Case 1: Walmart: The Main Street Merchant of Doom

Submit your responses to the following case in a Word document. Be sure to follow APA 7th guidelines. Please answer the questions completely.

**All cases can be found at the end of the textbook**

Please answer the following questions:

1. What are the major issues in this case? What does Walmart’s experience tell you about the business and society relationship?

2. Assess Walmart’s corporate social responsibility using the four-part CSR model. For example, is Walmart socially responsible even though it has had a devastating impact on many small merchants?

3. What about Walmart’s impact on communities in terms of sprawl, traffic congestion, and impact on the environment’s appearance? What responsibility, if any, does the company have to the communities it enters?

4. Sam Walton has been called a motivational genius. After reading this case, and with what you have observed at your local Walmart store, do you think the associates still feel his motivational genius? What is the “Walmart Way”? How would you characterize the store’s culture now that Sam is no longer visiting the stores?

5. Walmart was an early leader in the area of corporate social responsibility. Is the company’s detrimental impact on merchants offset by the benefits of its recent corporate citizenship and sustainability initiatives?

6. Walmart continues to resist its expansion into New England and some parts of the United States. What are the true goals of the opponents of Walmart? Include a consideration of the following: (a) stopping Walmart’s expansion, (b) preserving the status quo (e.g., downtown community and social fabric), (c) developing a cause that will pay their bills, (d) fighting for an ideology, or (e) something else. What should Walmart do when it encounters resistance?

7. With Walmart now having to close stores due to the economy and/or competition, does it have any social responsibilities to the communities it is leaving? If so, what would those responsibilities be?

8. When you are the largest company globally, how do you protect yourself against the kind of criticism Walmart has received? Does it seem that no matter how hard you try, it is difficult to make things better?