Case Of Wal-Mart Research Articles

Survival of new and small retail businesses facing mega‐retailers in non‐metropolitan areas—The case of Walmart in the province of Quebec

AbstractThe aim of this paper is to study the impact of Walmart's entry on the survival of new and small retail businesses within non‐metropolitan areas in the province of Quebec. To do so, the study covers the years 1999–2007 and focuses on four non‐metropolitan cities. These include two Walmart entry cities, Rimouski and Salaberry‐de‐Valleyfield, and two other cities, where no Walmart was present during the study period, La Pocatière and Sorel‐Tracy. The results of a difference‐in‐differences analysis, conducted through a semi‐parametric Cox proportional hazards model, reveal that the entry of Walmart decreases the risk of closure of the new and small retail businesses.

Technology and Organizational Strategy a Case of Walmart

The impressive growth of Walmart is an example of an organization exploiting its capabilities and competencies to build and maintain a dominant footing within its industry. This report will briefly analyze the retail industry as a whole to determine the strategic options available to players within the industry, as well as analysis the core competencies of Walmart. The industry analysis examined the supply chain, new entrants and competition within the retail industry. The core competency review analyzed key business functions to determine if Walmart demonstrated a unique positioning of its internal resources.

Low cost strategy is a possible solution for Iraqi organizations to Confronting the competition Walmart case study

Low cost strategy is a possible solution for Iraqi organizations to Confronting the competition Walmart case study

Charitable Donation, Market Expansion and Market Presence: The Case of Walmart

Charitable Donation, Market Expansion and Market Presence: The Case of Walmart

Private Label Pricing of Online Retailers: The Case of Walmart's Great Value

Private Label Pricing of Online Retailers: The Case of Walmart's Great Value

Competitive expansion strategies between retailers: the case of Wal-Mart and Target

ABSTRACT This paper examines competition between two main retailers, Wal-Mart and Target, in the context of expansion strategies. I use a structural model assuming that the firms are forward-looking and engage in dynamic strategies forming a Markov perfect equilibrium (MPE). The results show different expansion strategies and the asymmetric impact of the competitor’s presence on each retailer. Target must operate in a comfort zone to benefit from the spillover effects of Wal-Mart’s presence and avoid cannibalizing its own stores. On the other hand, Wal-Mart dominates most market structures and is not impacted significantly by Target. This result can be generalized to the case where small retailers benefit from clustering with their own stores and competitors’ stores. An implication is that competing retailers engage in back-and-forth expansion strategies as one tries to penetrate a market and the other tries to defend. However, unlimited expansion results in cannibalization. The fixed cost for Target also contains a comfort zone due to a quadratic relationship with the number of stores owned, but the relationship is monotonically increasing for Wal-Mart. Another notable result is that Target’s fixed cost per store added can be as high as nine times that of Wal-Mart. Overall, the results show that primary and secondary players can co-exist in the same market to reap benefits despite having different scales of operations. The results provide practical implications for policymakers who can use these insights to design retail and zoning regulations that protect local shops and maintain fair competition.

Reputation Risk from a Stakeholder Management Perspective

Stakeholders face many different risks that arise from any business activity. The stakeholder management approach is the process by which is organised, monitored and improved relationships with business stakeholders. It involves systematically identifying stakeholders; analysing their needs, expectations; planning and implementing various tasks to engage with them. Most definitions of stakeholder management tend to focus around the idea of how could stakeholders be managed in order to get them to do what is equired. The emphasis is placed on creating a stakeholder management plan that maps the level of interest and influence of stakeholders and list various levels of engagement for the different groups. This paper applies a case study methodology presenting the Wal-Mart case and the Malden Mills case to reflect the implications of stakeholder management in companies. The findings indicate the positive but also the negative implications which result when various stakeholders are neglected, and, conversely, the benefits when stakeholders are effectively engaged in corporate activities. It concludes that effective stakeholder management contributes to risk management and reputation management, as well as, to corporate social responsibility.

