Phl 323 - Business Code of Ethics

Business Code of Ethics

Sandra Cuellar

PHL/323

December 5th, 2011

Aubrey Weekes

Business Code of Ethics

Every great corporation has a humble start and Wal-Mart is no exception. As the biggest discount chain in the world, Wal-Mart employs over two million people in its stores all around the world and they continue to grow with the vast arrays of communities that they service all over the world. Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart opened the first Wal-Mart store in 1962 in Rogers, Arkansas. Wal-Mart’s mission statement has changed over the years from low prices always to the recent, saving people money so that they can live better mission statement. Wal-Mart also changed their very identifiable smiley face to spark logo. When it came to business ethics, Sam Walton coined the phrase leading with integrity and from there created the three basic beliefs still incorporated with all stores to this present day.

What drives us?

Every corporation is driven for one reason or another. Some companies are driven for profit, others for the environment and some companies for both. Wal-Mart is an ends driven organization. Their main goal is to make a profit every single day, in every single department. In all my experience working for this giant retailer, I have seen firsthand just how ends driven ethics is evident in everything from our policies to the way management leads and delegates staff. Wal-Mart is ends driven in providing the service that our customers want and expect even if it can sometimes be coined down to questionable decisions made by our management team. I give an example of an experience that I went through many years ago. I worked at the service desk in the front end of the store where customers were able to exchange and return products from the store and one day I had the unfortunate experience of dealing with a customer that had brought a faulty product back and decided to exchange it for a more quality product. The product that the customer brought back was at lower cost than the product they were exchanging it for so this customer had to pay the difference in prices between the products. The customer got very upset because they didn’t want to pay out of pocket for their higher price item and took the situation as a personal attack and threatened me and my safety. I quickly called my manager on staff to the front of the store to diffuse the situation only to have her obviously intimidated by the irate customer, give the customer what he wanted knowing that the company was being cheated out of profit. This experience stays with me to the present moment because I feel that because Wal-Mart is