Refer to Case 3: Wal-Mart Manages Ethics and Compliance ChallengesInvestors in your company have been complaining because they feel that top executives are taking the company in a bad direction. Investors are calling for new board members. How would you answer these stakeholders?Be sure to address:How Wal-Mart is managing ethics and social responsibilityWal-Mart’s response to ethical issuesWal-Mart’s contribution to improving economic sustainability of society 4:36 PM Fri Jun 9=QAAEthical Issues Involving Employee StakeholdersEMPLOYEE BENEFITS Much of the Walmart controversy over the years has focused on the way the company treats its employees, or"associates" as Walmart refers to them. Although Walmart is the largest retail employer in the world, it has been roundly criticized for payinglow wages and offering minimal benefits. Walmart has been accused of failing to provide health insurance for more than 60 percent of itsemployees. In a memo sent to the board of directors by Susan Chambers, Walmart's executive vice president for benefits, she suggested Walmartcould slow the rise of benefits costs by hiring "healthier, more productive employees," as well as more part-time workers (who are less likely tobe eligible for health care benefits). After this bad publicity, between 2000 and 2005 Walmart's stock decreased 27 percent.As a result of the deluge of bad press, Walmart took action to improve relations with its employee stakeholders. In 2006 Walmart raised paytied to performance in about one-third of its stores. The company also improved its health benefits package by offering lower deductibles andimplementing a generic prescription plan estimated to save employees $25 million. Walmart estimates over 75 percent of its employees haveinsurance (though not always through Walmart). Walmart is quick to point out that the company's health care benefits are competitive in theretail industry.Despite these improvements, a Walmart policy eliminated health care coverage for new hires working less than 30 hours a week. Walmart alsostated that it reserves the right to cut health care coverage of workers whose work week falls below 30 hours. Some analysts claim that Walmartmight be attempting to shift the burden of health care coverage onto the federal government, as some employees make so little that they qualifyfor Medicaid under the new Affordable Care Act. It is important to note that Walmart is not alone in this practice; many firms are moving moreof their workforces to part time, and cutting benefits to part-time workers, to avoid having to pay health care costs. However, as such a largeemployer, Walmart's actions are expected to have more of a ripple effect on the economy.Another criticism levied against Walmart is that it decreased its workforce at the same time it expanded. In the United States, Walmartdecreased its workforce by 1.4 percent while increasing its number of retail stores by 13 percent. Employee dissatisfaction often translates tocustomer dissatisfaction. With fewer employees it is harder to provide quality customer service. This led some customers to complain of longerlines and fewer items on shelves. In the 2014 American Customer Satisfaction Index, Walmart tied for lowest among discount stores anddepartment stores. Walmart claims the dissatisfaction expressed by some customers is not reflective of the shopping experience of customers asa whole.410Walmart announced it was raising its employee minimum wage rate across the United States to $9 an hour in 2015 and $10 an hour in 2016.The company says this is part of a new employee-oriented initiative that will also include better training and shift scheduling. The wage hike willapply to at least 500,000 employees and is expected to have a noticeable effect on both the industry and the economy as a whole. Whether it isenough to improve Walmart's reputation as an employer and regain the company some goodwill with dissatisfied employees and advocacygroups remains to be seen-some analysts believe the wage increase may be simply a profit-maximizing response to the realities of a changinglabor market (necessary to continue hiring and retaining good employees) rather than an employee-oriented or socially responsible decision.Walmart's competitors are also watching closely; considering Walmart's dominance and influence in the sector, other retailers may have tofollow suit to remain competitive. Home Depot, T.J. Maxx, Marshalls, and several other companies also announced raises to their lowest-paidworkers.WALMART'S STANCE ON UNIONS Some critics believe Walmart workers' benefits could improve if they unionized. Unions have beendiscouraged since Walmart's foundation; Sam Walton believed they were a divisive force and might render the company uncompetitive.Walmart maintains that it is not against unions in general, but it sees no need for unions to come between workers and managers. The companysays it supports an "open-door policy" in which associates can bring problems to managers without resorting to third parties. Walmart associateshave at times voted against unions in the past.Although the company's official position is that it is not opposed to unions, Walmart often seems to fight against them. Critics claim that whenthe word "union" surfaces at a Walmart location, the top dogs in Bentonville are called in. In 2000 seven of ten Walmart butchers in Jacksonville,Texas, voted