Towards an agrarian question of circulation: Walmart's expansion in Chile and the agrarian political economy of supply chain capitalism

AbstractThe central role that infrastructures of circulation and connectivity—logistical, financial, and digital—have come to perform in the reproduction of agro‐food systems calls for an expanded conception of agriculture that integrates dialectically the production of economic value and its subsequent realization in the sphere of exchange. Through the case of Walmart's expansion in Chile, and on the basis of a critical theorization of the circulation of capital, this paper proposes an agrarian question of circulation in which the apparently distinct realms of food production, transport, storage, and consumption are brought together into a contradictory and yet unitary whole. The case of Walmart Chile is illustrative of how the reconfiguration of spaces of urban mass consumption and the organizational restructuring of agro‐industrial hinterlands constitute each other in intricate ways. An agrarian question of circulation, the paper concludes, bears important political implications for rethinking the scope and extent of contemporary discussions on agrarian reform being put forward by transnational rural organizations.

The impact of supermarket supply chain governance on smallholder farmer cooperatives: the case of Walmart in Nicaragua

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and governments are promoting cooperatives as key to linking smallholder farmers with modern markets to achieve inclusive development, yet the specifics of these supply relationships remain poorly understood. This article uses data from 51 interviews with supply chain stakeholders and a survey of 110 smallholder vegetable farmers in Nicaragua to investigate the impact of cooperative-supermarket supply chain relationships on cooperatives, and the role retailers and NGOs play in facilitating these relationships. The study found that in Nicaragua, cooperatives selling to Walmart became unstable, in contrast with the performance of cooperatives selling to local supermarket chain La Colonia. The results show that cooperative performance is impacted by an interaction between differences in the types of farmers reached by the two supermarket chains, in the performance of the NGOs involved in each supply chain, and in the supermarkets’ business practices. The findings suggest that NGOs should pay more attention to buyer sourcing strategies and farmer needs when designing development interventions to link cooperatives of resource-poor farmers to markets, so as not to increase the vulnerability of smallholder farmers.

Gatekeeper power: understanding the influence of lead firms over transnational sustainability standards

Do retailers and supermarkets hold power over third-party transnational sustainability standards? If so, what is the nature of their power, when and how do they use it and to what ends? Using the counterintuitive case of Walmart’s efforts to improve the Best Aquaculture Practices standard for sustainable aquaculture, I develop a conceptualization of business power that flows from the position of retailers and supermarkets as lead firms within buyer-driven global value chains (GVCs). This position affords them considerable leverage over transnational sustainability standards (TSS) through their ability to act as ‘gatekeepers’ to their networks of suppliers, thereby controlling the degree to which sustainability standards gain market uptake. However, this power can be constrained or redirected by value chain and sector-specific conditions that may shift the balance of power towards other actors in a production network. As a result, lead firms may sometimes counterintuitively advocate for TSS that are more inclusive, independent and demanding. This article brings together the literatures on GVCs, global production networks, transnational governance and business power in global governance to offer an initial framework for theorizing power dynamics between multinational corporations and the transnational standard setters that seek to govern them.

Ethical Trading in Corporate Social Responsibility: A Case of Walmart, Apple and Canon

The objective of the study was to determine the extent to which an organization is socially responsible. Studies describe the social responsibility of an organization based on how the organization engages the society in its projects. Across the firms, Apple and Walmart, each scoring 14%, emerged as the most socially responsible organizations while canon trailed behind by 4%. The regression analysis depicted the existence of a significant relationship between the variables. From the analysis, it is evident that the ethical behavior of an organization and a socially responsible organization has a positive significant relationship with how a firm performs in the market. Apparently, an increase in a firm's ethical behavior results to about 55.5% increment in a firm's performance.

Walmart Case May Test Employer's Right to Monitor Employees' Social Media Accounts

Internal documents Walmart was required to produce prior to a National Labor Relations Board hearing show that the company hired a division of giant defense contractor Lockheed Martin to monitor the social media accounts of employees who supported a union and make immediate reports to management of union supporters' planned activities. The company later brought in the FBI as well. In addition, the documents show from the company's perspective the perceived threat of the OUR Walmart organization, at that time funded by the United Food and Commercial Workers, and the impact of demonstrations on the company. The documents were analyzed by Susan Berfield in a recent article for Bloomberg.com, “How Walmart Keeps an Eye on Its Massive Workforce.”

