Walmart Case Study
Question
I recently got bad reviews on this essay if you could edit the essay, I also made a mistake under the Internatinal Trade section with my essay, If you could edit out the source talking about US Apple Association. If you could add another source to replace the one I am asking you to remove. Also if you could organize my sources by alpabetical order and remove the one previosly mentioned out of there and put the new one in its place. If you need to add a page to bring the paper togethor please do so. I put down the reviews I got on the essay below If you could read them and use them to help you out
Think you did really well. For your intro I think you could have had a stronger hook, but I did like that you did get straight to the point. For your conclusion it should have restated the thesis in the first paragraph. Your works cited was in order so good job on that. Your organizational system is very clear, because you titled each section. Your draft also met the four page requirement and had a lot of great details, which you did a great job doing in text citations as well.
11/12/2021, 9:58 PM
Reviewer 2
Hey Douglas, I think you've got a good beginning to a good paper. First off I think it would be beneficial to look at the sample paper that is up on Canvas right now. The sample paper shows you the correct formatting for the paper and it will help with your final paper. Other than that I think that you have good evidence in your paper to back up your claims. It would be beneficial for your paper to add a conclusion section I didn't see one in your paper. I found your grammar pretty effective and solid throughout your paper so good job on that part!
11/17/2021, 5:47 PM
Instructor
Do more to grab the reader’s attention at the start of the essay. Tell us a story, provide a shocking statistic, etc. Provide a clear thesis; in one sentence, state what the paper proves. Make sure to preview your main points.
The Apple Association is an industry trade group for the fruit, so... cut that part.
Which question(s) are you answering? Put that on the title page.
This is a list of interesting developments, but it's unclear what argument you're building here. I’d like to see you do a better job building your case. Think about how each main point helps prove your thesis, then think about how each sentence helps prove that main point. Work with the Writing Center on this.
Good research! Could use a few more citations. Make sure it’s clear where you got your information (for instance, the US Apple Association bit has no citation); citing every few sentences is usually best.
You're on your way. Looking forward to the final version of your essay.
11/27/2021, 1:51 PM
Reviewer 3
Hi Douglas,
While reading your paper i found it very hard to stay on track, as i felt the organization of the paper was all over the place. first was the lack of having the case question posted to better uunderstand your arguement. Second, your paper jumps around alot and is confusing I think it needs more of a structure. Maybe main subtopics like Intro, your maint points, Conclusion. Another thing was it was hard to tell which was your thesis. I think moving forward you should work on making sure the thesis is clearly stated along with case question, and having organization in your paper so that it all flows together. I think you're headed in the right direction and saw that you did cite some sources which is great! it better backs your argument and paper. I think you can add more cited sources in your paper since there is alot of information that you cover especially when mentioning apple and the EU. Overall I think the main things to focus on is your thesis and paper structure so that it is able to connect with your main points and conclusion. Hope this helps!


Solution
Case
Study
Part I: Introduction
Walmart
has been one of the greatest companies which has been in many years dedicated
in offering customers seamless shopping experience whether they are in store or
online. The company has faced ethical issues because it started out without
having any formal ethics program in place. In most cases Mr. Walton relied on
his own personal ethics to run the company something that created ethical
issues within the company (Hicks,
2019). Due to ethical issues
within the company every year has seen the company brand continuing to lose its
value. For instance, at the beginning of 2021, Walmart has had a total of 4,743
stores in the United States. The amount of jobs Walmart produces in the United
States is very large and because of this, many problems with their stakeholders
have arisen. The main stakeholders of
Walmart are their suppliers. Walmart has suppliers from all around the world
that rely on Walmart using their products to be profitable. Another stakeholder
of Walmart is their employees, in Walmart’s history it has been hostile towards
unions and other sorts of unethical business practices. With all of Walmart’s
various ethical issues, such as, supplier relationships, its employee
stakeholders, and safety issues, Walmart responds to its stakeholders with
unethical behavior and questionable business practices. In addition, the
ethical issues Walmart is facing has made the company not to have enough
employees to fit their customers’ needs thus making it hard for the
organization to have best customer services. Therefore, this paper aims to evaluate
various ethical issue that has affected Walmart and the company has been
responding to the stakeholders.
Part II: Supplier Relationships
How
do you think they fill all the shelves and back stock at Walmart? Walmart has a
series of relationships with local suppliers for each of their stores. Because
of the volume that these suppliers are moving for Walmart, you would have to
think that these suppliers are making a ton of money. In contrast, these
suppliers make very little because of Walmart’s harsh and aggressive prices for
these suppliers (Dicker, 2002). Walmart offers these suppliers a low cost
compared to what the correct profit margin should be which leads to Walmart
getting these goods for cheaper than what they are supposed to cost. Walmart
can get away with ripping off their suppliers because of the size of the
marketplace that Walmart provides. Ripping off your suppliers is an unethical
business practice that Walmart does so that they can maximize their profits.
Because
Walmart is such a large marketplace for these suppliers to sell their items in,
Walmart’s sustainability index is used to make sure that these items are fit to
sell to their customers. The problem with this sustainability index Walmart
uses for each of its suppliers, is that when you have a Walmart in a third
world country, the suppliers in that area are unable to fund their business to
fit the sustainability index. (Bloom,2015). Because Walmart is a worldwide
company, their business practices with their suppliers needs to be changed. If
Walmart wants to implement a sustainability index or any other sort of
requirements for their suppliers, the amount that Walmart pays their suppliers
must increase. Walmart is cheap with their suppliers to a fault, soon enough
because of their unethical practices their supplies will flock elsewhere.
