Walmart's CSR Policy: A Case Study on the Impact of Internal Conflicts

This case study analyzes Walmart's corporate social responsibility (CSR) policy, focusing on how internal conflicts, such as the Dukes v. Walmart gender discrimination lawsuit and child labor allegations, have shaped its evolution. The study details the timeline and outcomes of these conflicts, highlighting how Walmart adapted its CSR policies in response, including stricter supplier regulations and increased female employee representation. It suggests improvements such as engaging whistleblowers, adopting normative ethical theories, strengthening organizational behavior practices, and fostering strong leadership to proactively address potential CSR challenges. Desklib offers this case study along with a wealth of resources including past papers and solved assignments for students.

CASE STUDY OF WALMART COMPANY
DO CONFLICTS AFFECT A COMPANY’S CORPORATE SOCIAL
RESPONSIBILITY POLICY?

WALMART COMPANY
PROFILE
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 It is a general merchandise and grocery store
 Founded in the year 1962
 World’s largest retailer and largest private employer
in the us (Walmart.Com 2018).
 It is spread in 27 countries and 10, 130 retail stores .
 They focus on saving the money of common man
 Almost 2.2 million people work in this company
 Current revenue $443 billion(Walmart.Com 2018)
 Often referred to as the ‘global legislator ‘ for their
global sustainability activities

RECENT CSR STORIES OF
WALMART
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 The Walmart foundation is focused on the reduction
of food waste
 The Walmart company collaborates with Unilever and
announces forest sustainability missions at the global
climate action summit (Walmart.Com 2018).
 The company is concerned with enhancing
sustainability of global value chains

WALMART VERSUS DUKES (
CASE STUDY )
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 In the year 2011, the Walmart company went
through a united states supreme court case.
 1.6 million women who worked in Walmart accused
the company for encouraging gender discrimination
in promotion policies in the stores(Torres et al., 2012
p. 51)
 The supreme court finally revealed its decision
favoring Walmart
 The court said that the class action can not proceed
because the plaintiffs have minimum parts in
common to form a class(Torres et al., 2012 p. 51).

Year Progress of the case
June 2001 The beginning of the lawsuit in the US district
court, San Francisco
June 2004 Martin Jenkins, the federal district judge ruled in
favor of class certification
February 6th , 2007 The district court’s class certification got affirmed
by the Ninth-Circuit three-judge panel ( Harry
Peterson, Michael Daly Hawkins and Andrew J.
Kleinfeld)
December 11th 2007 The Ninth Panel withdrew the initial opinion and
presented a superseding opinion ( again permitting
the class certification)
March 24th ,2009 Chief Judge Alex Kozinski lead a panel of eleven-
judges who heard the oral justification of Walmart.
December 6th , 2009 The supreme court agreed to hear the appeal of
Walmart
June 20th , 2011 The supreme court finally declared the results in
favor of Walmart saying that the plaintiff did not

ANOTHER CSR
CONFLICT IN WALMART
 The Radio Canada programme zone Libre
in the year 2005 declared the news that
Walmart was spoiling children by pushing
them towards child labor in Bangladesh
(Torres et al., 2012 p. 51)
 In Canada also children under the age of
14 were found working for not more than
$50.
 Walmart inn this respect declared that it
was difficult to inspect their each and
every store in different countries where
violation occurred

HOW THEIR CSR POLICIES
CHANGED POST-CONFLICT Click icon to add picture
 Walmart stopped doing business with almost 141 factories
because they violated the child-labor rule of the company(Torres
et al., 2012 p. 51).
 After the 2005 incident the company set the minimum age of
workers for the suppliers as 14.
 They also propounded a zero tolerance policy to child-labor
(Torres et al., 2012 p. 51).
 They have recently published the report on CSR issues
 The gender equality issue is also handled with care
 The number of female employees have been increased from 23,
873 to 25, 246 .

SUGGESTIONS FOR BETTER APPROACH TO THE
CASE
 The Walmart company could engage the ‘whistleblowers’ in their organization (Watts
& Buckley 2017, p. 669).
 The company could adopt and spread the normative theories of ethics (Honneth
2014).
 Along with the CSR theories the company should have strengthen the organizational
behavior theories within the workplace so that the question of gender discrimination
would never have raised (Shafritz, Ott & Jang 2015).
 Ross’ 7 prima facie duties should have been followed (Stern 2015, p. 125).
 A strong leadership could have dealt with the issues appropriately (Landis, Hill &
Harvey 2014, p. 97).

References
Honneth, A., 2014. Disrespect: The normative foundations of critical theory. John Wiley &
Sons.
Landis, E.A., Hill, D. & Harvey, M.R., 2014. A synthesis of leadership theories and styles.
Journal of Management Policy and Practice, 15(2), p.97.
Shafritz, J.M., Ott, J.S. & Jang, Y.S., 2015. Classics of organization theory. Cengage
Learning.
Stern, R., 2015. 7 Why Does Ought Imply Can?. In The Limits of Moral Obligation (pp. 110-
125). Routledge.
Torres, C.A.C., Garcia-French, M., Hordijk, R. & Nguyen, K., 2012. Four Case Studies on
Corporate Social Responsibility: Do Conflict Affect a Company's Corporate Social
Responsibility Policy. Utrecht L. Rev., 8, p.51.
Walmart.com 2018. [online] Walmart.com. Available at: https://www.walmart.com/
[Accessed 21 Sep. 2018].
Watts, L.L. & Buckley, M.R., 2017. A dual-processing model of moral whistleblowing in