Business Research Ethics

Business Research Ethics

In today business economy the objective is to make money and do it in an honest way. All companies try to conduct business in an ethical way to ensure a good name for themselves. But sometimes that is not true or the case. When greed comes to play people would do anything to get their way. For example of some biased business practice include; bribery and dishonesty, unfair treatment of employees, sexual discrimination. This paper will point out unethical behaviors of Wal-Mart and how it affected their organization. Who Wal-Mart offended with their actions, and what they could have done to avoid their unethical behaviors. As you know Wal-Mart is rank No. 1 in the world for their retail store. Their revenue is about $421 billion and tops any other retail company out there.

In September 2005, Wal-Mart conducted an internal investigation on Wal-Mart de Mexico that there was bribery involve to win market dominance. A former executive informed Wal-Mart's lawyer that the company had made bribes payments to gain permits in every corner of Mexico. The informant gave people names, bribe amounts, and dates of everything that had happened. He knew all of this information because he was the lawyer in charge for getting permits for Wal-Mart de Mexico. Wal-Mart investigators uncovered a paper trail of hundreds of payments adding up to $24 million in bribes. The top executives of Wal-Mart de Mexico knew about the bribery and even try to cover it up from Wal-Mart's headquarters in the US.

Another incident with Wal-Mart is how they treated their employee Deborah Shank that was involved in a collision with a semi-trailer. In 2000 Deborah Shank had an accident that gave her permanent brain damage and wheelchair her for life. The Husband and three sons received $700,000 from the trucking company for the accident. They actually received about $417,000 after all the legal costs. That money was put into a trust to take care of her. But after six years Wal-Mart which was her health plan sued the family for $470,000 for her medical expenses. Wal-Mart ended up winning the lawsuit. Because in Mrs. Shank's employee contract in fine print it said any money won from an accident belongs to Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart doesn't believe in unions and their employee going to an third party for intervention. Wal-Mart says they have an open door policy where you can take your complaints straight to the corporate and bypass management. But with that Wal-Mart can terminate any complaint that doesn't suit them. Wal-Mart also prohibits any communication with union workers.

http://www.studymode.com/essays/Unethical-Business-Practice-Of-Walmart-410456.html

http://www.iqunions.org/walmart-unethical-work-practices.html

http://listverse.com/2011/09/13/top-10-unethical-business-actions/