Two recent stories describe starkly different motives for and means of aiding farmers: that of the the celebrity advocate and that of the seller.

John Mellencamp may have been the celeb du jour at a Farm Aid press conference yesterday at the Copley Farmers' Market, but that didn't stop folks from capping on his gravity-defying rock star hair. Margaret Williams, Food Project director, rubbed her tousled locks and quipped, "Little did I know I would have the same hairdresser as John Mellencamp!" To which the singer zinged back, "What's that, your pillow?" Mellencamp, who released a new album yesterday and played Boston this week, visited the market with his wife, former supermodel Elaine Irwin-Mellencamp, to promote the 23rd Farm Aid concert, planned for Sept. 20 at the Comcast Center in Mansfield.

By my estimation the Somerville, MA-based Farm Aid tries to and has done some good work in the last 23 years. The "About Us" pages states that they have raised over $ 30 Million "to promote a strong and resilient family farm system of agriculture. Farm Aid is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to keep family farmers on their land." They accomplish this goal, they claim, by "Promoting Food from Family Farms... Growing the Good Food Movement...Helping Farmers Thrive... (and) Taking Action to Change the System." All of which sounds noble. But to be fair, announcing the concert date and location on the same day that your new album reaches record stores smacks of self-promotion.

Wal-Mart plans to help family farmers in a very different way- by buying and selling their produce:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s plans to spend about $400 million this year -- and possibly more in coming years -- stocking stores with locally grown fruits and vegetables may increase competition to pick local produce, though area retailers aren't sure to what extent. The July 1 announcement also could cultivate larger sales channels for Kansas and Missouri farmers interested in supplying the supermarket giant, which according to a statement already gets a fifth of its produce during summer months from providers in the state where a store is located. Wal-Mart expects the effort to save money and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by cutting the distance food is shipped. ... Not every group jumps at the idea of supplying Wal-Mart stores.

Interestingly, the article's author speculates that Wal-Mart may encounter resistance to its plans:

Not every group jumps at the idea of supplying Wal-Mart stores. Several years ago, the chain approached Good Natured Family Farms, but the cooperative turned down the opportunity, farm-to-market coordinator Diana Endicott said. The co-op's clients include Balls Food Stores, based in Kansas City, Kan., with which it sells local produce and puts growers in stores to meet consumers. About 95 percent of the co-op's members are within 200 miles of the metro area. The group already was busy keeping pace with current demand and preferred to work with independent or locally owned businesses, she said.

My guess is that it is the intermediary, Good Natured Family Farms, that stands the most to lose by Wal-Mart's policy, not the local farmers. It economically-challenging times such as these family farmers have greater incentive to work with whoever is offering the most favorable terms, not necessarily those who mean well but have no dirt under their nails.

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Despite the difficulty it had in Germany, Wal-mart continues to do well in many other overseas markets like Mexico and India. Two recent articles underscore the retailer's alterations to its US business model in those markets. Regarding Mexico, Wal-Mart plans to open over 200 stores and restaurants this year, an almost 13% increase:

The plans include developing the "Mi Bodega Express" format, chief executive Eduardo Solorzano said. The format will be more of a neighborhood store than a convenience market and said the results of two such existing stores have been encouraging. The 2008 expansion plan also includes 17 Wal-Mart Supercenters, 79 Bodega Aurrera stores and 30 VIPs restaurants. Currently Walmex has 1,023 stores and restaurants. Results in Mexico have been good, with the stock of Walmex up 40% the past two years and earnings have grown 32% over that same time period.

A second story from the Hindustan Times details plans for Wal-Mart's cash-and-carry model in the Punjab:

The Bentonville-based retail giant Wal-Mart has finalised the business model for its cash & carry (wholesale) business in India. The first warehouse (distribution centre), which will be up and running in Ludhiana, Punjab, by this June, will have a format similar to Wal-Mart models in the US. However, the product profile will be different from the US stores. Wal-Mart’s cash & carry business, which is a 50:50 joint venture with the New Delhi-based Bharti group, is meant for large institutional or wholesale buyers and is not for retail sales. German retailing major Metro was the first international giant to set up cash & carry stores in India. Ted P Huffman, director of supply chain and logistics for Bharti Wal-Mart, said, “The distribution centre will be similar to Wal-Mart centres in the US, but it will be smaller.” While centres in the US are spread over 1 million sq ft —two football fields put together—the Indian centre will have a size of 80,000 sq ft. He says high real estate costs are the reason for smaller distribution centres. “We will be stocking grocery items and will not have items like toys and medical supplies, which we do in the US,” Huffman said.

