One Nation Under Walmart Essay

Walmart is one of the world's largest, most successful, and most vilified corporations. – Art Carden, 2010

Today, Walmart is the largest company in the world with more than 11,500 retail units in 28 countries, annual sales exceeding $288 billion and 2.2 million employees called “associates” (Walmart corporate and financial facts, 2015). In addition, Walmart is one the largest private employers in both the United States and Canada (Walmart corporate and financial facts, 2015). What makes Walmart particularly noteworthy is that it achieved its current level of success in retailing, and no other retailers have come close to being as influential or large (Shaw). Notwithstanding its economic success, Walmart has also been the source of significant amounts of criticism because of the low wages it pays as well as its adverse impact on small businesses in the cities and towns in which it competes. To determine the facts about Walmart, this paper provides an analysis of the case study, “One Nation under Walmart,” from a utilitarianism perspective, followed by a summary of the research and important findings concerning Walmart in the conclusion.

Founded in 1962 by Sam Walton, Walmart’s first store was located in Rogers, Arkansas. In 1969, the company incorporated under the commercial name “Wal-Mart” and in 1972 it became publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange (Walmart corporate and financial facts, 2015). Today, the company operates retail stores under the name “Walmart” as well as Sam’s Clubs, Neighborhood Markets and Supercenters as well as maintaining a prominent Web presence with its corporate Web site, Walmart.com (Walmart corporate and financial facts, 2015). At present , Walmart operates about 971 discount stores, 2,447 supercenters, 132 neighborhood markets, and 591 Sam's Clubs in the United States (Corona, 2014). In addition, Walmart has 21 retail stores in Argentina, 313 in Brazil, 305 in Canada, 149 in Costa Rica, 70 in El Salvador, 145 in Guatemala, 47 in Honduras, 394 in Japan, 1,023 in Mexico, 46 in Nicaragua, 54 in Puerto Rico, and 352 in the UK, together with more than 202 stores in China that are managed as joint ventures (Corona, 2014). Moreover, Walmart is the only company in the top four of the Fortune 500 that is not an energy company (Carden, 2010). 

To its credit, Walmart has been cited for a number of positive contributions to the communities in which it competes. For instance, Shaw notes that, “The good news for consumers is that Walmart has risen to retail supremacy through the bargain prices it offers” (p. 180). Likewise, the company was among the first to offer $4 generic prescriptions which has benefitted tens of millions of senior citizens and low-income consumers (Massengill, 2013). In addition, Walmart donates millions of pounds of food each year to the needy. For instance, Creel (2011) reports that, “Walmart donated more than 127 million pounds of food to Feeding America in 2009” (p. 23). Moreover, the company has achieved a 60% increase in fuel efficiency in its vehicle fleet since 2005 (Creel, 2011). The company has also taken aggressive steps to improve its overall environmental sustainability in recent years (Orlando, 2012). 

Besides the foregoing laudable efforts, the company has also partnered with First Lady Michelle Obama to provide healthier low-cost food alternatives in its retail stores (Shaw). In this regard, Hauter (2014) reports that, “Not only is Walmart promising to sell more organic products than ever before, but the company says it will sell them cheaply” (p. 19). Moreover, even the company’s critics praised Walmart’s efforts to provide humanitarian relief following Hurricane Katrina and environmental sustainability efforts. In this regard, Shaw advises that:

Walmart has begun to respond to the criticism that it is a poor corporate citizen by improving employee health insurance coverage and adopting greener business practices. And even its usual critics applauded when the company responded rapidly to Hurricane Katrina, sending truckloads of water and food, much of it reaching residents before federal supplies did. (p. 180)