to join the United Food Workers Union. Walmart responded by announcing it would only sell precut meat in its supercenters,getting rid of its meat-cutting departments entirely. In 2004 employees at a Canada Walmart location voted to unionize; six months later,Walmart closed the store. In 2014 two internal Walmart PowerPoint presentations were leaked that provided reasons for why unions wouldnegatively impact associates and directing managers to call the "Labor Relations Hotline" if they spot "warning signs" of union activity. AlthoughWalmart offers justifications for actions such as this, many see the company as aggressively working to prevent unionization in its stores, andthe U.S. National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has cited Walmart on multiple occasions for violating labor laws.However, Walmart's stance against unions has not always held up to the practical realities of doing business in some foreign countries. InChina, for example, Walmart found it necessary to accept a union in order to grow. Only one union is legally permitted to operate in China: TheAll-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), which is run by the ruling Communist Party. The Chinese government promotes s the e ACFTU(although the union has been criticized as pro-business and not necessarily looking out for the best interests of workers) and especially seeks tohave foreign companies unionized. When poor working conditions and low wages generated social unrest, the government attempted too craft anew set of labor laws providing employees greater protection and giving the ACFTU more power. In 2004 the Chinese Labor Federation pushedWalmart 1t to allow employees to unionize. Walmart initially resisted, and although it eventually complied, critics claimed the company then beganmaking unionization progressively more difficult in practice for its Chinese workers. Despite this, within a span of just two weeks in 2006, theACFTU was able to establish union branches at five separate China Walmart locations. Walmart reacted by stating it would not renew the 4¹2contracts of unionized workers. However, the pressure mounted, and later that year Walmart signed a memorandum with the ACFTU allowingunions in stores. Some analysts believe Walmart fought so hard against unionization in China, despite the clear unlikelihood of prevailingagainst the Chinese government itself, because it feared workers in other countries would use the precedent to redouble their own unionizationdemands. Since then, Walmart has permitted or negotiated with unions in several other countries as well, including Brazil, Chile, Mexico,Argentina, the United Kingdom, and South Africa.□410/642... 4:36 PM Fri Jun 9=QAAWORKPLACE CONDITIONS AND DISCRIMINATION Despite accusations of low employee benefits and a strong stance against unions,Walmart remains the largest nongovernment employer in the United States, Mexico, and Canada. It provides jobs to millions of people and hasbeen a mainstay of Fortune's "Most Admired Companies" list since the start of the twenty-first century. However, in December 2005, Walmartwas ordered to pay $172 million to more than 100,000 California employees in a class-action lawsuit claiming that Walmart routinely deniedmeal breaks. The California employees also alleged they were denied rest breaks and Walmart managers deliberately altered time cards toprevent overtime. Similar accusations began to pop up in other states as well. Walmart denied the allegations and filed an appeal in 2007. In2008 Walmart agreed to pay up to $640 million to settle 63 such lawsuits. This is only one example of the many lawsuits filed against Walmart; in2005, it was estimated that the company was sued at least 5,000 times per year.Walmart has also been accused by its employees of discrimination. Although women account for more than two-thirds of all Walmartemployees, they make up less than 10 percent of store management. Walmart insists it trains and promotes women fairly, but in 2001 an internalstudy showed the company paid female store managers less than males in the same positions. In 2004 a federal judge in San Francisco granted.class-action status to a sex-discrimination lawsuit against Walmart involving 1.6 million current and former female Walmart employees-thelargest gender discrimination class action lawsuit in U.S. history. The plaintiffs claimed Walmart discriminated against them in regard topromotions, pay, training, and job assignments. Walmart fought the class-action suit, claiming there was no such pattern of discrimination andpromotions and other employment decisions were made on an individual basis by the managers of each store. Thus, the company as a wholecould not be held liable for any discrimination that might exist. Walmart took the case all the way to the Supreme Court. The Court declined torule on the merits of the case itself but instead determined that the women in the lawsuit did not have enough in common to qualify for class-action status and would have to re-file as smaller qualifying class-action groups or individually. Although many of the original plaintiffs are nowattempting to do so, they have found limited success; even narrower class-action attempts, such as a suit on behalf of 150,000 female employeesin the company's "California region," have been dismissed as still too broad to qualify, and many civil rights