Walmart-Business Ethics
MBA 726
Business Ethics
Policy Audit for Walmart
MUNISE ULKER
I wanted to pick Walmart because my own company is very small and the policies are not very detailed yet, but will be as we grow in the light of what we learned in this class.
AlsoWalmart is a national company with a lot of holes in their Ethical Policies, I thought
I can learn from reviewing their mistakes.
Walmart has a code of ethics but it is not very effective that they keep being sued and loose. Their board of directors participate in the development and evaluation of the program. And the code of ethics rules are being played fairly even among high management jobs; we can see this when Walmart fired seven top managers because they failed to comply with code of ethics audit. Also Vice Chairman Tom Coughlin voluntarily quit in 2005 then was sued for spending company benefits for personal use.
Walmart published a website just to timely update public about their new developments, communicate standards and procedures in their policies. Walmart informs their employees, suppliers, and customers of their ethical standards by the employee handbooks and their website.
Their manuals, and written documents in the store show the appropriate behavior in a written way.
Even though company publishes that there is open communication within the organization about procedures and activities; we have seen several proves of Walmart stopping union movements behind closed doors.
Walmart encourages the stakeholders to inform of the unethical behavior by calling the anonymous hotline, email, or simply inform the higher authorities personally.
Walmart has been trying to improve the ethical issues constantly but they keep falling behind because there are several issues currently being decided at the court system like; unfair salaries and job distribution between male and female associates, working conditions, unions, disables employees, illegal immigrants, and low
Business Ethics
Policy Audit for Walmart
MUNISE ULKER
I wanted to pick Walmart because my own company is very small and the policies are not very detailed yet, but will be as we grow in the light of what we learned in this class.
AlsoWalmart is a national company with a lot of holes in their Ethical Policies, I thought
I can learn from reviewing their mistakes.
Walmart has a code of ethics but it is not very effective that they keep being sued and loose. Their board of directors participate in the development and evaluation of the program. And the code of ethics rules are being played fairly even among high management jobs; we can see this when Walmart fired seven top managers because they failed to comply with code of ethics audit. Also Vice Chairman Tom Coughlin voluntarily quit in 2005 then was sued for spending company benefits for personal use.
Walmart published a website just to timely update public about their new developments, communicate standards and procedures in their policies. Walmart informs their employees, suppliers, and customers of their ethical standards by the employee handbooks and their website.
Their manuals, and written documents in the store show the appropriate behavior in a written way.
Even though company publishes that there is open communication within the organization about procedures and activities; we have seen several proves of Walmart stopping union movements behind closed doors.
Walmart encourages the stakeholders to inform of the unethical behavior by calling the anonymous hotline, email, or simply inform the higher authorities personally.
Walmart has been trying to improve the ethical issues constantly but they keep falling behind because there are several issues currently being decided at the court system like; unfair salaries and job distribution between male and female associates, working conditions, unions, disables employees, illegal immigrants, and low
References: http://ethics.walmartstores.com/StatementofEthics/MSGfromCEO.aspx http://www.usatoday.com/money/workplace/2005-01-28-walmart-ethics_x.htm http://walmartstores.com/AboutUs/295.aspx http://www.ufcw.org/press_room/ Business Ethics, 2011, Ferrell, Fraedrich, Ferrell