BUSINESS ETHICS IN DEPARTMENTAL STORE

Business Ethics in Wall Mart: A Departmental Store

Business Ethics

Introduction

In life and in business, people want to be seen in a positive way; after all, perception is reality. Many companies wish to be seen as an ethical and forthright organization, but do not have the commitment to put in the time and effort to earn those titles. This paper will address the dilemma of ethics, fraud, violations, social responsibility, and hopefully, cause one to think before he/she acts hastily in making their decisions. It will provide a discussion about the ethical struggles of one of America's largest companies.

In recent years, corporate America has been taking some rather tough ethical hits. Everyone is aware of the major scandals like Enron, WorldCom, and Arthur Anderson. However, all companies are trying to navigate their way through ethical waters that have become very muddled. They are trying to restore not only the trust of American consumers, but also, maybe even more importantly the trust of their employees.

Wal-Mart Ethics

In the article, Wal-Mart's latest ethics controversy: an employee who scrupulously followed the company's own ethics guidelines may find herself out of a job reported by Pallavi Gogoi, one might wonder if Wal-Mart is headed in the wrong ethical direction.

Wal-Mart is the largest company and personal boss in the joined States. Wal-Mart is consistently listed amidst America's most adored companies by treasure magazine. At the identical time, it is often the target of condemnation for its paid work practices. (Seglin & Brownstein, 2004)While Wal-Mart publicly prides itself on having strict ethics policies, the company has been fighting for years to get its ethical house in order. The company's ethical issues come with such frequency that the company's investors are frustrated at the stagnant returns of Wal-Mart stock (Ferrell, Fraedrich & Ferrell, 2007).

One of Wal-Mart's biggest ethical issues is how it treats it employees and according to news reports over the last couple of years, the criticism seems to be justified. The following is a sampling of the personnel issues that Wal-Mart faces (Wal-Martfacts.com, 2007).

The average two-person family (one parent and one progeny) needed $27,948 to meet rudimentary desires in 2005, well overhead what Wal-Mart reports that its mean full-time associate earns. Wal-Mart claimed that its mean aide acquired $9.68 an hour in 2005. The ad covering would make the average associate's annual wages $17,114.

In December 2005, a California court organized Wal-Mart to pay $172 million in damages for falling short to supply serving of food breaks to nearly 116,000 hourly employees as required under state law. Wal-Mart appealed the case.

Wal-Mart described in January 2006 that its wellbeing protection only wrappings 43% of their employees. Wal-Mart has roughly 1.39 million US employees.

If the company most recent ethical controversy is true, it is not only violating general ethical standards, but also specifically Wal-Mart's own policy. Chalace Lowry's first day on the job was spent in orientation that included an emphasis on ethics, which even encouraged reporting suspected violations (Gogoi, ...