(Walmart Image 16 February 2017.)
Ethics is, “moral principles that govern a person’s behavior or the conducting of an activity.” This is such an important term to understand and live by. I believe that as a business owner it is especially important to make sure that your business is run by this term. Unfortunately, some companies are not run with the correct ethics.
(Marketing Ethics Image 16 February 2017)
Marketing Ethics Challenge
We all have heard of Wal-mart and how it has low prices every day. Wal-mart also is the largest employer in the world, hiring about 2.1 million employees, and bringing 421.8 billion dollars in revenue. Yet Wal-mart has a very unethical way of running the company, by not treating their employees properly. According to Carnegie Council, Wal-mart has had to pay over 1 million dollars in damages just to U.S. employees. Wal-mart has been part of many cases of bribery in other locations around the world. Just one of the countries that Wal-mart bribed was Teotihuacan, Mexico. The New York Times posted an article along with a video explaining how Wal-mart bribed Teotihuacan for $200,000 to build on landmarked pyramids. Locals were protesting for months to stop it from happening yet Wal-mart continued. This is just one of hundreds of very unfortunate events that Wal-mart has gone through to build their business.
(YouTube “Wal-Mart Targeted Over Corruption and Labor Practices: December 23, 2012-February 16, 2017” Online Video Clip. YouTube.)
Just another terrible situation that has happened within Wal-mart is in 2008, they sued a man after getting hit by a truck and became brain damaged from the accident. Wal-mart paid out $470,000 in health insurance. Then, sues the man to regain the money they had previously paid. This is just absolutely terrible. Once again this is just one of many incidents that have happened between Wal-mart and their employees.
(Protestors “Always Low Wages” Image 16 February 2017.)
Hits Home with Me
The reason this hit home with me and impacted me so much was because I used to shop at Wal-Mart and loved how inexpensive their products are. Yet after looking more into this company and hearing all of the unethical things this company has done I want to completely stop shopping here. I recently heard that Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Is Cashing Out of Walmart. The article states that Buffet almost completely “checked out of Wal-mart.” This hit home for me as well because with this important of a businessman taking stocks out of Wal-mart he must see stocks falling extremely fast here soon.
Marketing Ethics at Action
Wal-mart is currently affecting a lot of employees. Yes, they hold the largest employment in the world, yet they are taking advantage of it. Wal-mart needs to start making changes to their company otherwise, they are going to plummet fast. If Wal-Mart continues on the path they are on, they will lose a lot of employees which is the major aspect they are affecting in their organization. One because they have terrible ethics and treat their employees so terribly, and two because Amazon is starting to take over and become a threat.
Resolution
I believe that the better you treat other people, life will turn out in your favor. Wal-mart treats their employees poorly and it is resulting in their business. If Wal-mart could just learn to have good ethics all around then their business would have a better chance at taking off and succeeding. If I were the owner of Wal-Mart I would definitely make a complete change to the company. I understand some companies don’t like change and that is what makes them fail. If I were in the shoes of someone within management, then I would do what I can to make the chain I manage a great working environment for my employees. Another thing I would consider is to speak to all the other managers I could get into contact with and try to make labor fair with payroll and possibly speak with the head of the organization. I once heard that “in order to get what you want, you have to help others get what they want” (Zig Ziglar). This is true when it comes to being ethical and owning a business because in order to be as successful as Wal-Mart they need employees, but if they treat their employees badly there will eventually be no Wal-mart.
Research:
As I was looking for information about how terrible Wal-mart is I came across another blog from WordPress about how Wal-Mart is unethical. I found it very interesting to read another blogger’s post on the same topic I was about to write on.
The next article I came across was just an overview on Wal-mart and explained some of the unethical acts that Wal-mart has done. The title of the website was called Warren Buffett Berkshire Hathaway Is Cashing Out of Walmart. I found this article important because Warren Buffett is an important businessman, and I thought that any story with him involved should be added.
Another article I used was from the New York Times. In this website, it included one situation relating to the pyramids in Teotihuacan, Mexico. I thought this was extremely sad along with extremely unethical. This article also included the video of the people in Mexico protesting against Wal-mart, it really made it personal.
I also used another website that was initially an overview article of Wal-mart and how they treat their employees globally. The title was called The World of Wal-Mart, it went on to explain the working conditions of employees in certain countries for Wal-mart, along with money spent on bribery, a number of people that have been injured or died, and how Wal-mart reacted to the situations. It was extremely helpful information to understand the circumstances.
The next website I used as research is called The 10 Telltale Signs That The Future Looks Bad For Wal-Mart. This was where I found the story about the man who was hit by the truck and brain damaged, and when Wal-Mart sued the man to get their money back. This article had many other situations I just didn’t use them because I didn’t want the blog to become too lengthy. I also got back up evidence from another website about this same situation from WHY’D THEY DO THAT?.
Contemporary Marketing 