Ethics Audit

Ethics Audit

Wal-Mart is one of the largest retailers with club and store locations in 28 countries with 9,700 stores, and over two million employees. In 1962 Sam Walton had an idea about discount store that would be from other discount stores. That year he opened the first Wal-Mart store in Rogers, Arkansas. Sam believed a person could have fun while they were working hard. Sam Walton further believed that employees also preferred to be known as associates and should be treated like family. “In the 1973 annual report, Sam Walton, in his letter to shareholders, talks of ‘associate loyalty’ and how associates are members of the Wal-Mart family (Boje & Rosile, 2008, p. 13).” Sam Watson passed away in 1992. His philosophy of associate had been forgotten. In the past 20 years there have been over a thousand lawsuits filed against Wal-Mart regarding sex discrimination, violation of workers’ rights, child labor laws, and sustainability issues. The unethical business practices, how management addressed these issues, formal and informal system, and implementing changes, is the focus of this paper.

Unethical Business Practices

An anonymous former employee of Wal-Mart, who had worked in the marketing department, posted what she or he had seen while working at Wal-Mart. According to Richard Publishing (2005), “The one visible unethical procedure was favoritism. I saw it more and more as time went on. The problem with favoritism at Wal-Mart is that it's obscured deep within their corporate culture. The top-executives will disagree, but the truth still remains that the company utilizes favoritism on a daily basis (para.1).” During promotion times woman working in Wal-Mart’s corporate office and in local stores were looked over for any type of advancement. Men also receive a higher hourly pay than woman.

Wal-Mart has over 80 pending lawsuits from employees because of violation federal and state fair labors act. Employees were forced to work through their lunch or...