Walmarts Unethical Behavior. Business & Marketing Essay

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"Ethics refers to well-founded standards of right and wrong that prescribe what humans ought to do, usually in terms of rights, obligations, benefits to society, fairness, or specific virtues.” We see in many cases that ethics and laws do not always match up. Most laws are not ethical. In the case of an ethical law the end result may have an unethical outcome. Wal-Mart is one of the largest corporations in the United States. It is a large corporation that we see face many positive and negative ethical dilemmas. Many groups and individuals have followed the organization rage over the unethical policies and behavior. One of the common dilemmas faced is favoritism and is deeply obscured by the top-level executives. In this paper I will examine the ethical dilemmas raised for and against the Wal-Mart Corporation.
Favoritism is a common ethical issue that many companies are faced with. In the case of Wal-Mart female employees that are well qualified fail to receive top-level positions. Other employees with high education degrees also fail to receive these positions as a lack of time spent with the organization. The promotion scale is based on who has been in the company for the longest verse who is most qualified for the position. Many employees raise their concern through unions but often get shut down as it differs from company policy. Kohlberg’s first stage of ‘Moral Development Theory’, indicates that pre-conventional morality is a situation where people fear questioning economically powerful entities such as Wal-Mart, on assumption that the corporations are rightfully in charge of implementation of policies such as wage policies (Crain, 2009). If one raises awareness to the situation you can compromise your chance of ever being promoted into a higher-level position. This issue mainly arises in the departmental and general manager positions during the season of promotions. Personal relations have a high impact and trigger form of favoritism when qualifying. It is unethical and unfair to have priority for a position due to their relations with an executive or higher role. The leadership must exemplify ethical behavior and keep personal separate from work in situations such as promotions.
The company pays low wages compared to federal levels. They aim to keep wages at the lowest level possible. They attract young people that will not stand up for working at a low rate with unpaid overtime. In “2007 it was estimated that 87,000 Wal-Mart employees were cheated out of $34 million because the Wal-Mart executive stopped working to pay employees overtime. Some even confessed that they were trained by their superiors to not pay any more overtime. This is an unethical act due to the employees not receiving compensation for what was worked for and made their living cost much harder to afford” (Fishman). The pay is over 25% less than the national numbers for the retail industry. The comparison between the corporation’s revenue and the wages paid out are extremely unethical. Wal-Mart has had over 100 cases over the unethical behaviors within the company.
Wal-Mart sees promotions, as the knowledge gained from working within the company is more beneficial to the operation system than the education and knowledge from an outside source. They often see lawsuits from employees due to the discrimination and unethical behaviors. According to Hartley (2010), the company has among the highest number of pending lawsuits concern with ethical issues internationally, but promotions-related favoritism continues to emerge particularly during promotion time. Wal-Mart records indicate that it faced over four thousand lawsuits in 2004, an equivalent count of approximately a new count every two hours, meaning that it stands as a defendant in court six times every working day (Hartley, 2010). “Wal-Mart continues to reject any allegations of misbehaviors and dishonest habits” (Fishman). Large companies such as Wal-Mart often win due to the types of lawyers and policies to back up the company against most cases even when these is endless proof to back them up. The unethical favoritism behaviors at the store level do not affect the corporate levels. This large corporation faces criticism on employment and unethical acts that can cause economic downfalls due to societies reaction. Many stories of this unethical behavior continue to rise and surface from the past employees. With the way that society has developed clients that believe that Wal-Mart’s actions are unethical will not continue to due business with them. The company may face many unethical allegations but are still one of the leading stores with the best-priced products. Outside of the products Wal-Mart participates in philanthropic work in the community. They participate in social responsibility and bring personal value to the community.