Thus, overseas we are seeing a variety of retail formats: in addition to the super-centers, there are also restaurants; in addition to it's traditional focus on retail sales, we see experimentation with a wholesaler model; instead of going it alone, as in the US, we see a willingess to take on 50-50 joint ventures; instead of football-field size footprints, we see smaller distribution centers; and instead of every SKU under the sun, we see a more targeted selection. Doubtless there are other dimensions along which Wal-Mart's overseas business models diverge from the highly successful one developed in the US. How long until some of the successful overseas experiments are adopted back home in Bentonville? Perhaps not very long.

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nHas opinion turned on Wal-Mart? Like so may questions, it depends on who you ask. In the state of Indiana it just may have:

For years, Wal-Mart was best known as a business killer. The Arkansas-based retailer had a reputation for coming into town and putting competitors out of business. Now Wal-Mart is being hailed by Gov. Mitch Daniels and other Indianapolis officials as an economic savior for opening in a depressed commercial area around Lafayette Square Mall.

"Just by being who they are, Wal-mart is literally as good an anti-poverty program as we have in this country," Daniels said last week. "They leave thousands of dollars in the pockets of people who need them most. Other businesses could learn from Wal-Mart's successful business model by being value driven and taking out costs." "I think this Wal-Mart is a shot in the arm," said Mary Clark, president of a Lafayette Square retail group. "[It could be] a magnet for the rest of the retail industry to look at us again." More than 7,000 applications were submitted for the 400-plus jobs at the store, Wal-Mart said.

Elite opinion within the state Democratic party neither hews the Republican governor's line nor shares his enthusiasm for the retail giant:

Daniels' comment prompted criticism. Jennifer Wagner, communications director for the Indiana Democratic Party, told The Star Press, "It's one thing to laud a company for opening a store in an economically depressed area. It's quite another thing to hold up that company as a shining example of the kind of jobs we should be trying to recruit to our state." Wal-Mart and its place in the economy can lead to disagreement even among those concerned about the poor and disadvantaged.

Setting aside the inaccurate implication of the last sentence, i.e. that pro-business forces are less concerned about the poor and disadvantaged, it's worth noting that rank-and-file opinion within the party may be less ideologically driven:

"Any opportunity for economic development in a community is a good thing, especially when there's a need for more of that type of development," Tanasha Anders, vice president of Youth and Family Programs for Indiana Black Expo, told The Star Press. "I was raised in Gary, where our steel mills closed and we didn't have a lot of opportunity and alternatives," Anders said. "A number of things are debatable, but the fact that there's another source of employment for a community -- and not just low-income employment because there are management opportunities -- you can't discount that."

But there are some who, in the name of abstract notions of "social and economic justice", would "discount that". And there are others who- in the name of free markets- would discount prices.

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Digital Trends is reporting that a Tennessee father bought a iPod for his 10-year old daughter that had some content not meant for tender eyes and ears:

CNN has a reported that a man allegedly purchased an mp3 player for his 10-year-old daughter as a Christmas present from a Wal-Mart store in Sparta, Tennessee. However, when she began using it, she discovered it was already filled with songs about drugs and X-rated video clips. "Within 10 minutes, my daughter was crying," Daryl Hill told the network. "I wish I could take the thoughts and images out of her head." According to Hill, the device – one of three he purchased there – had been returned to the store, and he wondered why they would then sell it as new. He declined Wal-Mart’s offer of a new replacement player and is keeping the one he bought for when he talks to a lawyer. Wal-Mart told Nashville WSMV-TV in an e-mail that returned, open packages were not supposed to be sold, and are investigating the matter.

Continue reading "iPo(rne)d" »

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At long last, the city of Clevland, Ohio is getting a Wal-Mart. And the citizens are lining up. But not to shop there (at least not yet): they are lining up to apply for jobs, at a rate of 20 applicants per opening.