lawyers will not take on individualemployment discrimination cases because the likely payout will be too small even to cover the legal fees. Even if some of the women do end upsuccessful in their claims, the impact on the company will be far less than if the nationwide class-action lawsuit had been allowed to proceed.In 2010 dissatisfied Walmart employees started the Organization United for Respect at Walmart, or OUR Walmart. Although not a labor union,OUR Walmart receives much of its funding from the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), which has been tryingto unionize U.S. Walmart employees for years. Eventually realizing it needed a different approach, UFCW backed the idea of a non-union 412advocacy group and hired a market research company to develop OUR Walmart's brand message and activism strategy. OUR Walmart claims¹support from at least 5,000 members, all current or former associates, who desire to change working conditions at the company. Their demandsinclude lowering the number of hours needed for part-time workers to qualify for benefits, removing caps on the wages of some long-termworkers, and ending the practice of using work-scheduling systems to decrease hours for employees so they will not qualify for benefits. In 2011100 OUR Walmart members traveled to Walmart's headquarters and presented a 12-point declaration of their demands to the company's seniorvice president for global labor relations. Since then, OUR Walmart has arranged a variety of protests and pickets. They have especially targetedthe busy holiday season, organizing demonstrations and walkouts at many Walmart stores on every Black Friday since 2012.Walmart's position is that OUR Walmart is a small, fringe movement that does not represent the views of the average associate, most of whichare satisfied with their jobs. The company has repeatedly complained to the National Labor Relations Board, claiming, among other things, thatOUR Walmart used illegal methods and that it is actually a union in disguise. Walmart has also accused the UFCW of anti-labor practices andfiled at least one lawsuit against the UFCW and others who protested around its stores for illegal trespassing and disrupting customers. Walmartmay have made a tactical error by choosing to acknowledge OUR Walmart as a threat. The number of OUR Walmart members is very smallcompared to the number of U.S. Walmart employees as a whole, and not as many Walmart employees have participated in protests asanticipated. Although Walmart claims this demonstrates that the movement is not as popular as it tries to appear, the company may haveunintentionally granted it legitimacy and a large amount of free publicity by responding so directly and forcefully. OUR Walmart has claimedcredit for Walmart's recent minimum wage hike to $10 starting in 2016, labeling it a "victory" and calling for further support to reach theireventual goal of a $15 minimum wage for all U.S. Walmart associates.Ethical Leadership IssuesAside from Sam Walton, other distinguished people have been associated with Walmart. One of them is Hillary Clinton, who served onWalmart's board for six years before her husband assumed the presidency. However, the company has not been immune from scandal at thetop. In March 2005 board vice chair Thomas Coughlin was forced to resign because he stole as much as $500,000 from Walmart in the form ofbogus expenses, reimbursements, and the unauthorized use of gift cards. Coughlin, a protege and hunting buddy of Sam Walton, was a legend atWalmart. He often spent time on the road with Walton expanding the Sam's Club aspect of the business. At one time, he was the second highest-ranking Walmart executive and a candidate for CEO.In January 2006, Coughlin agreed to plead guilty to federal wire-fraud and tax-evasion charges. Although he took home millions of dollars inauthorized compensation, Coughlin secretly used Walmart funds to pay for a range of personal expenses including hunting vacations, a $2,590dog enclosure at his home, and a pair of handmade alligator boots. Coughlin's deceit was discovered when he asked a subordinate to approve$2,000 in expense payments without receipts. Walmart rescinded Coughlin's retirement agreement, worth more than $10 million. For his crimes,he was sentenced to 27 months of home confinement, $440,000 in fines, and 1,500 hours of community service.Despite this setback, confidence in Walmart's governance generally rose under the leadership of Lee Scott, who was CEO from 2000 to 2009.However, it suffered another serious blow in 2012 when a bribery scandal in Walmart's Mexico branch was uncovered that directly implicatedmuch of the company's top management (the scandal is explored in detail later in this case). That same year, a significant percentage ofWalmart's non-family shareholders voted against the reelection of then-CEO Mike Duke to the board. They also voted against the reelection ofother board members, including former CEO Lee Scott and board chairman Robson Walton-Sam Walton's eldest son. While these boardmembers still received enough support to be reelected, the votes signaled serious investor disappointment and lack of confidence in theleadership for not preventing the misconduct. Since the scandal, Walmart has invested heavily in demonstrating a renewed commitment towardensuring the company adheres to ethice and compliance standarde口412/642...

