Walmart - Research Paper Example

The case study gives a very good example of how large business can be following certain practices that are considered as discriminationary by the employees and the general public. Walmart is a very big company with a very large number of stores all over the world and it employs thousands of employees. As such, the company is in a position to give employment and means of livelihood for community and the people. It is also one of the largest companies and so it can take advantages of the economies of scales in its supply chain and operations and so it can provide low costs and discounted products.

As such, it is considered as beneficial to the customers also. However, there are many charges applied against Walmart for its policies and practices regarding its employees. I agree that there is a substantial amount of evidence that indicates that Walmart is following unethical practices. For example, it is well known that the company employees a large number of part time employees and puts them in in dead end jobs (Becker, 2013). There are also allegations of the company hiring illegal immigrants.

This strategy means that the company does not have to worry about the incentives or benefits, insurance and other health related aspects of a large section of the workforce. Moreover, I believe that this strategy also makes it possible for Walmart to avoid planning a career path for these employees. A more serious charge levied against Walmart is that it sources its supplies in an unethical manner and uses sweatshops that employ children or other marginalized groups across the globe. By sourcing from countries that have weak or non-existent labour laws makes it possible for Walmart to get cheaper supplies and hence translate the cost saving to the customers.

In addition to this being an unethical practice on the supply front, it is also touted as a market distorting strategy as Walmart is able to price its products lower than competition and hence affects free market dynamics (Andersen and Skjoett-Larsen, 2009) Another issue that was highlighted in the case study was that Walmart makes its workers spend long hours and do overtime, while at the same time it does not pay good wages. These allegations have been made against Walmart by several employees and there have even been cases filed against it (Kenny, 2006).

While the Walmart itself denies most of these charges, it does agree that these unethical practices may be happening at the store level without the knowledge of the top management. However, Walmart continues to prevent unionization of its workers which means that the employees are more vulnerable than employees of other organizations (Paul, 2012). Walmart is also found to discriminate against female workers as it follows an implicit policy of hiring mostly male workers (Kampf, 2007). However, I think the discrimination is more within the store where the female employees may be given lesser salaries and incentives and where they may not be given any opportunities to get promoted or move ahead in their careers.

There have been several cases of sexual discrimination against the company which indicate that this discrimination is a fact. In fact, there is a class action suit pending related to sexual discrimination based on statistics and data collected from Walmart’s stores worldwide, and this could result in billions of dollars of money lost for the company. The only answer that Walmart seems to have is that again, the top management was not aware of any discriminationary practices that may be happening at the store level.

However, by simply stating that the top management was not aware of the unethical practices at the store level, the top management should not be allowed to shun responsibility. In fact, by stating that the