Cleveland's first Wal-Mart is about to open, and with it comes 300 jobs in a metro area that is struggling economically. The result, according to the Plain Dealer: 6,000 people applied, or 20 applicants for every one job. "We had to recount (the applications) three times," Mia Masten, Wal-Mart's director of corporate affairs in its Midwest division, told the newspaper.

Lest you think that everyone sees this as a good thing, think again:

Most of the jobs are lower-paying, lower-skills positions, and the demand for those posts disturbs some people. "That's Depression-era kind of imagery," Amy Hanauer, executive director of Policy Matters Ohio, told the Plain Dealer. "You can't have an economy that works that way. It speaks to the need to generate a different kind of employment in Cleveland."

Continue reading "The Ash Heap of Economic History" »

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The blog-hers over at Feministing have their knickers in a twist about t-shirts. No, they are not inflamed about wet t-shirt contests. Nor are they outraged that "tank tops" are now routinely referred to as "wifebeaters." Rather, they're exercised about the t-shirt to the right and apalled that Wal-Mart thinks it's right to sell it. (They probably also don't like that Wal-Mart's demographics skew to the Right, but that's a post for another day.)

In addition to being heinously ugly, this shirt represents some serious misogyny. And it's being sold at Wal-Mart. A woman in North Carolina who noticed the shirt is also a stalking victim, and she's justifiably horrified.

"People don't realize how serious stalking is," she said. "You constantly live in fear, look over your shoulder and suffer from psychological and physical symptoms due to the stress of the stalker."

She wondered aloud: What's next?

"Some say it's rape, I call it hot sex"? Or: "Some call it domestic violence, I say I'm just teaching her a lesson"?

Exactly. "Joke" shirts like these only further promote the idea that stalking is just romance taken a little too far. It's not. It's about power and control, and it's f**king scary as hell.

Unless of course, it's not. And doubly not if you're Sting, who wrote the multi-platinum single about stalking that about a million men and women have sung at their weddings in the last 24 years. Chances are you know the lyrics by heart:

Continue reading "Some Call it Clueless" »

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According to Porter's Five Forces, a firm's supplier has power over it to the degree that the following conditions are met:

a) It is dominated by a few companies is & more concentrated than the industry it sells to

e) The supplier group poses a credible threat of forward integration

Accordingly, to protect their bottom lines, strategically-managed firms like Wal-Mart take a variety of measures to offset supplier power. A recent Reuters article entitled "Wal-Mart to look at suppliers' energy efficiency" provides a new twist on this idea in part because of the way this aspect of market strategy is linked to a non-market issue- climate change:

Continue reading "Supplier Power (and Energy) at Wal-Mart" »

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Although Michael Porter's Five Forces Model is the most well-known of strategic management theories, there is a reason that it is only one of four or five that I teach. That reason is that like all theories, there are issues of importance that it does not address either in part or in full. Point in case is the role of corporate identity, or the lack thereof, in determining firm performance. Whether or not one thinks the role is minimal or substantial, it is clear that this issue does not fall neatly within the purview of Buyers, Suppliers, Barriers to Entry, Substitutes, or Rivalry. One theory that does posit a central role for corporate identity is Gary Hamel's Business Concept Innovation framework, as outlined in Chapter 3 of his most interesting and overlooked book from 2000, Leading the Revolution.

The four major components of BCI are Core Strategy, Strategic Resources, Customer Interface, and Value Network. The Core Strategy is defined as "the essence of how the firm chooses to compete" and its three aspects are:

Mission: the overall objective of the strategy- what the business model is designed to accomplish or deliver.

Product/Market Scope: where the firm does and does not compete, i.e. which customers, geographies, and product segments.

Basis for Differentiation: how the firm competes and, in particular, how it competes differently than its competitors.

Though the words "corporate identity" are not mentioned explicitly, it is clear that these three factors are important, if not central to it. Below is an example from a recent article in The Street.com about the role of corporate identity in explaining how Wal-Mart lost its way:

Continue reading "Wal-Mart's Corporate Identity Crisis" »

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Yesterday's Wall Street Journal has an excellent article about some increasingly-attractive private-sector alternatives to hospital-based health care.

It's Friday evening and you suspect that your child might have strep throat or a worsening ear infection. Do you bundle him up and wait half the night in an emergency room? Or do you suffer through the weekend and hope that you can get an appointment with your pediatrician on Monday -- taking time off your job to drive across town for another wait in the doctor's office?

