Wal-Mart Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Wal-Mart - Case Study Example A brief introduction to business ethics and social responsibility is undertaken. The importance of CSR initiatives is also discussed. The results indicate that Wal-Mart is well perceived by many customers despite few criticisms leveled against it due to its low and affordable prices. Candid CSR initiatives emerged as a very crucial factor. Corporations today have to pay much attention to the needs as well as preferences of many interest groups. Corporations are not required to behave as if their profit making goal is more important that the interests of their stakeholders. Stakeholder theory maintains that management’s role is to create value for their non-shareholder stakeholders such as consumers, the community, creditors, employees and suppliers (Lii, 2011). However, Wal-Mart has been greatly criticized for going against this theory. Areas of criticisms include treatment of suppliers, foreign products sourcing of the corporation, environmental practices, employee compensations as well as working conditions, the corporation’s security policies, the use of public subsidies and slavery (Yuan, Bao, & Verbeke, 2011). They have sought to inflict harms on their stakeholders for profit seeking in a number of ways. However, the MNE has a number of CSR initiatives to help in leading as well as providing the m with an opportunity to make differences on the big issues that matter to everyone. The corporation noted that they are committed to using their big size as well as scale in helping the world live better. Through such initiatives, Wal-Mart has been able to empower women, contribute to energy efficiency and assisting with disaster relief (News & Brothers, 2005). The aim of this paper is to identify the harms Wal-Mart inflict on their stakeholders while they make profit and the CSR initiatives it has adopted as well as their motives. In addition, the paper evaluates the results of such CSR initiatives and makes recommendations to