Wal-Mart and Corporate Social Responsibility

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Wal-Mart and Corporate Social Responsibility

Walt-Mart , despite of its success for being the giant retailer in the market , has been unethical towards its workers in terms of not giving the intended wage rate and health benefits to its workers

From the small retail store in Arkansas to being a renowned giant retailer not only domestically but also internationally , certainly Wal-Mart has already reached its peak of success . Wal-Mart has been the choice of every consumer in the market for they are the only store to

br provide the cheapest products in town . In fact , this is the secret ingredient of Wal-Mart 's success for the past decades - setting prices relatively lower as compared to its competitor to attract more price conscious consumers . Because of this unique strategy , Wal-Mart has been able to acquire impressive growth for the past decades and become one of the successful multinational companies here and abroad . Last 2002 Wal-Mart was able to top the Fortune 500 which ranks all multinational firms around the globe in terms of profitability and sales volume (Hayden et al 7 . To think that Wal-Mart was able to attain such recognition means great on the part of its management . Its relative large size and market share , Wal-Mart has been able to have more bargaining power to its suppliers to have more price discounts to give them enough room for further lowering down their prices by the time they display goods on the shelves of their stores . This serves to be one of the sources of Wal-Mart 's ability to offer cheaper prices . The other way of Wal-Mart of achieving price competitiveness would be to offer lower wages to their employees to make operational costs relatively low as compared to its competitors . This strategy of Wal-Mart makes them to be the target of criticisms and primary concern of government authorities especially those coming from the Federal Labor Relations Authority an organization that protects the welfare of every workers of the country This is the gloomy reality inside Wal-Mart . Every worker must tolerate their minimum wages despite of the fact that they have to work round the clock and always on call even on weekends and this what makes Wal-Mart unethical to its workers . The fact that Wal-Mart 's management do not provide its workers the right wage rate and enough working benefits is already enough ground for the said company to be deemed unethical despite of the benefits that it provides consumers and in the economy as a whole

Let us further examine the said operational strategy of Wal-Mart and see if this company indeed is being unethical to its workers . According to the book of Ciulla et al entitled Honest Work : A Business Ethics Reader , composed of various articles concerning ethical business performance , it says there that one of the social responsibility of a certain business firms is to increase its profit (Ciulla et al 300 . To some extent this defend the side of Wal-Mart since through paying their...