Question

Refer to Case 3: Wal-Mart Manages Ethics and Compliance ChallengesInvestors in your company have been complaining because they feel that top executives are taking the company in a bad direction. Investors are calling for new board members. How would you answer these stakeholders?Be sure to address:How Wal-Mart is managing ethics and social responsibilityWal-Mart’s response to ethical issuesWal-Mart’s contribution to improving economic sustainability of society 4:36 PM Fri Jun 9=QAAEthical Issues Involving Employee StakeholdersEMPLOYEE BENEFITS Much of the Walmart controversy over the years has focused on the way the company treats its employees, or&#34;associates&#34; as Walmart refers to them. Although Walmart is the largest retail employer in the world, it has been roundly criticized for payinglow wages and offering minimal benefits. Walmart has been accused of failing to provide health insurance for more than 60 percent of itsemployees. In a memo sent to the board of directors by Susan Chambers, Walmart's executive vice president for benefits, she suggested Walmartcould slow the rise of benefits costs by hiring &#34;healthier, more productive employees,&#34; as well as more part-time workers (who are less likely tobe eligible for health care benefits). After this bad publicity, between 2000 and 2005 Walmart's stock decreased 27 percent.As a result of the deluge of bad press, Walmart took action to improve relations with its employee stakeholders. In 2006 Walmart raised paytied to performance in about one-third of its stores. The company also improved its health benefits package by offering lower deductibles andimplementing a generic prescription plan estimated to save employees $25 million. Walmart estimates over 75 percent of its employees haveinsurance (though not always through Walmart). Walmart is quick to point out that the company's health care benefits are competitive in theretail industry.Despite these improvements, a Walmart policy eliminated health care coverage for new hires working less than 30 hours a week. Walmart alsostated that it reserves the right to cut health care coverage of workers whose work week falls below 30 hours. Some analysts claim that Walmartmight be attempting to shift the burden of health care coverage onto the federal government, as some employees make so little that they qualifyfor Medicaid under the new Affordable Care Act. It is important to note that Walmart is not alone in this practice; many firms are moving moreof their workforces to part time, and cutting benefits to part-time workers, to avoid having to pay health care costs. However, as such a largeemployer, Walmart's actions are expected to have more of a ripple effect on the economy.Another criticism levied against Walmart is that it decreased its workforce at the same time it expanded. In the United States, Walmartdecreased its workforce by 1.4 percent while increasing its number of retail stores by 13 percent. Employee dissatisfaction often translates tocustomer dissatisfaction. With fewer employees it is harder to provide quality customer service. This led some customers to complain of longerlines and fewer items on shelves. In the 2014 American Customer Satisfaction Index, Walmart tied for lowest among discount stores anddepartment stores. Walmart claims the dissatisfaction expressed by some customers is not reflective of the shopping experience of customers asa whole.410Walmart announced it was raising its employee minimum wage rate across the United States to $9 an hour in 2015 and $10 an hour in 2016.The company says this is part of a new employee-oriented initiative that will also include better training and shift scheduling. The wage hike willapply to at least 500,000 employees and is expected to have a noticeable effect on both the industry and the economy as a whole. Whether it isenough to improve Walmart's reputation as an employer and regain the company some goodwill with dissatisfied employees and advocacygroups remains to be seen-some analysts believe the wage increase may be simply a profit-maximizing response to the realities of a changinglabor market (necessary to continue hiring and retaining good employees) rather than an employee-oriented or socially responsible decision.Walmart's competitors are also watching closely; considering Walmart's dominance and influence in the sector, other retailers may have tofollow suit to remain competitive. Home Depot, T.J. Maxx, Marshalls, and several other companies also announced raises to their lowest-paidworkers.WALMART'S STANCE ON UNIONS Some critics believe Walmart workers' benefits could improve if they unionized. Unions have beendiscouraged since Walmart's foundation; Sam Walton believed they were a divisive force and might render the company uncompetitive.Walmart maintains that it is not against unions in general, but it sees no need for unions to come between workers and managers. The companysays it supports an &#34;open-door policy&#34; in which associates can bring problems to managers without resorting to third parties. Walmart associateshave at times voted against unions in the past.Although the company's official position is that it is not opposed to unions, Walmart often seems to fight against them. Critics claim that whenthe word &#34;union&#34; surfaces at a Walmart location, the top dogs in Bentonville are called in. In 2000 seven of ten Walmart butchers in Jacksonville,Texas, voted to join the United