How Wal-Mart deals with Ethical Issues within their Ranks?

How Wal-Mart deals with Ethical Issues within their Ranks?

Introduction

With more than four hundred billion dollars annual revenues, Wal-Mart is at present the largest organization in the world. Wal-Mart is a budget retailer that sells an extraordinarily extensive range of consumer goods in its huge big-box stores, which at first appeared in the U.S. South and Midwest in the mid of 1960s. From then, they spread speedily across North America and, in a range of guises; Wal-Mart at present operates all through Asia, Europe and in certain regions of Africa (Lane, 2011). This rapid ascent has attracted a considerable level of attention from both critics and admirers. Together with the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, Wall Street, Facebook, Nike, and Google, Wal-Mart features outstandingly in contemporary discussions about the organization, ethics and culture of the global economy (Lane, 2011). Wal-Mart has 3 fundamental beliefs. Respect for the individual, service to the customer, striving for excellence. These beliefs are used to show the kinds of attitudes that make a legal, fair, and honest work environment.

Discussion

The code of ethics is defined as a set of guidelines employed by any organization to set up an up to standard behavior for the organization members to follow. Just like in the case of Wal-Mart, the basic beliefs and mission of the organization makes them distinctive and matchless among their competitors (Fraedrich, Ferrell & Ferell, 2013). In accordance with the message of Mike Duke, the present CEO and President of Wal-Mart, the associates in all levels and areas of Wal-Mart's business are liable for understanding and adhering to our Statement of Ethics. This Statement of Ethics explains the role of the main employees in the organization in getting to the bottom of present or potential concerns and issues.

The Context

Wal-Mart was launched by Sam Walton in 1962 in Rogers, Arkansas. He pursued a budget retail approach from the beginning, sourcing from only the cheapest suppliers and locating Wal-Mart stores outside regional centers. The organizational culture of Wal-Mart bore the mark of its founder and its rural origins. Wal-Mart praised small-town and Christian values, including hard work, loyalty, patriotism, and conformity, and it maintained a gendered division of labor such that most service-oriented employees were women while most managers and executives were men. Though it has changed significantly since its establishment, Wal-Mart continues to reflect important features of its early beginnings (Corporate, Wal-Mart History, 2010).

In the last fifty-one years, Wal-Mart has developed rapidly such that it now employs upward of two million people across the world in 8,692 stores. Were it a national economy, Wal-Mart would be roughly the size of Sweden, and it would be one of China's leading trade partners. While discussion about Wal-Mart's growth continues, business analysts generally suggest three factors as crucial to its success, namely, Wal-Mart's early adoption of advanced information and logistics technology, its capacity to restrain labor costs, and its skill in micromanaging suppliers.

In contradiction of its unqualified accomplishment in North America, Wal-Mart's ...