Organizational behavior strategies and employee motivation at Walmart

Organizational Behavior

In this age of rapid technological development and growing forces of globalization, economic entities have to strive harder than ever to develop and maintain strong competitive positions. In order to attract, satisfy and retain as many customers as possible and ensure income stability, organizational managers develop and implement a wide series of strategic approaches. Some of these efforts revolve around the motivation, training and retention of the staff members; others deal with an enhanced process of employee empowerment or a third category of strategic decisions revolves around the organizational culture. All these endeavors, and many more, are organized under the generic term of organizational behavior and the aim of this paper is to assess how Wal-Mart succeeds or fails in implementing the concepts of OB.

Organizational Behavior at Microsoft

Wal-Mart is by far the largest and most successful retailer within the United States and, despite its failures in Europe, it has still managed to make a strong statement within the international market.

Power and Politics

Similar to employee motivation, the issue of power and politics with Wal-Mart is a conflicting one. Critics of Wal-Mart base their arguments on the statements of current of former Wal-Mart employees, who were generally dissatisfied and had negative things to say. The most relevant of these statements have been gathered by Robert Greenwald (2005) in his documentary film Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price. From the perspective and experiences of the interviewed individuals, the company would reveal unethical behavior materialized often in abuses of managerial power in instances such as the request for extra, unpaid hours. Also, these employees mentioned that they had been subjected to gender and racial discrimination and that promotions to managerial positions were virtually impossible for them to get.

On the other hand, looking at the issue from the standpoint of the company and its advocates, the Wal-Mart executives state that they do not discriminate against their staff members and that they do present them all with equal development opportunities. Additionally, the managerial team argues that the levels of employee empowerment are increased within the organization. And they do this not only because it is the right thing to do, but also as it benefits the organization. Tim Gebauer, manager at the Mason City Wal-Mart stores argues that the great ideas come from the employees who interact with products and customers on daily basis and that this represents a major competitive advantage as well as a strong reason in support of employee empowerment. In his own words: "They know their piece of this business better than I do. One of the most important keys to developing your business is to simply make use of the tremendous resources of experience and knowledge that are already within your organization" (Tim Gebauer, quoted by Biztrain).

Organizational Culture

The organizational culture is a pivotal element in the success of any entity, but even more so in cases of large corporations where there is a growing need for a unified system of thinking to integrate all corporatist elements. Unlike motivation and empowerment, in terms of culture, most sources indicate that Wal-Mart has successfully managed to create a strong organizational culture. The company's website argues that respect for all stakeholders sits at the basis of their fruitful relationships and helps them remain committed to excellence. Additionally, the corporate culture is based on the values first introduced by founder Sam Walton. "We're known around the world as the company that helps our customers save money so they can live better. We're also well-known for our unique corporate culture. Sam Walton built our business on values and morals. Those rules and customs have helped us become one of the world's most admired companies" (Wal-Mart Website, 2009). This approach has helped not only with the internal structures and operations, but has also extrapolated to materialize in great competitive advantages within the national and international markets (Refrigerated Transporter, 2002).

3. Conclusions

The main idea of this paper was that of revealing the successes and failures of Wal-Mart in implementing various concepts of organizational behavior. From the information presented however, a conclusion is difficult to be drawn for the simple fact that the data conflicts based on the source of provenience. In this line of thoughts, information from the company and its supporters argues that the retail monolith is extremely triumphant in implementing OB strategies, whilst its disclaimers argue the opposite. It would have been easy to offer a clear and cut answer by assessing only one side of the story, but the objectivity of such an endeavor would have been compromised. Nonetheless, from a business standpoint, Wal-Mart represents the ultimate epitome of corporate success, revealing as such numerous successes in terms of organizational behavior.

References:

Greenwald, R., 2006, Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, Brave New Films

Klinger, M., Twinger, S., Motivating Front Line Staff for Bottom Line Results, McKinsey, Retrieved from http://www.mckinsey.com/practices/retail/knowledge/articles/Motivatingfrontlinestaff.pdf on June 5, 2009

2002, Corporate Culture Provides Wal-Mart Competitive Advantage, Refrigerated Transporter, http://refrigeratedtrans.com/mag/transportation_corporate_culture_provides / last accessed on June 5, 2009

2009, Wal-Mart Website, http://walmartstores.com last accessed on June 5, 2009

2009, Wal-Mart Watch, http://walmartwatch.com / last accessed on June 5, 2009

Wal-Mart Manager Explains Ways His Employees (Associates) Are a Great Idea Factory, Biztrain, http://www.biztrain.com/motivation/stories/walmart.htm last accessed on June 5, 2009