Food Workers Union. Walmart responded by announcing it would only sell precut meat in its supercenters,getting rid of its meat-cutting departments entirely. In 2004 employees at a Canada Walmart location voted to unionize; six months later,Walmart closed the store. In 2014 two internal Walmart PowerPoint presentations were leaked that provided reasons for why unions wouldnegatively impact associates and directing managers to call the &#34;Labor Relations Hotline&#34; if they spot &#34;warning signs&#34; of union activity. AlthoughWalmart offers justifications for actions such as this, many see the company as aggressively working to prevent unionization in its stores, andthe U.S. National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has cited Walmart on multiple occasions for violating labor laws.However, Walmart's stance against unions has not always held up to the practical realities of doing business in some foreign countries. InChina, for example, Walmart found it necessary to accept a union in order to grow. Only one union is legally permitted to operate in China: TheAll-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), which is run by the ruling Communist Party. The Chinese government promotes s the e ACFTU(although the union has been criticized as pro-business and not necessarily looking out for the best interests of workers) and especially seeks tohave foreign companies unionized. When poor working conditions and low wages generated social unrest, the government attempted too craft anew set of labor laws providing employees greater protection and giving the ACFTU more power. In 2004 the Chinese Labor Federation pushedWalmart 1t to allow employees to unionize. Walmart initially resisted, and although it eventually complied, critics claimed the company then beganmaking unionization progressively more difficult in practice for its Chinese workers. Despite this, within a span of just two weeks in 2006, theACFTU was able to establish union branches at five separate China Walmart locations. Walmart reacted by stating it would not renew the 4¹2contracts of unionized workers. However, the pressure mounted, and later that year Walmart signed a memorandum with the ACFTU allowingunions in stores. Some analysts believe Walmart fought so hard against unionization in China, despite the clear unlikelihood of prevailingagainst the Chinese government itself, because it feared workers in other countries would use the precedent to redouble their own unionizationdemands. Since then, Walmart has permitted or negotiated with unions in several other countries as well, including Brazil, Chile, Mexico,Argentina, the United Kingdom, and South Africa.□410/642... 4:36 PM Fri Jun 9=QAAWORKPLACE CONDITIONS AND DISCRIMINATION Despite accusations of low employee benefits and a strong stance against unions,Walmart remains the largest nongovernment employer in the United States, Mexico, and Canada. It provides jobs to millions of people and hasbeen a mainstay of Fortune's &#34;Most Admired Companies&#34; list since the start of the twenty-first century. However, in December 2005, Walmartwas ordered to pay $172 million to more than 100,000 California employees in a class-action lawsuit claiming that Walmart routinely deniedmeal breaks. The California employees also alleged they were denied rest breaks and Walmart managers deliberately altered time cards toprevent overtime. Similar accusations began to pop up in other states as well. Walmart denied the allegations and filed an appeal in 2007. In2008 Walmart agreed to pay up to $640 million to settle 63 such lawsuits. This is only one example of the many lawsuits filed against Walmart; in2005, it was estimated that the company was sued at least 5,000 times per year.Walmart has also been accused by its employees of discrimination. Although women account for more than two-thirds of all Walmartemployees, they make up less than 10 percent of store management. Walmart insists it trains and promotes women fairly, but in 2001 an internalstudy showed the company paid female store managers less than males in the same positions. In 2004 a federal judge in San Francisco granted.class-action status to a sex-discrimination lawsuit against Walmart involving 1.6 million current and former female Walmart employees-thelargest gender discrimination class action lawsuit in U.S. history. The plaintiffs claimed Walmart discriminated against them in regard topromotions, pay, training, and job assignments. Walmart fought the class-action suit, claiming there was no such pattern of discrimination andpromotions and other employment decisions were made on an individual basis by the managers of each store. Thus, the company as a wholecould not be held liable for any discrimination that might exist. Walmart took the case all the way to the Supreme Court. The Court declined torule on the merits of the case itself but instead determined that the women in the lawsuit did not have enough in common to qualify for class-action status and would have to re-file as smaller qualifying class-action groups or individually. Although many of the original plaintiffs are nowattempting to do so, they have found limited success; even narrower class-action attempts, such as a suit on behalf of 150,000 female employeesin the company's &#34;California region,&#34; have been dismissed as still too broad to qualify, and many civil rights lawyers will not take on individualemployment discrimination