Wal-Mart and Carrefour’s Supply Chain Management Strategies in China

Supply chain management is a key of retail enterprises survival and development. For a better understanding, weintended to illustrate this concept with the case of Wal-Mart and Carrefour in China. In this article, we focusedon the Wal-Mart and Carrefour’s supply chain management strategies in China, introduced the supply chainmanagement from four parts. “Customer is the first consideration!” and “Thinking global and acting local” arealso pertinent to application in the management of supply chains. Managers may identify key processes andconsider the possible contributions of each to the efficiency of their own chains. Through comparisons of supplychain management between Wal-Mart and Carrefour’s strategies in China to give Chinese local retail enterprisesenlightenment, and should help those wishing to explore the uniqueness of the Chinese market and thechallenges that will be encountered when expanding their businesses in China.

Business Strategy, Market Governance and Performance

The evidences, the paradoxes, the questions that emerge from academic research into the mechanisms by which businesses generate profits are at the centre of an important theoretical debate. A large body of literature in strategic management emphasizes a particular perspective or theory (namely, the industry- resource- and institution-based views), leading to the accumulation of research findings that are difficult to compare and integrate. The current streams of thinking on the sustainability of competitive advantages have missed the aim of giving a decisive and/or exclusive relevance to paradigms through which one is accustomed to study, interpret, or suggest interventions for the enterprise as a whole or some of its parts. It is not enough to call once more for a diversity of competing views: the authors recommend that research be designed in ways that enable multiple theoretical lenses of reality to be treated. The validity of theories will remain quite limited until we significantly consider the types of conditions to which the variety of organizations in the world today has been exposed. The case of Wal-Mart illustrates how a top-performing firm competes for resources to legitimate intentions and achievements in a global context.

Formal and Informal Institutions in Wal-Mart Case

This paper analyzes the strategies which are followed by Wal-Mart in different parts of the world from the viewpoint of theories of institutions, property rights and agency. The analysis of the questions what happens to these firms when they are in countries with high corruption index? It could answer this question in light of the theory of institutions, the theory of property rights and the theory of the agency. This paper specifically focuses on finding out if the above theories are applicable. The analysis concludes that the same firm adopts a different strategy in each place even if is in conflict with their values at home.

Formal and Informal Institutions in Wal-Mart Case

This paper analyzes the strategies which are followed by Wal-Mart in different parts of the world from the viewpoint of theories of institutions, property rights and agency. The analysis of the questions what happens to these firms when they are in countries with high corruption index? It could answer this question in light of the theory of institutions, the theory of property rights and the theory of the agency. This paper specifically focuses on finding out if the above theories are applicable. The analysis concludes that the same firm adopts a different strategy in each place even if is in conflict with their values at home.

Some important statistical issues courts should consider in their assessment of statistical analyses submitted in class certification motions: implications for Dukes v. Wal-mart

