Success And Failure For Wal-Mart In Such A Globalized Market

Submitted By felixpaquet
Words: 1338
Pages: 6
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Decription of Investigation

To be able to determine the factors of success and failure for Wal-Mart in such a globalized market, our team conducted investigate research through collecting secondary data. Our secondary research included investigating copious amounts of Wal-Mart related articles, these articles were found on the Wal-Mart website, as well as third party articles found through newspapers and search engines. Other mediums used include encyclopedia and journal articles pertaining to our topics of interest found through the Langara College Library website. All information used was based on recent, factual information and gave the team a good insight regarding Wal-Mart; specifially on the latest financial statements, current corporate social responsibility inititiates, and the various public opinions on the corporation.

Company Overview

Wal-Mart Inc. is the world’s largest retailer, operating over 8,500 discount retail stores across 15 different countries worldwide. Wal-Mart was founded by Sam Walton in 1962, and became incorporated in late October 1969. Wal-Mart was originally started as a family run business, and to this day the Walton family still holds a 48% ownership stake in the company. Wal-Mart began in Arkansas, and is the location of the first store to open. As mentioned previously, Wal-Mart has grown into the worlds largest retail company in the world, it is has far surpassed its big box competitiors including: Home Depot, Sears, Kroger, Costco, and Target. Wal-Mart operates over 3,500 stores in the United States alone, and 67% of all retail stores are 5 miles away from a Wal-Mart location (Basker 2007). Wal-Mart has become the success that it is due to its capability to utilize its purchasing power and meet diverse customer demands in this ever changing environment.

Corporate Social Responsibility

Due to the ever changing environment, Wal-Mart has had to change its view and actions regarding corporate social responsibility accordingly. The degree of corporate social responsibility has been a widely debated subject since the construction of the corporate structure itself.

Through this Wal-Mart investigation ?it was made clear that there are two extremes of corporate social responsibility:

- Some argue that corporations only have the responsibility to create revenue and gain profits for its shareholders, as long as those efforts are within the contraints of the law. Others argue that corporate responsibility must extend to predict and effectively solve problems in society.

Either way, it is undeniable that corporations will continuously expand. As this expansion continues, their power over society will continue to grow. In turn, we should expect such corporations to be responsible with this power. Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, voices its concern that social responsibility should be a concern and priority for other corporations. A corporation that is able to effectively act socially responsible will experience many benefits, these benefits include:

-increased opportunity to operate and greater access to sources of capital
-increased long-term revenues
-improved brand name
-improved employee and customer satisfaction

Through the effective use of corporate social responsibiliy, not only will Wal-Mart benefit from its efforts, but also the communitys it embraces, but will also benefit many of the following entities:

- home nation and host countries
- customers
- employees
- suppliers and distributors
- domestic and national economies and government parties
- the environment and global standard of living
One of the primary concerns of stakeholders is that CSRs are sustainable. That is, corporations should consider the future generation's economic, social and environmental outcomes that result from operations. With this understanding, Wal-Mart has set initiatives that address such stakeholders, and currently does so using an ethnocentric
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