Part III: Employee Relationships
Employees
at Walmart have had poor work conditions and disputes with management that have
led the employees to want to unionize and get better pay and benefits. Along
with better pay, these employees have been wanting equality in the workplace
after a series of gender-based discrimination accusations from employees. With
the employees wanting all these things for many years, Walmart has fought
against it the whole time. Walmart employees are often the most underpaid
people for the work that they do. When Walmart enters a new community for the
first time, the job market changes for the worse. In a study conducted in 2012
by Carlena Cochi Ficano she found that “withing 15 months of a new Wal-Mart
store entry, between 4.4 and 14.2 existing retail establishments close, while
at most 3.5 new retail establishments open.” (Ficano, 2013). This study
confirms that a new Walmart in a town will lead to a loss of jobs. In the study
there was a difference of about 10.9 establishments closing when the new
Walmart came into town.
Walmart
have always been against any sort of employee union with fear that they will
have to pay large amounts of benefits and other types of financial
compensations. Walmart takes unionizing so seriously in their stores, they have
a hotline for managers to dial if there are rumors of a union forming in their
store. (Dicker 2). Walmart is so against the better benefits and pay that come
with unions that they tell their managers to dial a hotline if a union forms.
Gender
discrimination is one of the most unethical things that Walmart has done to its
employees. In 2013, a woman working at Walmart was three months pregnant and
worked in the deli and bakery section of her local Walmart. Every day she would
load up 50-pound trays of chickens into industrial ovens when one day she
started bleeding and went to the emergency room and was told she was at risk of
a miscarriage due to her job. The next day she went back to work and asked for
a light load at work and was denied by her manager (Grandey
Gabriel & King, 2020). This story about Walmart’s procedures with
pregnant employees is a perfect example of how inconsiderate and unethical
Walmart is with their employees. Along with unethical practices with pregnant
employees, Walmart has been accused of paying male managers a higher wage
compared to the women managers. Walmart has responded to its employee
stakeholder in recent years by being one of the companies to raise their
starting wages higher than minimum wage. This wage increase for its employees
is a good thing for Walmart but their original intentions behind the wage increase
was to try to increase profits.
Part IV: Supplier Safety
In
the past, Walmart didn’t regulate the suppliers’ standards of production, and
this is something that Walmart is improving upon in recent years. In 2012, a
Walmart supplier company in Bangladesh had a fire in its building which killed
112 workers. This tragedy made Walmart implement “tougher rules on fire safety”
and would “have zero tolerance for suppliers that used unauthorized
subcontractors.” (Greenhouse 1). Although that Walmart has now ensured that
their suppliers must adhere to a certain quality of business, there was plenty
of criticism towards Walmart’s lack of supplier safety. Because of this
criticism, Walmart implemented a three-strike policy for its suppliers to
ensure that the suppliers stay safe on the job. Along with Walmart’s lack of
presence in international suppliers’ safety, they have had a lack of domestic
employees’ safety in warehouses and stores. In recent years, Walmart has faced
accusations of having harsh and unsafe working conditions in their warehouses.
Due to these accusations Walmart has had to work through ways to make sure that
each of their stores and warehouses stay safe and clean for the workers to stay
safe in.
References
Bloom, D.
J. (2015, June). Rural Sociology. Standards for Development: Food Safety
and Sustainability in Wal- Mart's
Dicker, J.
(2002, September 8). Nation. Union Blues at Wal-Mart. Retrieved
September 30, 2021, from http://aurarialibrary.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https%3A%2F%2Fsearch.ebscohost.com%2Flogin.aspx%3Fdirect&db=f5h&AN=6873246.
Ficano, C.
C. (2013, March). Social Science Quarterly. Business Churn and the
Retail Giant: Establishment Birth and Death from Wal- Mart's Entry*. Retrieved
September 30, 2021, from
http://aurarialibrary.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https%3A%2F%2Fsearch.ebscohost.com%2Flogin.aspx%3Fdirect&db=aph&AN=85280093.
Grandey, A. A., Gabriel, A. S., & King, E. B. (2020).
Tackling taboo topics: a review of the three M s in working women’s
lives. Journal of Management, 46(1), 7-35.
Greenhouse,
S. B. (2013, January 23). New York Times. Wal-Mart Toughens Fire
Safety Rules for Suppliers After Bangladesh Blaze. Retrieved September 30,
2021, from https://web-b-ebscohost-com.aurarialibrary.idm.oclc.org/ehost/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=4770fd35-4655-4621-b15d-7fcb2de3139a%40sessionmgr101&bdata=#AN=85001831&db=f5h.
Hicks, M. J. (2019). Review
of Regional Studies Wal-Mart and small business: Boon or Bane? Retrieved September 30, 2021, from
https://web-a-ebscohost-com.aurarialibrary.idm.oclc.org/ehost/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=05989677-af6d-48a3-9743-e0161c97377e%40sessionmgr4008&bdata=#AN=59373876&db=aph.
Honduran
Produce Supply Chains. Retrieved October 1, 2021, from
https://web-b-ebscohost-com.aurarialibrary.idm.oclc.org/ehost/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=b603a91f-33b4-4130-b229-a54e788f4873%40sessionmgr101&bdata=#AN=103002799&db=aph.




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