BUSINESS ETHICS PAPER WALMART (UNCLASSIFIED Essay

BUSINESS ETHICS PAPER WALMART (UNCLASSIFIED - Essay Example This essay will discuss Wal-Mart’s success as an organization and its ethical problems and conflict with the rest of the consuming public. We will also discuss other complaints and so-called human rights violations committed by the company, and how this huge-sized company is able to proceed working and operating for its consumers with its everyday low price strategy. Success comes in many forms, and not without sacrifices and a price. For Wal-Mart, this happens in the course of suits, public hatred at times, and more and more complaints coming from the very core of its business, the public. How Wal-Mart overcame and reached to where it is now is the subject for this paper. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is a success story as we all know. Its accelerated rate of growth is phenomenal that after it opened its first variety store in 1945 and successive opening of other variety stores, discount store, supercenters, and supermarkets, the family of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton has now a combined fortune of about $90 billion. (Ferrell, Fraedrich, & Ferrell, 2008, p. 394) In its website, the story is told that Wal-Mart began when it opened its first discount store in Rogers, Ark. in 1962. Five years later, there were 24 Wal-Mart stores ringing up $12.6 million in sales. In 1972, when it opened its stocks to the public in the New York Stock Exchange, it had 276 stores in 11 states. (Wal-Mart History Timeline, 2008) Wal-Mart Stores comes in three sizes: discount stores, which are about 100,000 square feet; supercenters, which are about 187,000 square feet; and the neighborhood markets, which are about 43,000 square feet in size. (Ferrell et al., 2008, p. 293) Wal-Mart’s critics include feminists, human rights activists, anti-sprawl, activists, and labor unions. The controversies are its alleged â€Å"not-so good† treatment of its employees, suppliers, the environment, and the overall economic impact on communities. One major issue: Wal-Mart has engaged in