Communication in Responsible Business- Free Assignment Sample

Question: Discuss about the Communication in Responsible Business. Answer: Introduction Walmart started as a small single store with the idea of selling more products in lesser price. Since its beginning, the store has grown and currently it has 11,500 stores working under 63 banners and operating in 28 countries (Corporate.walmart.com 2016). The e-commerce sites are operating in 11 countries. The footfall of the customers is expected to be 260 million per week. The main objective of the write-up is to study the ethical issues presented in the business of Walmart and evaluate the steps taken by the organization to make its business sustainable. Recommendations are given so that Walmart will be able to carry out its business in an effective manner. In spite of suffering the pangs of scandals and ethical issues, Walmart has tried hard to keep up its sustainable business. The year 2012 has seen the company donating a cash amount of $1 billion and other in-kind contributions with the help of the Walmart foundations. Along with thinking about the society, Walmart has thought of implementing within the organization and in the operations. It is expected that the sustainable approach of the company will help the organization to take care of the employees and the environment. To create a sustainable environment, Walmart has joined hands with some of the senior employees in the supplier companies, non-governmental organizations and other entities. With the help of these organizations, Walmart has developed a Sustainable Value Networks (SVN). The sustainable approach to save the environment has served the purpose of the company well. In the year, 2012, Walmart was able to install, 115 incite rooftop solar kits. The solar installations provided them with 71 million kilowatt hours of electricity in a year. In the United States, Walmart has been able to complete 26 fuel installations and helped in providing 65 million kilowatt hours of electricity per year. They aim at signing long-term contracts with organizations that supply renewable energy. Walmart has been successful in converting 1.2 million pounds of used cooking oil into soap and biodiesel and food for the cattle. In addition this, it has helped in composting 1900 metric tons of organic waste. Walmart took the initiative to sell toys made of wood to the preschools. Walmart has helped to increase the sale of the gods that are locally grown by 97 percent. Hence, it can be said that Walmart has kept no stone unturned to help society and create a sustainable environment. To conserve the energy consumption, Walmart has taken two major steps. New stores that are coming up for Walmart, there is feature called daylighting. During the day, the daylights used to get dim as the stores are lit with the help of the skylight that is entering the stores. As a result, the demand for electricity reduces during the peak hours of the day. The Walmart stores that located in the United States are having centrally controlling the heating and cooling system. Walmart has taken steps to use the LED lights and is using secondary loop refrigeration system by replacing open freezers. The usage of LED light and the refrigeration system will help Walmart to achieve the goal of reducing the green house gas emissions by 20 million metric tons. With the help of the solar equipments, Walmart is able to reduce the use of fossil fuels and promote the use of green products among the customers. As far as the sustainability among the employees is concerned, Walmart seems to hold a weak position. Walmart has been accused of not looking after the employees to work for the stores. It has failed to provide health insurance to 60% of the employees who work for the company. To look after the employees, Walmart raised its pay tied based on the performance of the employees in more than one-third of the entire number of stores located in the market. The heath benefit packages were enhanced and offered low deductibles. In addition to this, they offered generic prescription plan that will save the expenditure of the employees by $25 million. Moreover, the Walmart has assured that it will look into the fact that three-fourth of the employees have health insurance, though may not be its is through Walmart. On the contrary, Walmart keep a policy that they can cut the healthcare coverage for the employees who are working below 30 weeks. This policy of cutting the healthcare befits of the e mployees did not go down well for many critics. Walmart has been further accused of decreasing the number of employees by 1.4 percent, while they have increased the area of work by 13 percent. Hence, it can be said the steps taken by Walmart to sustain the employees is not up to the mark. Some of the most significant ethical issue faced by Walmart are related to the employees who are working for the organization as well as the environment. In the year 2005, Walmart had been target for violating the regulations of the environment. The Attorneys office that is located in Los Angeles sent a grand jury subpoena to Walmart to seek information regarding the recycling methods, transportation, disposal of hazardous materials, storage, and treatment of the waste and identification of the company. In addition to this, in the year 2013, Walmart pled guilty for the criminal charges that have been posed on the company for disposing hazardous materials without proper management. To handle the issues, Walmart a lump sum amount of $81 million to settle the matter. The positive part of Walmart is that instead of blaming anybody for the negligence either within or outside the organization, it admitted the charges (Thiel et al. 2012). It further assured that the organization would teach the employees the way of treating the wastes properly. Walmart has faced criticism for making the workers work in harsh conditions in the warehouses. Violation of the labor laws and overlooking the safety of the workers are some of complaints regarding the working condition of the workers. The problems are even more because at times, the workers are hired with the help of the staffing agencies or with the help of the third-party