Walmart Inc. Is a multinational retail corporation based in America and it is functional in the form of a chain of hypermarkets or supercenters, grocery stores as well as discount department stores. The company is situated in the United States and its headquarters are located in Bentonville, Arkansas. The company was established by Sam Walton in the year 1962 (Walmart 2022). The company started as a small discount retailer and over the course of time, the company has opened numerous stores across the US and has also expanded in the global sphere. By incorporating innovation as well as creativity the company is aiming at providing a seamless experience to the customers that can shop anywhere and anytime through their online stores as well as their traditional brick and mortar stores. the company is also focused on creating opportunities as well as creating value for the customers as well as the global communities. in the current day scenario, Walmart operates in about 10,500 stores as well as clubs and under 46 banners across 24 countries and E-commerce websites (Walmart 2022). The company is also known for providing employment opportunities to approximately about 2.3 million associates from the global market, and about 1.6 million associates from the US market alone (Walmart 2022). In the current scenario, the company is facing several challenges and it is aiming at overcoming these problems. The company is facing issues in the fields of environmental sustainability, cultural differences, steep competition, negative reputation as well as the maintenance of government regulations, especially in the foreign markets (Chang, Iakovou and Shi 2020). There are a number of reasons why the company is currently facing so many issues, however, one of the major issues has been identified as the issues in leadership and management. since the leaders are ineffective and inefficient at various levels across the company, the company is unable to perform to its fullest potential and overturn its negative aspects to its advantages. This paper is focused on discussing in detail the various issues that are faced by the company in the current scenario and also assessing the leader’s role in impacting the organization’s business performance.
Several researchers have revealed that effective leadership is one of the most important fundamentals to create a positive organizational culture (Meng and Berger 2019). A leader within an organization is not only the one who has authority or influence, but they are also responsible for setting the tone of the culture of the organization. Leaders are responsible for reinforcing positive values in the organization. Additionally they are also responsible for holding people accountable for their own actions and responsibilities. This particular impact influence that the leaders have over other employees in the organization can be either negative or positive based on the style of leadership that day demonstrate as well as their execution strategies. This makes them effective or ineffective leaders that further influence or dismantle the organizational culture in the workplace. Several researchers have revealed that in order to have a positive work culture and also build effective leadership within an organization, the leaders have to be responsible and must execute positive and constructive leadership styles in order to create a positive culture and also encourage the employees to perform better within the organization (Srivastava 2016). Researchers have strictly opined that failure to build a strong culture within the organization is not only detrimental to the workers but also can hamper the triple bottom line of the company. Several researchers have also opined that one of the most effective forms of leadership or leadership styles is transactional leadership and transformational leadership styles. Transactional leadership includes the process in which the leaders can directly offer rewards to the employees for performing well within the organization and they can also give them punishments for not living up to the expectations of the company (Khan 2017). This helps the employees to create clear goals that they need to follow in order to strive within the company. this not only helps in building up a transparent relationship between the higher management and the employees but also helps employees to create strict goals that they need to follow. The transformational leadership style is also a very constructive form of leadership style that offers encouragement and motivation to the employees by setting the example of the leaders that they work under (Afsar et al. 2019). Therefore, the leaders are the direct guidance of the employees and they offer their mentorship and expertise to help the employees learn about the basic necessities of functioning productively within the organization and also help them to understand the skill gaps that they need to bridge. Apart from that, there are various other forms of leadership styles that directly impact the organizational culture like the democratic leadership style, the autocratic leadership style, and many more.
However in Walmart, one of the major issues that are faced is that of an authoritarian culture that is adopted within the workforce (Li and Liu 2018). Authority is directly stemmed from the leadership style which is the authoritative leadership style that allows the employees to work independently without the guidance or interference of the leaders. In this case, the leaders directly impose their decisions and opinions on the employees and they are required to follow that. The organizational culture is similar to that in Walmart. Over a course of time, the company has developed this authoritarian culture in which the leaders have the power of making the ultimate decision, and there exists a centralization of power within the company. In this culture, more emphasis is put on obedience as well as discipline among the employees (Friedson 2016). In other words, this particular type of culture focuses on the fact that the leader is able to understand what is good for the company and therefore the employees must cater to these decisions that are in the interest of the organization. In Walmart, the store level management is always pressurized to follow the authoritarian culture in order to increase the productivity of the lower level managers, stockers as well as workers. Therefore there are several problems that have emerged out of this hyper centralized management structure that is adopted by Walmart. Several researchers have reported that the workers are not only unable to share their opinions as well as viewpoints but they are also not included in any important decision making procedures in their workplace (Chan 2018). The communication system within the company is not at all transparent and follows the up down flow of information in which the leaders provide instructions to their subordinates which they are required to follow. Apart from that the authoritarian culture in Walmart has closed the scope for innovation within the company which is again creating an extremely negative impact on the further growth of the company
The dynamic and contemporary business scenario has contributed to the creation of several challenges for modern day companies. Some of these issues include the shift in the approach of multiculturalism, as well as the shift in the socio economic structure of organizations, and these, require massive changes in the needs of the employees that require further motivation in order to allow them to perform well within the organization (Castles 2016). Similarly, Walmart is also in the face of a number of issues in terms of its organizational behavior and culture (Hamza and Nizam 2016). There is a prevalent discrimination issue within Walmart. Several employees have reported this discrimination issue that has affected their work performance. several researchers have opined that this is because of the cost cutting strategy that the company offers by lowering the wages of its employees as well as by adopting the authoritarian culture. This cost cutting strategy has not at all proven well for the organization. Employee dissatisfaction is prevalent within the workplace due to the incidence of discrimination and this has also negatively impacted the reputation of the company. Gender discrimination is predominantly prevalent in the company in which several privileges, rewards, opportunities are offered or denied to the employees based on their gender identity (McMann 2019). Several gender discrimination lawsuits were fined by approximately about 100 workers against Walmart. in these lawsuits the employees have claimed the denial of equal pay in their retail stores as well as in several management positions of the company. several lawsuits have also been filed by employees in which the company has been charged for terminating pregnant employees because of that pregnancy associated absences. These employees have directly challenged the company policies which have tremendously violated some of the basic laws of the nation (Kaplan 2017). This has also impacted the motivation and encouragement levels of the female employees in the company who are constantly on the drive for receiving their desired recognition within the organization.