Every parent has faced this dilemma. But now there are new options, courtesy of the competitive marketplace. You might instead be able to take a quick trip on Friday night to a RediClinic in the nearby Wal-Mart or a MinuteClinic at CVS, where you will be seen by a nurse practitioner within 15 minutes, most likely getting a prescription that you can have filled right there. Cost of the visit? Generally between $40 and $60.

These new retail health clinics are opening in big box stores and local pharmacies around the country to treat common maladies at prices lower than a typical doctor's visit and much lower than the emergency room. No appointment necessary. Open daytime, evenings and weekends. Most take insurance.

Continue reading "Wal-Mart, Redi-Clinic, and the Healtcare "Crisis"" »

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In his landmark 1958 book, The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations, psychologist Fritz Heider argued that people attempt to explain behavior by recourse to either internal or external attribution. The "12Manage" website describes the two processes:

External (Situational) Attribution: causality is assigned to an outside factor, agent or force. Outside factors fall outside your control. You perceive you have no choice. So your behavior is influenced, limited or even completely determined by influences outside your control. Therefore you feel not responsible. A generic example is the weather.

Internal (Dispositional) Attribution: causality is assigned to an inside factor, agent or force. Inside factors fall inside your own control. You can choose to behave in a particular way or not. So your behavior is not influenced, limited or even completely determined by influences outside your control. Therefore you feel responsible. A typical example is your own intelligence.

In the last few decades, several management scholars have applied the insights of attribution theory to managers explanations about their firm's performance. Though results of empirical are mixed, the general consensus is that external attribution is more frequently employed to explain poor or less-than-expected performance. Not surprisingly, market analysts are trained to look for this. A recent article about Wal-Mart in "The Street.com" provides a useful illustration:

Times are tough at Wal-Mart... The Bentonville, Ark., giant, which reports results before the bell Tuesday, is expected to post earnings of 68 cents a share on revenue of $87.1 billion, according to Thomson Financial. Wal-Mart has already warned, however, that its forecast of 68 cents to 71 cents would be difficult to achieve because of a tough sales environment in April. The month indeed turned out to be tough for the world's largest retailer. Same-store sales slid 3.5%, significantly worse than the 1.1% drop Wall Street projected. Goldman Sachs analyst Adrianne Shapira believes Wal-Mart likely will blame big-picture issues such as rising gas prices, the housing slowdown and lower consumer confidence for its sales woes.... Wal-Mart's problems, she maintains, are company-specific.

Commentary

Thus, as Attribution Theory would predict Wal-Mart managers point to industry, macro-environmental, and economy-level factors as explanations for poor performance. There is nothing inherently wrong or dishonest about this. Rather, it is just a recognition of a well-known human tendency to look inward for reasons explaining success and outward for reasons for explaining failure.

What is equally important as the attribution is the firm's plan of action for addressing the problematic performance. Explanations, by their very nature, are focussed upon explain what has already happened. Solutions that the same managers offer to address the deficits ought to be both proactive and prudent. That is to say, they should make clear what are the steps that are being and will be taken to correct the situation while also explicitly recognizing that there are always elements beyond management's ken and control. This is precisely what the article's author alludes to when he notes that "Wal-Mart isn't sitting back helplessly with subpar results. The company is remodeling stores in an attempt to appeal to a higher-end consumer. Additionally, it is focusing efforts on higher-margin items and departments." That quote highlights the difference between having a strategy (however effective or ineffective it may be) and waiting out a storm.

Tags: wal-mart

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One of the constant complaints about Wal-Mart is that its size and market power allow it tremendous leverage over its suppliers- and not just small ones. Even large firms have been known to complain that the behemoth of Bentonville has extracted economic concessions from them under extreme duress. True as this may be, there is a positive side to the story that rarely gets as much. That would be those instances where Wal-Mart starts to carry products and services that, for any number of reasons, have far less market penetration than they could or should. Today's announcement that Wal-Mart will now carry the Skype product line is a case in point:

