Evaluating Wal-Mart's CSR: Ethical Concerns and Community Benefit

This essay critically analyzes Wal-Mart's Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives and the ethical dilemmas that overshadow them. The student evaluates Wal-Mart's CSR efforts, referencing the company's 'Global Responsibility' and 'Ethics & Integrity' webpages, to determine whether these strategies benefit the community or serve primarily as a public relations tactic. The essay discusses the company's actions, including disaster relief programs, job creation, and community projects. It also explores the ethical issues, such as labor law violations, discrimination claims, and bribery allegations in Mexico. The student argues that while Wal-Mart undertakes beneficial practices, its pursuit of profit sometimes overshadows its ethical responsibilities, leading to both internal and external ethical concerns. The essay concludes that the company must balance its economic goals with a commitment to ethical conduct and sustainable community development, referencing APA guidelines for citations.

Running Head: CSR 0
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PRINCIPLES OF MANAGEMENT

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In my opinion, all those strategies employed by Walmart in relation with ethical or
Corporate Social Responsibilities strategies definitely benefited society. Moreover, one of the
objectives of their strategy is to save the money of people, as it will help them to live better.
In relation to primary or basic needs as per Maslow theory, the company also offering meals
to those people who is not able to fulfil the basic needs of food. Other than this, several
disaster and hunger relief programs and practices were also undertaken by management of the
company to make the people recovered from terrible disasters and conditions
(corporate.walmart.com, 2019). Other than offering foods, products and services, they also
give jobs inclusive of many opportunities helping individuals and people to enhance their
social skills in align with other community projects. In extent with external environment, it
can be said that Wal-Mart is really doing the well job; however, the company had faced
several problems with the suppliers.
There were internal issues in the Wal-Mart where several employees have reported
that they were being ill-treated. The most significant thing related to this complaint is that
they specified that the organisation emphasized over illegal sick leave policy and also
confused with the regulations and rules and they even found some sort of effect of racism
(Abrams, 2017). One of the great instance related to case of Wal-Mart violating foreign
organisation laws is that the company Mexico unit paid bribe of $24 million to hustle up
permitting and licensing of new stores, however, top executives in the country when learned
about it, they covered it up (Schoenberg, 2018). Other than these violation, the company was
also found to take advantage of its suppliers by making them pressurize so as to sell goods at
lower price or cost and make the stuck to base upon business only from Wal-Mart. Other than
this, various nations were also manipulated by Wal-Mart in relation with their commitment
considering damage to environment and breaching international labour laws (Chen, 2018).
This shows that the company is only fulfilling their economic responsibility to gain higher
amount of profit and thus overlook their ethical responsibilities. Vision of the company can

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be considered as their biggest evidence. The case of Mexico incident is the perfect example
of not undertaking their legal responsibilities. Their approach towards earning profit
overshadows their ethical responsibilities too like employee mistreatment. Hence, it can be
said that there is various ethical concern both inside and outside the company. In other words,
the company are not able to cope up with their ethical responsibilities towards some internal
stakeholders (staff) and suppliers (considers as external stakeholders) as well.
With the objective of attaining high profit, the company also needs to embrace various
practices to make the world a better place (Storbacka, 2011). For every organisation, there are
some strengths and weakness. Hence, my overall perception of Wal-Mart is positive and
good as the company is undertaking various necessary practices towards developing a
sustainable community all around the way.

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References
Abrams, R. (2017). Walmart Is Accused of Punishing Workers for Sick Days. Retrieved from
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/01/business/walmart-workers-sick-days.html
Chen, M. (2018). Here Are All the Reasons Walmart’s Business Is Not Sustainable. Retrieved
from https://www.thenation.com/article/here-are-all-reasons-walmarts-business-not-
sustainable/
corporate.walmart.com. (2019). Global Responsibility. Retrieved from
https://corporate.walmart.com/global-responsibility
Schoenberg, T. (2018). Walmart Deadlocked With U.S. Over Bribery Probe. Retrieved from
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-02/walmart-is-said-to-be-
deadlocked-with-u-s-over-bribery-probe
Storbacka, K. (2011). A solution business model: Capabilities and management practices for
integrated solutions. Industrial Marketing Management, 40(5), 699-711.