Employee satisfaction is also stemmed from the lower wages that they are offered. One of the major missions of the company is to live better by saving more. However the company has also applied this approach to paying its employees, which according to several researchers has adversely affected the reputation as well as the employee attrition. the company has approximately provided employment opportunities to 2.2 million employees across 11,389 stores from various parts of the world (Mendly-Zambo, Raphael and Taman 2021). When compared with the salaries of its competitors, these employees have reported a significantly lower wage offering by Walmart. In order to maximize the profits, the company has adopted the cost cutting strategy which has adversely affected the employees within the company. As a result, employee attrition has become a prevalent issue in the company and the managers are unable to resolve these issues. Several reports have also considered Walmart as one of the lowest paying companies (Wiltshire 2021). As a result of this, there are several organizational strikes by the employees in demand of their rights as they are highly dissatisfied by their employer.
All the issues that have been mentioned above include the poor authoritarian culture of the organization, wage cutting of the employees as well as gender discrimination within the company that has affected the performance of the company directly (Weiss 2021). This is because the employees are the key stakeholders of the company and it is because of their contributions to the work operations can the company succeed. Over the last few years, Walmart has been reporting a high level of employee attrition. This is not only diminishing the quality of the company in terms of reputation but it is also costing the company more. Therefore the aim with which the company cuts down on the wages of the employees it’s not fulfilled and it adversely impacts the company’s investments. The company not only has to spend more amounts of money in hiring new employees but it is also required to spend a significant amount of money in offering training and development programs to these new employees (El-Rayes et al. 2020). Therefore the company could have easily raised the wages of the old and experienced employees of the company instead of spending more on hiring, onboarding, and training the new employees. With employee attrition, a significant number of experienced employees are leaving the company which is also taking away the quality of the company. The efficiency with which the old employees had worked within the company is unable to be replicated by the newly appointed employees at Walmart, which is again creating a huge quality issue in the company (Rincón-Moreno et al. 2019). As mentioned above, the authoritarian culture prevents innovation in the company. This is because the leaders are focused on walking As for the traditional methods and the silos in the company have also prevented them from adapting and changing as per the dynamic market in the contemporary scenario (Krithika 2020). Therefore the company is unable to stand up to its competitors it also is becoming non relevant in the dynamic environment, as stated by several researchers. Therefore Walmart is not only gradually losing its market shares but also its reputation in the market as the best retail giant and a good employer.
Conclusion
Therefore, in conclusion, it can be said that the leaders and the managers in the company not only impact the company negatively but they are also negatively impacted by the company itself. Then several issues that are prevalent in the company include the authoritarian culture, gender discrimination as well as low wages of the employees. There are several constructive leadership styles that can be followed including the transformational leadership style as well as the transactional leadership style. In both these leadership styles, the employees are allowed to set transparent and achievable goals for themselves based on the guidance column motivation and the transactions of the leaders. However, on the other hand, the authoritarian leadership style does not provide any guidance or encouragement to the employees. In fact, the employees are all left to work on their own independently without any intervention or guidance from the leaders. This has directly hampered the motivation satisfaction levels as well as the performance of the employees at Walmart.