contractors. Hence, it is not always possible for them to look into the problems of the workers and they believe that the third-party contractors are responsible for the poor conditions of the workers. Walmart has assured that they will look into the working conditions of the workers who are being hired with the help of the third party. If any of the suppliers is found to be violating the rules, Walmart will terminate the association with the supplier immediately. The ethical element of Walmart was again targeted in the bribery scandal of the company. Walmax, the Mexican arms of Walmart has been the source of scandals related to bribery. The executive of Walmax has paid million of dollars in the form of bribes to get the zoning permits and license for the store locations. The process of getting zoning permit usually takes longer than it takes in the United States. Hence, paying the bribe would have sped up the process. The worst part of the bribery scandal at Mexico was that the senior executives who work at Walmart did not pay any heed to the scandals that were happening in the organization. Moreover, the case of bribery that looked small from outside, could be much wide spread from inside. To handle the issues of bribery, Walmart assured the US Justice department that it would carry out an internal investigation to identify the exact sources of mismanagement in the year, 2011. However, no such steps were seen to be taken by the retailers unt il The New York Times revealed to the senior management of Walmart that cases of bribery might go back to the year, 2005. It has been identified that the Mexican counterpart has paid an amount as huge as $24 million as the part of bribe. Walmart has to pay an amount of $99 million for the internal probe. In addition to this, Walmart to stop its expansion in India that it was doing with Bharti Enterprise as it was believed that the network of bribery has reached the land of India as well. As Walmart suffered serious consequences for the bribery scandals, it had to pay for the compensations as well. Walmart assured that it would stop the compensations of the executives who were involved in the scandals and pay for the scandals that have happened as well as the people who have been seriously affected due to the scandals. There are some common rules and regulations which different organization follows in the business operations irrespective of the nature of the business. One of the common as well as most important factors which majority of the organization follows is the use and practice of CSR in the business process. The answer to this particular question will cover all the necessary attributes of Corporate Social Responsibility of the selected organization Walmart. Carrolls Pyramid of Corporate Social Responsibility is one of the most important tools of CSR, which Walmart follows in the business process and operations. The pyramid of CSR consists of four critical layers, which are classified into Economic Responsibility, Legal Responsibility, Ethical responsibility, and Philanthropic responsibility (Bove e and Thill, 2012). These are the four essential parts, which will focus on the key attributes of CSR. However, the greatest environmental concern associated with Walmart has been the urban sprawl. The contribution of Walmart for the development process of the environment and towards building its sustainability is remarkable. The construction of Walmart can stress a citys infrastructure of developing different roads, parking and traffic flow. The organization is very much concern about the de velopment as well as maintaining the greenery of the environment by following different kinds of corrective measures in the operations of CSR (Conaway and Laasch, 2012). Sustainability, opportunity, and community are the three essential features, which Walmart follows in the proceedings of the business. The application of Carroll model will focus on following steps: With the help of the Carroll, four parts CSR Model, Walmart has managed to maintain the business operations in the right manner. It maintained a proper sustainability and contributed for the betterment for the society. Economic Components The economic components of Carroll model are to perform in a manner by maximizing the earnings per share concept. It is important to maintain a healthy as well as a competitive position in the business operations of the organization. The economic ideas will highlight the level of operational efficiency, which Walmart follows in the overall business transactions (Gond and Moon, 2012). It is very much essential towards maintaining a healthy business in the economic environment, which will focus on the consistency of the organization. Walmart firmly believes in the process of the managing the business process with the view of producing an overall positive impact on the society. Legal Concept It is important to perform all the activities of the organization in the desired manner, which will follow all the rules and regulation of CSR in the desired manner. The definition of a successful firm is following all the rules and regulations of the organizations in a much-desired manner, which will evaluate all the activities of the proper CSR Model and practices. Ethical Concepts Walmart firmly believes in performing all the business activities in the desired manner with the expectation of the societal as well as moral norms. It is important to prevent the ethical standards from being compromised to achieve the organizational goals and corporate objectives. Philanthropic Components Philanthropic components will execute the performance of the Walmart regarding practices of CSR. It is important to perform in a manner consistent it the philanthropic and charitable expectation of the society. In order to discuss the Walmarts key stakeholders, Mitchell et al. identified the suppliers, employees based on the three major key relationship attributes such as power, urgency and legitimacy. The effects of the stakeholders on Walmart have been discussed briefly in the following: Impact on the competitive stakeholders The major complaints against Walmart can be explained as it does not allow other organizations in the business. In this