HRES1101: Evaluating Walmart's Organizational Behavior & Culture

This report provides an in-depth analysis of Walmart's organizational behavior, examining it through the lenses of Open Systems, Learning Perspective, and Stakeholder Perspective. It evaluates Walmart's workplace culture, highlighting its strengths and weaknesses in employee motivation and stakeholder management. The report discusses how Walmart's focus on cost reduction impacts its organizational effectiveness and employee satisfaction. It concludes that while Walmart has achieved significant success through rapid business acquisition and cost leadership, there is a need for a more balanced approach that considers all stakeholders to ensure long-term sustainability and employee well-being. The analysis draws from various academic sources to support its findings and offers insights into how Walmart can improve its organizational behavior practices.

Running head: ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
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Introduction
Organizational Behaviour (OB) primarily entails development of associations purposing
at achieving social, human and organizational objectives. Organisational Behaviour (OB) assists
in inspiring innovation and change. Employees are likely to act as obstacles or an instrument of
change. It is organisational behaviour which tends to cultivate ideas as well as skills in order to
promote innovation and modification by improving employees’ creativeness. In examining the
Organizational Behaviour of Walmart, Morgeson, Mitchell and Liu (2015) have noted that
effective communication is fundamental to the organization as it tends to foster communication
with and between the management. Reports of Chang and Lin (2015) have revealed that Walmart
constitutes strong culture which all new employees are incorporated into. Meanwhile, Feeley
(2017) has noted that the management of Walmart further strives to successfully motivate
employees through proficient mentorship. The paper will evaluate three primary perspectives of
OB Open Systems, Learning Perspective, and Stakeholder Perspective and further reflect on its
workplace culture to understand the organizational behaviour of Walmart.
Discussion
Open Systems Perspective
At certain points, the organisations tend to face ethical dilemma whereby they have to
characterize right and wrong functions. However, it is Organisational Behaviour which facilitates
an imperative role by serving the organization to generate such an environment which exhibits
ethics, positivity and increases work efficiency, job contentment in addition to organisational
citizenship behaviour. One of the key OB perspectives, Open Systems theory primarily proposes

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that organizations are recognized as social systems which show high reliance on the environment
where they exist for inputs. According to Chadwick and Raver (2015), the Open System Theory
can be highly relevant to the organizational behaviour of Walmart. Reports of Schnackenberg
and Tomlinson (2016) have stated that Walmart owes its achievements significantly to its
employee base. The environment setting of Walmart has been inundated with overpriced
commodities which align well with the company’s goals and objectives in order to safeguard
people and advance them in leading improved lives. Through Open System perspective,
organizations have been focusing on the response and feedback among the various significant
parts as well as processes in the organization and between the organization and its environment.
Abdelkafi and Täuscher (2016) have noted that organizations tend to examine organizational
concerns not only by shedding light on areas which appears to be segregated parts but relies
greatly on the more significant patterns of interactions within the parts. Organizations such as
Walmart through the Open System perspective primarily focus on structures which aggravate
behavioural patterns that verify events instead of acting in response to events as been done
previously. Walmart has been proficiently maintaining open system perspective on performance
by focusing on the outcomes desired by the organization itself chiefly in its external environment
(Walmart.com, 2019).
Learning Perspective
Rae and Wang (2015) focusing on organizational behaviour focus on parallel learning
structures which tend to promote innovation, creativity as well as organizational development.
Through learning perspective of OB, groups representing diverse levels operate in harmoniously
in order to create new channels of communication in alignment to the standardized hierarchical
structure. Parallel learning structures aims to help in obtaining the company’s collective

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proficiency and expertise. At this juncture, Walmart must intend in implementing a parallel
learning structure in order to help progress its operations and smoothen the development of
organizational restructuring. For Walmart, becoming a learning organization has been an oft-
discussed goal for organizations since the end of the 20th century, but Walmart has always been
a learning company (Walmart.com, 2019). Rae and Wang (2015) have noted that “knowledge
culture” is identified as a specific variety of organizational culture representing an approach of
organizational life which further facilitates as well as stimulate employees to create, share as
well as utilize knowledge for the advantage and continuing achievement of the organization.
Furthermore, ‘value supply chain’ inter-organizational networks have been universally
implemented in order to facilitate retailers like Walmart to proficiently interact with suppliers in
order to ensure that suppliers tend to be positioned at the preferred levels on retail shelves, in
retail stockrooms as well as in warehouses and that deliveries are executed in accordance to
prearranged schedule. Reports of Schnackenberg and Tomlinson (2016) have mentioned that
Walmart has usually considered the concept of continuous development through organizational
learning. Walmart has been learning from its previous errors as well as from achievement, from
competitors and from associates in addition to from statistics. Such an explicit organizational
learning has led the company to be open to revolutionize and attain the competence of learning
as well as applying it in ways that direct to development and expansion (Abdelkafi & Täuscher,
2016).
Stakeholder Perspective
While Wal-Mart has emerged as the leading retailer in the United States, their business
model does not show any proper sustainability as they show inclination towards a specific group
of their stakeholders which their consumer base. However, on the other hand, Walmart must