When many individual plaintiffs have similar claims against the same defendant, often it is more efficient for them to be combined into a single class action. Due to their increased complexity and larger stakes, in the USA there are special criteria a party seeking to proceed as a class action needs to satisfy. Statistical evidence is often submitted to establish that the members of the proposed class were affected by a common event or policy. In equal employment cases involving an employer with a number of locations or subunits, defendants may argue that the data should be examined separately for each unit, while plaintiffs may pool the data into one or several large samples or focus on a few units in which statistical significance was observed. After describing the statistical issues involved, it will be seen that requiring plaintiffs to demonstrate a statistically significant disparity in a pre-set fraction, e.g. majority of the subunits is too stringent as the power of the statistical test to detect a meaningful disparity in most subunits is too small. On the other hand, when many statistical tests are calculated on data from a fair system, a small percentage of significant disparities will be obtained. Thus, allowing a class action to proceed if the plaintiffs can demonstrate a statistically significant difference in a few subunits is too lax. The use of established methods for combining statistical tests for data organized by appropriate subgroups will be illustrated on data from two recent cases. Using the concept of power, the expected number, E, of subunits in which a statistically significant result would occur if there were a legally meaningful disparity can be determined. Then the observed number, O, of units with a significant disparity can be compared to E, to see whether data are consistent with a pattern, O close to E, indicating unfairness or O clearly less than E, reflecting fairness. Without such a comparison, the number of units with a statistically significant disparity is not meaningful. Both parties in Dukes v. Wal-mart introduced summaries of the p-values of many individual statistical tests that grouped them into a small number of categories. An appropriate overall procedure combines them into a single summary statistic. This analysis shows that the promotion data for the 40 or 41 regions in the Wal-mart case are consistent with an overall system in which the odds an eligible female being promoted were about 70-80% of those of a male. A similar analysis of the p-values of Wal-mart's subunit regressions also is consistent with a general pattern of a degree of underpayment of female employees relative to that of similarly qualified males. Language: en

The ASA’s Missed Opportunity to Promote Sound Science in Court

The American Sociological Association (ASA) filed an amicus brief in Wal-Mart v. Dukes in which the ASA defended the testimony of the plaintiffs’ sociological expert. Unfortunately, the ASA’s portrayal and defense of the method and opinions of this expert do not match the actual method used, and opinions offered, by the expert in the Wal-Mart case. The authors demonstrate that none of the ASA’s defenses of the expert’s method has merit and that the expert violated basic methodological rules set out by the ASA’s own sources. The opinions to which the expert testified, therefore, lacked a scientific foundation.

Some Important Statistical Issues Courts Should Consider in Their Assessment of Statistical Analyses Submitted in Class Certification Motions: Implications for Dukes v. Wal-Mart

When many individual plaintiffs have similar claims against the same defendant, often it is more efficient for them to be combined into a single class action. Due to their increased complexity and larger stakes, in the United States there are special criteria a party seeking to proceed as a class action needs to satisfy. Statistical evidence is often submitted to establish that the members of the proposed class were affected by a common event or policy. In equal employment cases involving an employer with a number of locations or sub-units, defendants may argue that the data should be examined separately for each unit while plaintiffs may pool the data into one or several large samples or focus on a few units in which statistical significance was observed. After describing the statistical issues involved, it will be seen that requiring plaintiffs to demonstrate a statistically significant disparity in a pre-set fraction, e.g. majority of the sub-units is too stringent as the power of the statistical test to detect a meaningful disparity in most sub-units is too small. On the other hand, when many statistical tests are calculated on data from a fair system, a small percentage of significant disparities will be obtained. Thus, allowing a class action to proceed if the plaintiffs can demonstrate a statistically significant difference in a few sub-units is too lax. The use of established methods for combining statistical tests for data organized by appropriate subgroups will be illustrated on data from two recent cases. Using the concept of power, the expected number, E, of sub-units in which a statistically significant result would occur if there were a legally meaningful disparity can be determined. Then the observed number, O, of units with a significant disparity can be compared to E, to see whether data are consistent with a pattern, O close to E, indicating unfairness or O clearly less than E, reflecting fairness. Without such a comparison, the number of units with a statistically significant disparity is not meaningful. Both parties in Dukes v. Wal-Mart introduced summaries of the p-values of many individual statistical tests that grouped them into a small number of categories. An appropriate overall procedure combines them into a single summary statistic. This analysis shows that the promotion data for the 40 or 41 regions in the Wal-Mart case are consistent with an overall system in which the odds an eligible female had of being promoted were about 70 to 80 percent of those of a male. A similar analysis of the p-values of Wal-Mart’s sub-unit regressions also is consistent with a general pattern of a degree of underpayment of female employees relative to that of similarly qualified males.

Beyond Good and Evil in Civil Rights Law: The Case of Wal-Mart v. Dukes

Beyond Good and Evil in Civil Rights Law: The Case of Wal-Mart v. Dukes