occasion, Walmart offers the consumers probable lower prices to make competitive advantage over the other opponents within the market. As per the statement of Ravi (2015), Walmart is responsible for the lowering down the pressure on the wage rate and obtain the advantage in the place, where it is located. The specialization that Walmart has obtained is that it set out the price of the products comparatively lower for the average buyers. In turn, Walmart used to provide greater quality of goods. In this connection, it can conclude that Walmart is familiar as the consumers favorite shopping spot. In the words of Hanks (2012), in order to maintain the competition in the market, the other firms want to survive by lowering down the wages. In this respect, it can be clearly observed that after entering of Walmart into the market, the payroll wages has been decreased by 5 per cent. Hence, some of the activist groups as well as the citizens were not willing to allow Walmart in order to consider the residence in the place. Connection with the supplier stakeholders Walmart acquired the everyday lower prices in terms of the streamlining the organisation. Walmart works with the suppliers to lowering down the cost in terms of packaging and the shipping. This reflects to diminish the cost for the customers. Considering the goals, Walmart aims to take up the sustainability to enhance the sustainability of the goods and include the higher effective and significant supply chain. Ravi (2015) highlighted the basic four basic sustainability goals such as purchasing of the 70% of the merchandise selling products in United States. Hence, in this context, the stores of the Walmart from the global suppliers side tried to use the sustainability index to implement the accumulated data regarding the goods by 2017. It also considers the sustainability index for the United States private brands as the formation of model. In addition, it can be evaluated the major sources of the merchants to improve the sustainability. Lastly, it is required to donate $2 million f or funding the sustainability consortium. Employees as the stakeholders According to Koca-Helvaci (2015), Walmart is responsible for the reduction of health insurance for higher than 60% of the workers. In this connection, it can be seen that Walmart has focused to recruit the more part time employees with the motivation of recruiting of healthier as well as the greater productive employees. As a result, Calton (2013) criticised that with the reflection of this poor publicity, the stock of Walmart has been decreased by 27% from the year of 2000 to 2005. The answer to this particular question will evaluate Walmarts ethics in its overall communication process and practices. After analyzing the case study in a proper manner, there are certainly ethical issues, which Walmart has in the past in the business operations. The growth of Walmart is very much remarkable in the overall business process. Walmart is working to improve its ethical reputation and to maintain the sustainability of the organization. In the year 2004, Walmart formed its Global Reputation for sustainability and corporate governance. The controversy of workers safety in Bangladesh intensified after a factory collapse and caused retailers like Walmart to consider a safety plan for the employees. The role of global ethics is responsible towards promoting Walmarts Culture of integrity (Lindgreen, 2012). There are certain standards, which is followed by Walmart in the process of practicing the notion of CSR in the business. The global standards follow and services as a guid e and resources in the process of developing a proper decision making process. It provides a confidential as well as an anonymous reporting system, which will lead a continuous ethics education, and communication system. Some of the important recommendations, which need to follow, are highlighted in the following part of the assignment Maintaining proper Economic Responsibility The economic responsibility is the first step while developing the organization need to develop in the overall business process (Lober, 2012). A companys first responsibility is to monitor the ethics of the organization in a proper manner, which will evaluate all the companys need towards primarily concerned with turning profit. Improvement in Ethics and Legal Responsibility The second point is to cover all the legal aspect, which is one of the most crucial parts of the business process. Development of a proper social responsibility is one of the most parts in the organizational ethics. However, there are some past issues, which the organization faced in the overall process of the practices of CSR. With the help of developing a proper legal responsibility, Walmart will be able to build trust, promote confidence and validates relationship among the clients, which will allow the organization to bring positive impact to the overall business proceedings. Violation of laws relating to labor The companies need to develop certain rules and regulations, which will protect the laws of the labor. There are certain standards and regulations, which protects the ethical considerations of the labor. The role of the labor contributes as one of the most crucial parts in the overall organizational procedures (Shwom and Snyder, 2012). There are certain drawbacks, which are highlighted towards protecting the rules and regulations of the labor. Some of the key factors include proper remuneration and salary structure, good working environment and job security are some of the key factors, which needs to focus on. Conclusion Walmart has taken certain steps to carry out a sustainable business. It has looked after the environment and the society. However, the employees are the ones who are being overlooked. Walmart believes that the supplier and the employees are key stakeholders. It has been recommended that Walmart should keep a check on the labor laws and take up economic responsibility for the employees The main limitation of the case study is that it is based on earlier data. The recent data would have been better to know about the steps taken by Walmart in the present scenario. 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