Gender discrimination and lower wages of the employees are also the consequences of the authoritarian culture that is followed by the leaders and managers in the organization. In this company, several benefits are either offered or denied to the employees based on their gender identity. these issues include unequal pay as well as unequal treatment meted out to the female employers. This has led to several lawsuits being filed against the company on various occasions where pregnant employers were dominated and female employers were not given equitable pay as much as they were paying their male employees. The cost cutting strategy of the company in which the company aims to save more by cutting down its expenses has worked adversely for the company. The low wages being offered by Walmart to its employees are much lower than its competitors. This has increased the levels of employee attrition in the company over the years and has also contributed to the company losing its competitive edge in the market. Therefore this has a direct impact on the overall performance of the company, leading to its growing negative reputation in the market. Employees directly contribute to the success of the organization. However, in this case, the experienced employees leaving the company has affected not only the expenses of the company but also the performance of the company as a whole.
References
Afsar, B., Shahjehan, A., Shah, S.I. and Wajid, A., 2019. The mediating role of transformational leadership in the relationship between cultural intelligence and employee voice behavior: A case of hotel employees. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 69, pp.66-75.
Castles, S., 2016. Understanding global migration: A social transformation perspective. In An anthology of migration and social transformation (pp. 19-41). Springer, Cham.
Chan, A., 2018. The relationship between labour NGOs and Chinese workers in an authoritarian regime. Global Labour Journal, 9(1).
Chang, Y., Iakovou, E. and Shi, W., 2020. Blockchain in global supply chains and cross border trade: a critical synthesis of the state-of-the-art, challenges and opportunities. International Journal of Production Research, 58(7), pp.2082-2099.
El-Rayes, N., Fang, M., Smith, M. and Taylor, S.M., 2020. Predicting employee attrition using tree-based models. International Journal of Organizational Analysis.
Friedson, M., 2016. Authoritarian parenting attitudes and social origin: The multigenerational relationship of socioeconomic position to childrearing values. Child Abuse & Neglect, 51, pp.263-275.
Hamza, S. and Nizam, I., 2016. Why Walmart Fails in Germany? An Analysis in the Perspective of Organizational Behaviour. International Journal of Accounting & Business Management, 4(2), pp.206-215.
Kaplan, S., 2017. The challenge of gender diversity. Survive and Thrive: Winning against Strategic Threats to Your Business, Dog Far Publishing, Toronto, pp.51-68.
Khan, N., 2017. Adaptive or transactional leadership in current higher education: A brief comparison. International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 18(3), pp.178-183.
Krithika, S., 2020. 40. HUMAN RESOURCE PRACTICES IN THE ORGANISED RETAIL SECTORS. International Review of Business and Economics, 4, pp.238-244.
Li, C. and Liu, M., 2018. Overcoming collective action problems facing Chinese workers: Lessons from four protests against Walmart. ILR Review, 71(5), pp.1078-1105.
McMann, S., 2019. Turnover Rate: Walmart.
Mendly-Zambo, Z., Raphael, D. and Taman, A., 2021. Take the money and run: how food banks became complicit with Walmart Canada’s hunger producing employment practices. Critical Public Health, pp.1-12.
Meng, J. and Berger, B.K., 2019. The impact of organizational culture and leadership performance on PR professionals’ job satisfaction: Testing the joint mediating effects of engagement and trust. Public Relations Review, 45(1), pp.64-75.
Rincón-Moreno, J., Franco-García, M.L., Carpio-Aguilar, J.C. and Hernández-Sarabia, M., 2019. Share, Optimise, Closed-Loop for Food Waste (SOL4FoodWaste): The Case of Walmart-Mexico. In Towards Zero Waste (pp. 165-190). Springer, Cham.
Srivastava, P.C., 2016. Leadership styles in Western & Eastern societies and its relation with organizational performance. Pranjana: The Journal of Management Awareness, 19(1), pp.60-76.
Walmart, 2022. About. [online] corporate.walmart.com. Available at: <https://corporate.walmart.com/about> [Accessed 3 March 2022].
Weiss, J.W., 2021. Business ethics: A stakeholder and issues management approach. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Wiltshire, J.C., 2021. Walmart Supercenters and Monopsony Power: How a Large, Low-Wage Employer Impacts Local Labor Markets. Job market paper.
Essay Writing Service Features
Our Experience
No matter how complex your assignment is, we can find the right professional for your specific task. Contact Essay is an essay writing company that hires only the smartest minds to help you with your projects. Our expertise allows us to provide students with high-quality academic writing, editing & proofreading services.Free Features
Free revision policy
$10Free bibliography & reference
$8Free title page
$8Free formatting
$8How Our Essay Writing Service Works
First, you will need to complete an order form. It's not difficult but, in case there is anything you find not to be clear, you may always call us so that we can guide you through it. On the order form, you will need to include some basic information concerning your order: subject, topic, number of pages, etc. We also encourage our clients to upload any relevant information or sources that will help.
Complete the order formOnce we have all the information and instructions that we need, we select the most suitable writer for your assignment. While everything seems to be clear, the writer, who has complete knowledge of the subject, may need clarification from you. It is at that point that you would receive a call or email from us.
Writer’s assignmentAs soon as the writer has finished, it will be delivered both to the website and to your email address so that you will not miss it. If your deadline is close at hand, we will place a call to you to make sure that you receive the paper on time.
Completing the order and download