Skype, the leading Internet communications company, today announced that it is teaming up with Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, to address the growing popularity and demand for Internet communications among U.S. consumers. Starting today, Wal-Mart is offering Skype Certified(TM) hardware in the Internet and voice communications area of 1,800 of its stores throughout the country, providing more opportunity and accessibility for people looking for affordable calling options. This partnership gives shoppers immediate hands-on access to headsets, webcams and handsets designed to work with Skype, as well as the first pre-paid cards for Skype available in the U.S.

he addition of Skype Internet communications products to Wal-Mart stores comes at a time when Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) adoption among U.S. households is growing rapidly. According to the Telecommunications Industry Association, 9.9% of all landlines in the U.S. were VoIP lines in 2006, and this will rise to 34.1% by 2010. In addition, Skype is the number one software-based VoIP application in the U.S. by market share, according to a March 2007 report by In-Stat.

"We applaud Wal-Mart for recognizing the popularity of Skype and making it more accessible to Wal-Mart shoppers. This relationship with Wal-Mart will increase exposure for Skype and our hardware partners in a single dedicated Internet communications section," said Don Albert, vice president and general manager of Skype North America. "Our research suggests that when users add a Skype Certified accessory like a headset, handset or webcam, it greatly enhances their experience and they use Skype more to connect with family, friends and business colleagues."

Continue reading "Wal-Mart to Carry Skype Product (Land)Line" »

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Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. - Matthew 18:3

I held off posting anything concerning ex-Senator John Edwards' inquiries to Wal-Mart about obtaining a PlayStation3 until more facts came to light. Boy did they ever. The reason why this story is news is because Edwards has become a very vocal critic of Wal-Mart of late. Clearly aware of the rank hypocrisy of trying to get a copy of PS3 before it goes on sale to the general public and from a retailer that one has just attacked the day before, the Edwards camp yesterday shifted the blame onto a "young" volunteer:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said Thursday that a staff member for former Sen. John Edwards -a vocal critic of the retailer- asked his local Wal-Mart store for help in getting the potential 2008 presidential candidate a Sony PlayStation 3. Edwards said a volunteer did so by mistake. Edwards told The Associated Press that the volunteer "feels terrible" about seeking the game unit at Wal-Mart a day after his boss criticized the company, saying it doesn't treat its employees fairly.

"My wife, Elizabeth, wanted to get a Playstation3 for my young children. She mentioned it in front of one of my staff people," Edwards said. "That staff person mentioned it in front of a volunteer who said he would make an effort to get one. He was making an effort to go get one for himself. "Elizabeth and I knew nothing about this. He feels terrible about this. He made a mistake, and he knows he should not have used my name," Edwards said. Edwards said the volunteer was "a young kid" unaware of what he called flawed Wal-Mart policies. He called the Wal-Mart statement an effort to divert attention from its own problems.

Commentary

Continue reading "Be Ye Like Little Children" »

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Part I of "The Plural of Anecdote" is here.

Here is one of the claims made by Wal-Mart critics, in this case WalMart Watch, that is addressed head-on by economists Russell Sobel and Andrea Dean in their recently published working paper "Has Wal-Mart Buried Mom and Pop?: The Impact of Wal-Mart on Self-Employment and Small Establishments in the United States"

Wal-MartWatch, one of the largest Anti-Wal-Mart organizations, features an academic article claiming that in Iowa, Wal-Mart’s expansion has been responsible for widespread closings of ‘mom and pop’ stores, including 555 grocery stores, 298 hardware stores, 293 building suppliers, 161 variety shops, 158 women’s stores, and 116 pharmacies.

Here is Sobel and Dean's argument in a nutshell:

Wal-Mart is big enough to have significant macroeconomic effects. Hausman and Leibtag (2004), for example, find that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) is biased because of the failure to specifically account for Wal-Mart. ... because of its sheer size, if Wal-Mart has a negative effect on small business activity, this effect should be discernable in aggregate U.S. data.

They continue by noting that if Wal-Mart is big enough to have the effect that critics claim, then the data ought to show it:

... because Iowa is a fairly representative state in the sample, an extrapolation would suggest that ...the overall size of the small business sector in the United States should have fallen by about one-third relative to days prior to Wal-Mart’s expansion across America. Has this one-third reduction in U.S. small business activity really happened? If so it should be clearly visible in the raw data on U.S. small business activity, and this is the first evidence we will examine.

