If you seek a five forces analysis of Wal-Mart, please try this page.

The world over there are men who commit acts of unspeakable cruelty against their fellow man, against the defenceless, against even women and children. The trail of their devastation fills our TV screens each night, making some numb and others convinced there is no way to stop such carnage. At the same time there are a number of determined groups who have made it their noble life's work to document the horrors and abuses committed by the wolves among us. Collectively I think of these groups as the "Human Rights Movement" (HRM) and I see their calling as a high one and their achievements something in which they can justifiably take pride.

And yet, knowing organization behavior as I do, I recognize growth strategies, mission creep, (un)related diversification, and brand dilution when I see it. I recognize when pride in even the noblest of deeds can make organizations and their leaders wrongly desire to see their franchises extended and the scope of their influence expanded. I also know when people from outside a field or "industry" watch the success and legitimacy built by other groups and decide to appropriate it for their own purposes. And above all I recognize when prior success in one market can make organizers think that strategies and rhetoric that worked in one place will carry over into others.

Some or all of these factors are at work in the creeping and increasingly creepy application of the terminology and methods of one HRM, i.e. the Human Rights Movement, to another HRM, Human Resource Management. Point in case is the recent announcement by AP2, the Swedish pension fund, of its decision to divest its shares of Wal-Mart, a move widely believed to be influenced by a similar one made by Norway this past summer.