Is Wal-Mart Good for America?

Paper Summary:

The paper discusses how Wal-Mart's dominance in retailing is attributable to the company's extensive supply chain, its ability to gain suppliers' lowest pricing in exchange for selling their products through its extensive retail chain of stores and superstores and its ability to keep wage and operating expenses low. The paper explores the social and community, economic and political implications. The paper concludes that Wal-Mart is good for America and has become the retailer of choice for the struggling middle class, yet it does extract a price for the value it delivers.

Outline:
Introduction
Social and Community Impact
Economic impact
Political Impact
Conclusion

From the Paper:

"Wal-Mart's impact on the social systems and communities on a local level is already significant and becoming more pervasive. With this impact comes the responsibility to manage their corporations' many strategies, initiatives and plans with foresight as to their impact on social systems and communities as well. Despite claiming they have a commitment to ethical corporate behavior and support at the community level, even going as far as to create a (Global Ethics Office 2), the company's track record in terms of lessening the quality of life for retailing workers has been empirically proven (Freeman, 38) and (Drogin, 45)."

Sample of Sources Used:

• R Edward Freeman. "The Wal-Mart Effect and Business, Ethics, and Society. " The Academy of Management Perspectives 20.3 (2006): 38-40. ABI/INFORM Global. ProQuest. 2 Apr. 2008. http://www.proquest.com
• Richard Drogin, Ph. D. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF GENDER PATTERNS IN WAL-MART WORKFORCE, February, 2003 Drogin, 45 - 93 pages. Kakigi & Associates, Berkeley, CA 94705
• Fishman, Carl. Fast Company Magazine and Website (2003, December) The Wal-Mart You Don't Know. (article) New York, NY
• Jerry Hausman, Ephraim Leibtag. "Consumer benefits from increased competition in shopping outlets: Measuring the effect of Wal-Mart. " Journal of Applied Econometrics 22.7 (2007): 1157. ABI/INFORM Global. ProQuest. 10 Apr. 2008. www.proquest.com
• Constance Kampf. "Corporate social responsibility :WalMart, Maersk and the cultural bounds of representation in corporate web sites. " Corporate Communications 12.1 (2007): 41. ABI/INFORM Global. ProQuest 5 Apr. 2008. www.proquest.com

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