In short, their results show that:

Continue reading "The Plural of Anecdote II: Wal-Mart's Impact on Mom and Pop" »

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Mr. Ron Sherman of the Chico (California) Enterprise-Record published an article today entitled "Wal-Mart survey flawed". It reads as follows:

A few decades ago, studies financed by tobacco companies showed that cigarette smoking is not harmful to your health. Recently, studies financed by oil companies showed that global warming is not caused by burning fossil fuels. Now, Bob Linscheid's study, financed by a $5,000 payment from Wal-Mart, shows that Wal-Marts are actually good for communities. Can you see a pattern here?

Linscheid's "impartial survey" consists of questions presented only to economic development officials and chamber of commerce officials, all people such as himself, whose main agendas are encouraging large-scale business expansion. The questions asked were of Linscheid's choosing, excluding areas of inquiry that could result in responses contrary to his desired results. He seems more like a Wal-Mart lobbyist than an independent researcher.

It's obviously of no concern to Linscheid that a Wal-Mart supercenter built in north Chico would forever ruin that entire beautiful area of our community. One need only look at places like Fresno or Stockton to see what results when people like Linscheid are successful in promoting big-time economic expansion.

Another study prepared by credentialed Ph.D.s and respected economists, who, unlike Linscheid, considered all relevant areas of concern, found that a Wal-Mart expansion would have a "devastating impact" on our local economy.

Wal-Mart spokesman Kevin Loscotoff said the Linscheid study was "done by a credible third-party organization." Does Loscotoff also have some oceanfront property in Arizona for sale?

I left the following comment on the webpage where this article appeared:

Continue reading "Call and Response" »

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"The plural of anecdote is data." - Berkeley political scientist Raymond Wolfinger

The aforementioned aphorism is one both true and truly in need of appreciation by Wal-Mart critics. Said critics have, for years now, claimed that when the Wal-Mart juggernaut comes to town it decimates small, family-owned, mom-and-pop, and fledgling local enterprises. Even after setting aside the self-righteous indignation, absolute certitude, and moral superiority with which critics have laid such charges at Wal-Mart's (and only Wal-Mart's) doorstep, I still have serious reservations about the critics' assertions.

The reservations stem from the fact that the "evidence" cited in support of such claims is always anecdotal. That is to say, some critics try to make their point by pointing to one region or county or city where Wal-Mart opened one or more stores and, as they tell it, local businesses were sent to an early grave.

The problem with this line of thinking is that while no thinking person doubts that some or even many local businesses may go under after Wal-Mart's entry, that fact alone in no way establishes either causality or ubiquity. It is an empirical question as to whether there is a Wal-Mart effect and, if so, whether it is the same in all times and climes.

Fortunately, someone has finally addressed this question head-on with a data set covering the entire US and with the application of empirical and econometric methods suited to the task. The someone in question is actually a someones- Professors Russell Sobel and Andrea Dean of West Virginia University. In their recently-released working paper, Sobel and Dean present results of a study whose abstract reads as follows:

Saving traditional small ‘mom and pop’ businesses has been a justification for political and court decisions preventing Wal-Mart from opening new stores virtually everywhere across the United States. We present the first rigorous econometric investigation of how Wal-Mart actually impacts the small business sector. We examine the rate of self- employment and the number of small employer establishments using both time-series and cross-sectional data. Contrary to popular belief, our results suggest that the process of creative destruction unleashed by Wal-Mart has had no statistically significant long-run impact on the overall size and profitability of the small business sector in the United States.

Because my thoughts on the research design and implications of the findings are deserving of an entire post by themselves, I will end this post with excerpts taken from Sobel and Dean's summary and conclusion:

Continue reading "The Plural of Anecdote: Does Wal-Mart Hurt "Mom-and-Pop" Businesses?" »

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In a post back in September entitled "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" I wrote about Wal-Mart's decision to partner with the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. In that post I cited an article from "The Morning News" of northwest Arkansas which stated attributed Wal-Mart's move as an effort "to help advance diversity within the Bentonville-based retailer’s operations."

