January 30th, 2007-the date of the horrible, propane-fueled explosion that destroyed Little General Store gas station and convenience store in Ghent, West Virginia. This tragic event was the outcome of a routine gas exchange gone horribly wrong, claiming the lives of four people and injuring six others. The incident’s origins lie in 1994, when a 500-gallon propane gas tank was installed against the back outer wall of the building by the Southern Sun gas company (later purchased and changed to Ferrellgas in 1996) in order to power a pizza oven inside the convenience store. In 2007, the Little General company switched its gas provider to ThompsonGas and a new tank was scheduled to be installed on the date of January 30th. That morning, two technicians arrived, ready to install the tank as planned; however, they quickly discovered that …show more content…
Patricia Mullins and Leta Farley, two of the employees injured in the blast, filed a $60 million lawsuit against multiple companies whom they blamed for the explosion, including Appalachian Heating LLC, ThompsonGas Propane Partners LLC, Ferrellgas Inc., BP America Inc., Little General Store, Inc. and Godfather’s Pizza Inc. In addition to this lawsuit, the numerous safety recommendations made by the U.S. Chemical Safety Board were adopted. The recommendations include the improvement of training requirements for technicians and the improvement of emergency response actions from on-scene technicians and 911 operators. In conclusion, based upon my understanding of the social responsibilities and ethics of businesses, this is a clear example of businesses ignoring their responsibilities. By allowing their first tank to be placed in such a dangerous area, the business placed their employees in danger, completely ignoring the entire concepts of both job safety and employee well-being. It was their place to ensure that their employees would be safe, and they completely ignored
On April 4, 2008 Goldman, Sachs & Co. submitted a prepared prospectus for Dollar General Corporation. According to the prospectus, Dollar General is the largest discount retailer in the United States by number of stores. They serve a broad customer base and majority of products are priced at $10 or less and approximately 30% of products are price at $1 or less. They believe that their combination of value and convenience is what has kept them ahead of their competitors since opening in 1955. Dollar General has had substantial growth in recent years, growing their number of stores from 5,540 as of February 1, 2002 to 8,229 as of February 2, 2007. This growth encouraged Richard Dreiling,
James Cash Penney, founder of JCPenney stores, gained his retail experience working for Golden Rule Mercantile Company, after graduating from high school in 1902. He quickly rose through the ranks as a salesperson, store manager, and partner. In 1906, at the age of 26, he opened his first retail store in Kemmerer, Wyoming the first to become JCPenney store. 1913, he had 34 stores with over $2 million in sales and incorporated JCPenney Company, Inc. JCPenney’s success was due to the popular private-label brand that were good quality, lower prices than the named brands, and these products yielded high profits. In 1927, headquarters opened in New York and in 1929, the company listed on the New York Stock Exchange and store manager/owners traded in their portions of individual stores for stock in the company. JCPenney’s survives the depression, providing basic goods and services at lower prices and increased profits.
On April 17, 2013, the community of West, Texas, suffered a devastating and heartbreaking event in the evening hours. After a fire broke out inside the West Fertilizer plant, a massive explosion leveled the facility, caused millions of dollars in damage to surrounding buildings, and took the lives of over a dozen people. Sadly, the majority of those killed were volunteer firefighters who had responded to the fire and were unable to retreat to a safe distance before the explosion. Nearly 200 injuries were also reported to have been treated at local hospitals (Wood, 2013). The explosion was said to be caused by the combination of the fire and large stores of ammonium nitrate fertilizer at the plant.
...being held accountable, the city officials themselves were also held accountable because of improper safety regulations. Showing that the city itself should be at fault for not enforcing safety regulations for such things as fire escapes, that were not in working order. These unprecedented circumstances just lay down the blueprint for what is now the correct way to set regulations for industrial factory conditions.
What core competencies do you think the company has and what is needed to exploit opportunity and counter threats.
The name Walmart has become a brand name that is synonymous with the American culture since it opened its first store in Rogers Arkansas in 1962. Walmart since then, has remained competitive in the global market and has managed to sustain its competitive edge globally even in times of recession. Walmart over the years has had to compete with new emerging retailers such as Target, Kmart, Home Depot, Dollar General and Costco to name a few, in addition to online giants such as Amazon and Alibaba Express. It however has managed to sustain itself as a marketable and highly competitive brand in the global market.
A1: Dollar General's main business strategy is to focus on being the leading distributors of consumable basics, with 30% of the merchandise at $1.00 or less. Dollar General believes in maintaining an assortment of consumable merchandise and making shopping for everyday items hassle free and simplistic.
Based on the Miles and Snow strategy typology, Dollar Tree would be categorized as a prospector and an analyzer. Dollar Tree initially started off as a prospector when it was created as an off-shoot of the retail chain K &K Toys (Parnell, 2014). Prospectors focus on intrapreneurship, which involves the creation of new business ventures within an existing organization (Parnell, 2014). When K & K Toys was divested in 1991, it was done so in order to focus their energies on developing the concept of the dollar store, which in turn gave them the first mover advantage for being first in that particular market (Parnell, 2014). Just as prospector companies places priority on new product and service development to meet the changing needs and
How does managerial planning for Project Impact take place at different levels within the organization?
The BP distain for truth and costly crusades cause issues that left an unsettling picture of the organizations concerning the safety consciousness of the company. BP has a long history for being unreliable, when it comes to the safety of others. They pushed the envelope beyond good sense to maintain profit margin and not good health. As a person born and raised on the gulf coast of Alabama, I have firsthand knowledge many members are still disgusted with their attitude towards the environment. In my eye’s no, not to those who were affected. Even with a new attitude, new slogan and CEO. BP is still ran by the same people who lead us to the oil disaster.
Hoffman Estates, Illinois-based Sears Holdings Corporation was formed as a result of Kmart Holdings Corporation’s acquisition of Sears & Roebuck Company. It was incorporated on November 23, 2004. It is an integrated retailer and holdings company to a variety of well-known, highly-quality consumer brands.
In this case a large engineering consulting firm was contracted by the government to perform civil engineering work for the installation of equipment that would be later used to train firefighters. Prior to the actual work being commenced on site, Donald J. Giffels, president of the consulting firm soon realized through careful observation that there was a significant amount of ambiguity in how critical safety systems were to be designed. In this situation, what are the ethical issues that the consulting firm faces in accepting such a contract from the government. What is the optimal strategy in responding to what Donald J. .Giffels identified as an unacceptable lapse in safety. These two important questions are discussed in further detail with a conclusion of noteworthy facts surrounding this case following.
Production and distribution continued despite recognizing that a serious fire hazard existed when the Pinto suffered a collision
For every $100 spent at a locally owned business, $68 of that will stay local compared to $43 if spent at a “big box store”. Even though people believe that local businesses are not as beneficial as a big box store, buying locally not only benefits the business but also the community because buying locally builds a strong community and the money you spend at a local business gets put back into the community.
Walmart serves about 14 million customers each day. When Sam Walton founded Walmart in 1962 I’m sure he didn’t expect it to become as big of a retail store as it is now. 42 years after being founded, Walmart now has 4,253 stores across the world, and brings in $405 billion dollars a year. This kind of success doesn’t just happen overnight.