the Fortune 500 Index by Fortune Magazine. Wal-Mart has four parts to their corporate strategy. 1. Dominance in the Retail Market 2. Expansion in the U.S. and International Markets 3. Creation of Positive Brand and Company Recognition 4. Branch Out into New Sectors of Retail While Wal-Mart’s public affairs strategy works well with its corporate strategy. I feel that there are a few recommendations which could make the company work better. Recently, Wal-Mart has been criticized for their opposition to allowing their employees to be unionized. I have concerned some problems occurred in the moment in Walmart and these concerns must be addressed if Wal-Mart is to enjoy continued success in creating positive name recognition. 1. For the past decade walmart has been ranked as the world’s largest employee and which creates more job opportunities for workers than no other. Walmart has high ranked on Fortune Magazine’s list of “Most Admired Companies”. 2. Company gives bonuses, profit shares for most of the employees and part time workers are also eligible for health benefits. Most of the employees were entitled to the benefits offered by the company despite of their designation. 3. As most multinational corporations, Walmart is highly diversified company; hence it was recognized among most professional organizations. Walmart was also famous in gender diversification...
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...Wal-Mart study Case#1 1. What threats and challenges is Wal-Mart currently facing? From the beginning, Walmart did not have many threats. However, not only the competition is different, several global retailers such as Target, Carrefour, Costco, and Amazon, are working hard to keep efficiency. They are trying to work together to shrink the prices difference between them. Walmart has facing difficulties from every single angle. Not only the company has internal labor relation problems, but also it has some external threats from its competitors. The company must work hard to get possible solutions against its competitors, and to solve any internal problems regarding its labor relations. Even though Walmart does not have any problems with its good sales performance, it does not stop the company to have issues with sales. Walmart needs to pay attention because there are too many claims from women regarding the lawsuit discrimination for several reasons inside the company such as pay, promotions, and training. The company has no other recourses to re-evaluate the situation to make its employees feel better as far as the coverage is concerned. There are several companies in the United States that offer better health insurance coverage than Walmart does. As a result, a re-evaluation is necessary so that associates can pay less with a higher contribution of the company. Life insurance is important for every single employee within an organization. An employee with no good life...
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...Wal-Mart wants to continue to be number one so its leadership always emphasizes innovation as a way to build same store sales so the authority to make decisions on new product to their purchaser making the process simple and faster than any of their competitors in the retail market. Wal-Mart buyers have enormous responsibility and decision-making authority over their categories. Generally, the new product placement processes is incredibly simple - meet with the buyers for 30 minutes and make your pitch. If the buyers like it, then the product goes into the next modular. In most cases they will test your concept in stores where you feel it will best fit the consumer's needs. If they don't like it, they will simply say "no" and in many cases tell you why. There are no "buying committees" and nobody micromanages buyers, so products hit the shelves faster to better serve customers and Wal-Mart doesn't charge slotting fees. Slotting fees are set up charge that drives billions of dollars into retailers' bottom lines. The problem with slotting fees is that they blunt innovation. Manufacturers have enough risk in developing and launching new products without having to make the additional investment in non-working slotting dollars. Wal-Mart recognizes the harm that slotting fees does to innovation and the fact that those fees will need to be covered by higher prices, which is bad for consumers too. Wal-Mart has over 200,000 sq. ft. of space available for experimenting with new items...
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...Workplace,Business & Ethics on evaluation of job ethical standards in Wal-Mart in South Carolina In Partial Fulfillment of Business Research and Project BUS 499 Nagliesha L Miles Supervisor: Dr. Mmutakaego Chukwuanu Allen University Date: December 8,2010 Table of content Table of Content...............................................................................................................2 Abstract............................................................................................................................3 List of Illustrations Wal-Mart earnings preview......................................................................................13 U.S Retail food pricing.................................................................................14 Chapter 1 Introduction.....................................................................................................................5 Background information.......................................................................................5 Statement of problem............................................................................................5 Hypothesis............................................................................................................6 Chapter 2 Literature Review...........................................................................................................8 Chapter 3 Methodology.................................................
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...The Buzz on Wal-Mart Wal-mart is a store where millions of people love to shop. You see commercials all over the T.V that advertise their many low prices, their many holiday accessories, and their “save time, save money” deal. Wal-mart is loved by many shoppers around the world including me. You would think that Wal-mart had it all together behind the scenes, but there are so many controversies that Wal-mart is up against, that if it gets too out of hand it might just make Wal-mart the least store shopped. The reason why Wal-mart is so popular is because of their low prices and most of all their convenience. Wal-mart is very convenient, whether its clothes, food, foot wear, technology, things for the home, entertainment, or things for your car, Wal-mart supplies it. Another reason being as to why Wal-mart is convenient is because they have stores set up everywhere you turn around. In the state of Kentucky alone, there are Wal-mart stores located in almost every county. Wal-mart has been a life saver for most people because many of the people that go to Wal-mart have a family, and with Wal-mart’s low prices and great deals on certain things, they make shopping easier for an individual of the working class. I have been a shopper of Wal-mart for about 7 years in counting and I love shopping there. If it is not every day, it is every other day that I am there getting things that I need, things that I want, or simply just browsing around the store...
