The Criticisms Of Wal-Mart Stores

The name of the company is Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. According to its official website, mission of the company is "Saving people money so they can live better", and its business type is retail, it sells the grocery items, household appliances, garments and other daily essentials directly to the customers.

After a number of mishaps this multinational company managed to come through different public criticisms, and various stakeholders involved in the criticism such as top executives of Wal-Mart, its employees, suppliers, labour unions, and governments.

One of specific criticism is Wal-Mart did not meet its part-time woker’s expectation with regards to a pay rise for minimum wage. For example, the figure from Bureau of Labour Statistics indicates

In contrast, Wal-Mart’s salary range of part-time wage is $10 for this year that states on its corporate website. Although it is substantially below the average pay scale, but still above the board as by law the federal minimum for hourly worker is $7.25 (Pazniokas, 2014). The constant dispute seems a long way off, meanwhile, employees and labour unions express their

WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT 4 disapproval on this matter over a decade. Wal-Mart’s coping strategies are following the principle of gradual improvement to abate discontent, as well as taking unexpected action to quiet down the criticism and unrest. For instance, base on The

Associated Press (2006), “Wal-Mart Stores (WMT) is raising starting pay at a third of its nearly 4,000 U.S. stores an average 6% and introducing wage caps for the first time on each type of job in all stores…” However, recent conflict is growing bitterness and leading to job cut. It is reported that “Wal-Mart suddenly closed 5 stores and laid off thousands of worker and no one knows why.”(Peterson, 2015). As this headline implies, the business takes harsh measures in dealing with public criticism on rejecting employees’ demand of pay rise. I think it can translate into

Under the circumstance, Wal-Mart have taken a series of measures with regards to its contractors afterwards. For instance, it updated the standards for suppliers that covers health and safety regulations; it started to conduct social audit across its global factories, and tried to balance commercial and public interests. It is noteworthy that Wal-Mart even wrote its standards in multilingual versions for supplier to comprehend the details, in oder to demonstrate its actions in implementing the system and new requirement.

In conclusion, I view public criticisms as a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it is a vital catalytic role in nudging the business adheres to ethics, integrity, and transparency. On the other hand, it may also provoke the company into taking a tough line on certain issue. Taken together, business and its stakeholders are increasingly interdependent nowadays. For any enterprise, it is essential to be more considerate to its stakeholders' needs and wishes, by adapting to modern society along with look after the business performance from economic, political and environmental perspectives. For various stakeholders, problems take time to find solutions when