Corporate Social Responsibility Of Walmart

618 Words2 Pages

Wal-Mart, the corporate retail giant known for promising customers “Always low prices, Always!” has been both praised and attacked in regards of financial treatment to shareholders and stakeholders respectively. Investors that own shares of Wal-Mart are content with the company, as its decision to annually spend $7.6 billion to repurchase stock is seen as a strategic move in increasing shareholder wealth. On the other hand, Wal-Mart has received scrutiny for violating corporate social responsibility, in the waking trend of its employees earning wages below the poverty level and the impact this has on the economy.
It can be argued that Wal-Mart is following the free market libertarianism model by placing priority on the fiduciary duty of satisfying shareholders. Wal-Mart isn’t interfering with the free market by placing primary concern to employees; instead, it is taking direct responsibility of shareholder wealth: in this case, in the form of spending $7.6 billion to repurchase Wal-Mart stock. Wal-Mart is adhering to its fiduciary duty to shareholders by reinvesting profits to the ...

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