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...manifest itself in terms of labor relations and corporate responsibility. Such is the case for Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Some groups maintain the position that Wal-Mart is terrible for poor Americans, while others assert that they are a progressive success story. In the article Up Against Wal-Mart, Karen Olsson communicates that Wal-Mart is detrimental to its employees by being anti-union. She utilizes an expansive array of facts, quotes, and statistics to persuade readers that Wal-Mart has little concern for its employees or environment in which they operate. On the other hand, Sebastian Mallaby argues in his article Progressive Wal-Mart. Really. the pay, opportunities, and perks the company offers to its employees must serve its goal for long-term growth and profitability. He does this in a succinct, sometimes argumentative, fashion by rebuking specific attacks on the way in which they conduct business. Within their own writing styles, each author expresses different points of views regarding Wal-Mart’s healthcare policies, compensation plans, and its effects upon the communities and economies in which it operates. Many people are under the impression that employers are responsible for the healthcare cost of their employees. Mallaby argues that Wal-Mart improves access to healthcare by raising the real incomes of people who are its customers. Furthermore, the size of Wal-Mart allows it to influence prices throughout the retail industry. This, in turn affects all consumers...
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...Wal-Mart Case Study 22 Heather Rourk MBA 6301 October 30, 2012 Wal-Mart is a billion dollar company that has thousands of stores and millions of employees. Naturally issues are going to arise in any organization, but when there is a company as large as Wal-Mart, these issues will be public and become headline news. Wal-Mart has been the center of attention over the past decades regarding the ethical and unethical practices within the organization. Many lawsuits were filed by current and previous employees in regard to the unethical practices of Wal-Mart. Some of these unethical practices are making employees work-off-the-clock, sexual discrimination, health benefits, and the use of illegal aliens for employment, unions, and child labor laws. In the following paragraphs, this case study will be broken down into further explore these unethical issues with Wal-Mart and how Wal-Mart decided to handle each of these issues The major issue regarding Wal-Mart recently is the “off-the-clock work” that management enforces inside their stores. According to Stanwick and Stanwick (2009), between 2000 and 2001, 11 states had pending lawsuits against Wal-Mart for “refusing to pay overtime for workers and failing to compensate workers when they worked during their scheduled breaks.” The company settled many of these lawsuits, but the practices still continued throughout the years. One employee stated in his or her complaint against Wal-Mart...
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...ETHICAL ISSUES INVOLVING WAL-MART STAKEHOLDERS Employee Stakeholders DISCRIMINATION The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has filed fifteen lawsuits against Wal-Mart since 1994. Of these, ten are still pending, and five have been resolved. FEMALE EMPLOYEES Although women account for more than 67 percent of all Wal-Mart employees, women make up less than 10 percent of top-store managers. Wal-Mart insists that it adequately trains and promotes women, but in 2001 a Wal-Mart executive conducted an internal study that showed the company paid female store managers less than men in the same position. In June 2004, a federal judge in San Francisco granted class-action status to a sexdiscrimination lawsuit against Wal-Mart. It is the largest class-action lawsuit and involves 1.6 million current and former female employees at Wal-Mart. It claims that Wal-Mart discriminated against women in promotions, pay, training, and job assignments. Even Wal-Mart concludes in its annual report that if the company is not successful in its appeal of the class-action certification of the case, the resulting liability could be material to the company. DISABLED EMPLOYEES In January 2000, Wal-Mart agreed to pay two deaf applicants $132,500. The two applied to work at a Wal-Mart in Tucson, Arizona, but were denied employment because of their disabilities. Wal-Mart agreed to hire the two men as part of the settlement and to make corporate-wide changes in the hiring and...
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...Walmart Strategic Analysis of Wal-Mart Fan Yang Professor Richard Linowes MGMT-458-002H May 1, 2009 Yang 2 Executive Summary Wal-Mart is the biggest retailer in U.S. and also one of the biggest multinational companies in the world. It is well-known for its low-cost structure and has been doing very well despite of the current market instability. However, it still faces threats from competitors in the retail industry and has weaknesses to be improved in the future. To help Wal-Mart achieve greater success and sustain its competency, this paper will cover an all-rounded and detailed business analysis on Wal-Mart and the industry it is currently in. The analysis will touch on different perspectives, such as Wal-Mart’s strength, opportunities, weaknesses and threats. Moreover, a brief overview of the retail industry and Wal-Mart’s history are provided to facilitate a deeper and better understanding of the analysis on Wal-Mart. To help Wal-Mart better exploit its strength and opportunities and reduce threats and weaknesses, recommendations are provided for each of the four sections. I hope the recommendations will be carefully considered for proper implementation. Yang 3 Overview of Retail Industry The overall retail industry is currently experiencing a sale slowdown due to the widely spread economic crisis in US because consumers reduce their spending during weak economic time. According to an article on BusinessWeek, the real consumer spending declined by 3.7% in the...
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...com GM591 Leadership and Organizational Behavior Mar11 Sec Ac Professor Jere Ferguson 4/8/11 Wal-Mart is an American public multinational corporation that runs a chain of large discount department stores and a chain of warehouse stores. In 2010 it was the world's largest public corporation by revenue, according to the Forbes Global 2000 for that year. The company was founded by Sam Walton in 1962, incorporated on October 31, 1969, and publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange in 1972. Wal-Mart, headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas, is the largest majority private employer and the largest grocery retailer in the United States. In 2009, it generated 51% of its US $258 billion sales in the U.S. from grocery business. It also owns and operates the Sam's Club retail warehouses in North America. Wal-Mart has 8,500 stores in 15 countries, with 55 different names. The company operates under its own name in the United States, including the 50 states. It also operates under its own name in Puerto Rico. Wal-Mart itself has not produced the same results in different countries. With Wal-Mart's investments outside North America having mixed results its operations in the United Kingdom, South America and China have been highly successful, while it was forced to pull out of Germany and South Korea when ventures there were unsuccessful. As Wal-Mart grew rapidly into the world's largest corporation, many critics worried about the effect of its stores...
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