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take into account the connections between the private difficulties and public issues to efficiently
produce a harmonious stability between stakeholders. According to stakeholder theory of OB,
the key responsibility of management is to supervise the health of its corporation. Feeley (2017)
has noted that Wal-Mart does not have the ability to analyse its stakeholders strictly as per
economic terms. Moreover, authors have argued that the key focus of Walmart lies on its
business strategy specifically within the context of the traditional stakeholder theory that is
maximizing earnings and revenues. Even though Walmart initially started as a small
organization, it has emerged as a leading retailer due to its focus on stakeholder perspective.
Workplace Culture of Walmart
Chadwick and Raver (2015) have noted that the economical workplace culture of
Walmart has been developed efficiently by Walton which contributes to the success of the
company. Even though Walmart has been highly criticized for considerably meagre wages as
well as healthcare plans which provides to its employee base, Walmart further calls for hourly
employees who have been positioned in overtime with no pay. Reports of Schnackenberg &
Tomlinson (2016) have mentioned that the primary objective of Walmart is to maintain its retail
prices at an economical rate which has led the organization to be successful in attaining its goals
and objectives. Research of Chang and Lin (2015) has mentioned that Walmart has been
efficiently serving its customer base of over 25% on a usual cart of groceries. Technology and
corporate have been positioned into the ultimate objective of delivering the most economical
price. Furthermore, Abdelkafi and Täuscher (2016) have noted that Walmart emphasizes its
distributors as well as suppliers in order to reduce on are product prices. On the other hand, it is
highly crucial for large corporations like Walmart to strategically cultivate employee motivation
as well as contentment. According to Shin and Konrad (2017), motivated employees tend to

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develop greater degree of appreciation and function efficiently in order to attain the
organizational goals and purposes to the increased efficiency. However, although Walmart
customers have exhibited high contentment, its employees have been encountering substantial
level of challenges. Morgeson, Mitchell and Liu (2015) have claimed that majority of Walmart
employees recently have been facing critical challenges of low remuneration along with little or
no additional incentives. With such low employee compensation, it is easier for the company to
raise greater amount of revenues and earnings in comparison to its competitors. Although
Walmart has the competence to motivate its employees by providing stock incentives and
making them to attain a significant sense of ownership along with a successful prospective future
in the market where they operate. Furthermore, the primary disparity between Walmart and other
companies is that other organizations have been proficiently delivering low prices in a highly
stainable approach, by focusing on satisfying all stakeholders, rather than specifically inclining
towards one group of stakeholders such as Walmart (Walmart.com, 2019).
Conclusion
Therefore, from the above discussion it can be concluded that Walmart’s success has
come with their ability to proficiently acquire businesses at a rapid pace. It has been noted that
the company has been identified as a leading organization because of rapid competitive growth
and benefit in the U.S by acquiring businesses which necessitate no start-up expenses and thus
have been successful within their economy. Walmart has gained all total regulation which has
led them the power to make proficient decision making.

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References
Abdelkafi, N., & Täuscher, K. (2016). Business models for sustainability from a system
dynamics perspective. Organization & Environment, 29(1), 74-96.
Chadwick, I. C., & Raver, J. L. (2015). Motivating organizations to learn: Goal orientation and
its influence on organizational learning. Journal of management, 41(3), 957-986.
Chang, C. L. H., & Lin, T. C. (2015). The role of organizational culture in the knowledge
management process. Journal of Knowledge management, 19(3), 433-455.
Feeley, M. (2017). Two models of the criminal justice system: An organizational perspective.
In Crime, Law and Society (pp. 119-137). Routledge.
Morgeson, F. P., Mitchell, T. R., & Liu, D. (2015). Event system theory: An event-oriented
approach to the organizational sciences. Academy of Management Review, 40(4), 515-
537.
Rae, D., & Wang, C. L. (2015). Entrepreneurial learning: past research and future challenges.
In Entrepreneurial learning(pp. 25-58). Routledge.
Schnackenberg, A. K., & Tomlinson, E. C. (2016). Organizational transparency: A new
perspective on managing trust in organization-stakeholder relationships. Journal of
Management, 42(7), 1784-1810.
Shin, D., & Konrad, A. M. (2017). Causality between high-performance work systems and
organizational performance. Journal of Management, 43(4), 973-997.

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Walmart.com. (2019). Walmart.com | Save Money. Live Better. Retrieved from
https://www.walmart.com/