cases because the likely payout will be too small even to cover the legal fees. Even if some of the women do end upsuccessful in their claims, the impact on the company will be far less than if the nationwide class-action lawsuit had been allowed to proceed.In 2010 dissatisfied Walmart employees started the Organization United for Respect at Walmart, or OUR Walmart. Although not a labor union,OUR Walmart receives much of its funding from the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), which has been tryingto unionize U.S. Walmart employees for years. Eventually realizing it needed a different approach, UFCW backed the idea of a non-union 412advocacy group and hired a market research company to develop OUR Walmart's brand message and activism strategy. OUR Walmart claims¹support from at least 5,000 members, all current or former associates, who desire to change working conditions at the company. Their demandsinclude lowering the number of hours needed for part-time workers to qualify for benefits, removing caps on the wages of some long-termworkers, and ending the practice of using work-scheduling systems to decrease hours for employees so they will not qualify for benefits. In 2011100 OUR Walmart members traveled to Walmart's headquarters and presented a 12-point declaration of their demands to the company's seniorvice president for global labor relations. Since then, OUR Walmart has arranged a variety of protests and pickets. They have especially targetedthe busy holiday season, organizing demonstrations and walkouts at many Walmart stores on every Black Friday since 2012.Walmart's position is that OUR Walmart is a small, fringe movement that does not represent the views of the average associate, most of whichare satisfied with their jobs. The company has repeatedly complained to the National Labor Relations Board, claiming, among other things, thatOUR Walmart used illegal methods and that it is actually a union in disguise. Walmart has also accused the UFCW of anti-labor practices andfiled at least one lawsuit against the UFCW and others who protested around its stores for illegal trespassing and disrupting customers. Walmartmay have made a tactical error by choosing to acknowledge OUR Walmart as a threat. The number of OUR Walmart members is very smallcompared to the number of U.S. Walmart employees as a whole, and not as many Walmart employees have participated in protests asanticipated. Although Walmart claims this demonstrates that the movement is not as popular as it tries to appear, the company may haveunintentionally granted it legitimacy and a large amount of free publicity by responding so directly and forcefully. OUR Walmart has claimedcredit for Walmart's recent minimum wage hike to $10 starting in 2016, labeling it a &#34;victory&#34; and calling for further support to reach theireventual goal of a $15 minimum wage for all U.S. Walmart associates.Ethical Leadership IssuesAside from Sam Walton, other distinguished people have been associated with Walmart. One of them is Hillary Clinton, who served onWalmart's board for six years before her husband assumed the presidency. However, the company has not been immune from scandal at thetop. In March 2005 board vice chair Thomas Coughlin was forced to resign because he stole as much as $500,000 from Walmart in the form ofbogus expenses, reimbursements, and the unauthorized use of gift cards. Coughlin, a protege and hunting buddy of Sam Walton, was a legend atWalmart. He often spent time on the road with Walton expanding the Sam's Club aspect of the business. At one time, he was the second highest-ranking Walmart executive and a candidate for CEO.In January 2006, Coughlin agreed to plead guilty to federal wire-fraud and tax-evasion charges. Although he took home millions of dollars inauthorized compensation, Coughlin secretly used Walmart funds to pay for a range of personal expenses including hunting vacations, a $2,590dog enclosure at his home, and a pair of handmade alligator boots. Coughlin's deceit was discovered when he asked a subordinate to approve$2,000 in expense payments without receipts. Walmart rescinded Coughlin's retirement agreement, worth more than $10 million. For his crimes,he was sentenced to 27 months of home confinement, $440,000 in fines, and 1,500 hours of community service.Despite this setback, confidence in Walmart's governance generally rose under the leadership of Lee Scott, who was CEO from 2000 to 2009.However, it suffered another serious blow in 2012 when a bribery scandal in Walmart's Mexico branch was uncovered that directly implicatedmuch of the company's top management (the scandal is explored in detail later in this case). That same year, a significant percentage ofWalmart's non-family shareholders voted against the reelection of then-CEO Mike Duke to the board. They also voted against the reelection ofother board members, including former CEO Lee Scott and board chairman Robson Walton-Sam Walton's eldest son. While these boardmembers still received enough support to be reelected, the votes signaled serious investor disappointment and lack of confidence in theleadership for not preventing the misconduct. Since the scandal, Walmart has invested heavily in demonstrating a renewed commitment towardensuring the company adheres to ethice and compliance standarde口412/642...

Accepted Answer

Economic sustainability refers to the ability of an economy or a business to maintain long-term…