Keyword

Retail Industry, Compliance, Globalization, Culture, Corporate Conscience, and Corporate Social Responsibility.

Abstract

This paper covers Retail Management, globalization, ethical and legal issues related to the Retail Industry. Specifically the paper looks to a connection between a company’s emphases on culture as a mechanism to assure compliance. This paper looks at some relatively recent current events by Retail Industry giants like Walmart and Kroger. Leveraging secondary research these events will be discussed. In addition this paper will leverage primary and secondary research to help highlight a company’s culture as a very effective mechanism to prevent compliance failures. The primary research included in this paper was conducted via anonymous phone interviews. Interviewees were assured of anonymity, and provided the aggregated anonymous research results for their efforts. Interviewees were asked a script of questions that range from Yes/No questions, to scale questions and open ended questions. The interviewees included in the survey were confirmed to be seniorlevel human resource professionals with a focus on compliance. This primary research is not positioned to be statistically representative of all global retailers. This primary research does reflect a perceptive given the reach and size of the selected companies that participated. The primary research in support of this paper is limited to only a select few respondents. This is likely due to the nature of the compliance function in companies erring on the side of caution. Global retailers have many, large force


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References
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Appendix
Primary Research Questions
1)    Please describe your role.
2)    Does your company have a whistle blowing policy?  Can you describe it?
3)    Does your company have any training around ethics?
a.    Web Based Training  Y/N
b.    Onsite Y/N
c.    Distributed material Y/N
4)    If you do have ethics training, what is the frequency of the training?
5)    Are you aware of the Wal-Mart Mexico bribery scandal?    Yes/No
6)    What were your reactions to the scandal in question, if any?
7)    In your opinion, what allowed the Wal-Mart Mexico scandal to happen?
8)    Before the scandal was publicized, how confident were you in your company’s controls to prevent a similar scandal?  (Scale of 1 – 10, with 1 being least confident and 10 being most confident.)
9)    After the scandal was publicized, how confident were you in your company’s controls to prevent a similar scandal?  (Scale of 1 – 10, with 1 being least confident and 10 being most confident.)
a.    Why?
10)    Although the scandal was with Wal-Mart, do you feel your company has felt increased pressure from regulators?
11)    What do you think is the biggest risk in your company to mitigate, in order to prevent a similar scenario from taking place?
12)    Any other comments you may have around this topic of ethics in the retail industry and your company?
13)    What additional steps would you recommend for your company and other retailers to implement in order to assure avoidance of the above scenario (Wal-Mart Mexico bribery)?