What I overlooked at the time was the anger and disappointment by several parties, some of whom had been very supportive of Wal-Mart up to that point. I did take their palpable dismay as genuine, but I did not think it would lead to calls for a boycott, as reported yesterday by Bloomberg:

Continue reading "End of the Rainbow" »

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In one of my recent pay-to-read Five Forces analyses I wrote whether Wal-Mart's generics-for-$4 program will lead to increased rivalry in the retail pharmacy sector. In Note on the Structural Analysis of Industries Porter hypothesized that:

"In most industries competitive moves by one firm have noticeable effects on its competitors and thus may incite retaliation or efforts to counter the move…This pattern of action and reaction may or may not leave the initiating firm and the industry as a whole better off. If moves and countermoves escalate, then all the firms in the industry may suffer and be worse off than before." .

Two factors that influence the degree of rivalry experienced are the degree of product differentiation and switching costs. Concerning the first Porter said that “when a product or service is perceived as a commodity or a near-commodity”, then consumer choice is largely determined by two things- “price and service.” Product differentiation is, then, a way to “create layers of insulation against competitive warfare” because buyers are presented with clear choices and thus afforded the opportunity to develop preferences for and loyalties to particular producers.

Switching costs are the “one-time costs of switching brands, or switching from one competitors’ product to another.” When switching costs are low or non-existent we should expect that consumers can and will have little resistance to changing products and producers. It would seem almost axiomatic that switching costs for generic drugs are little or non-existent.

How it is that low product differentiation and low switching costs increase rivalry is made very clear in recent news reports about Wal-Mart’s generic drug program. In article entitled “Wal-Mart hurries $4 prescriptions into Michigan”, Mary Radigan of The Grand Rapids Press describes how Wal-Mart’s low-cost generic drug program was rapidly countered by Meijer with a free program and then how quickly Wal-Mart responded again.

Three days after Meijer stores announced free generic drugs to customers, Wal-Mart today launched its $4 prescription program in Michigan months earlier than expected. Company leaders said public demand, not Meijer, prompted them to roll out the program here and in 11 more states today instead of sometime after January, as first promised. "We were planning on rolling this out, and this is just our next step to add additional states," Wal-Mart spokesman David Tovar said. "This has nothing to do with Meijer."

Interstingly. Meijer officials have no problem stating that their moves were in response to Wal-Mart:

Meijer President Mark Murray said today that he "fully expected" Wal-Mart to move the drug program into Michigan. "They clearly have accelerated their rollout nationwide," Murray said. "This is a competitive business."

Here are some recent examples of countermoves by other national, regional, and local competitors. According to the Washington Business Journal:

Wegmans Food Markets of Rochester, N.Y., unveiled a cost-cutting plan for nearly 200 generic drugs and will make them available in a three-month supply. The supermarket chain says customers will be able to purchase the medicine in a 90-day supply for $11.99. The program will be implemented Oct. 26 in all of the company's stores in Maryland, Virginia, New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Kmart has also announced plans to reduce the cost of some generic drug prescriptions.

Perceptions of an responses to Wal-Mart's moves seem to vary across by region and industry. For example, while pharmacies in Alabama remain unphased...

Continue reading "Parry and Thrust" »

Posted by Starling Hunter at 11:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0) | Link Count

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

In his Five Forces theory of industry analysis, Michael Porter identifies several “barriers to entry”, i.e. economic, technical, financial, and other “obstacles in the path of a firm which wants to enter a given market.” Among the “barriers” mentioned by Porter in “Note on the Structural Analysis of Industries” is “Government Policy.” About this force he says:

“Government can limit or even foreclose entry into industries with such controls as licensing requirements and limits on access to raw materials ( like coal mines or mountains on which to build ski areas). Regulated industries like trucking, railroads, liquor retailing, and freight forwarding are obvious examples.”

While retail is not included in Porter’s list of regulated industries, entry into foreign retail markets inevitably requires the approval of the host country’s government. As a result, firms like Wal-Mart, which does business in several foreign countries, may face higher and/or different barriers to entry abroad than they do at home. Point in case is Wal-Mart's attempt to build a store in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

The world's largest retailer won preliminary approval on Tuesday to build a Wal-Mart in Cabo San Lucas after an almost two-year battle, but opponents vow to continue fighting the project with demonstrations or by blocking roads.

The Los Cabos city council voted unanimously to give conditional approval for the store, requiring it to be nonintrusive, pass environmental studies and not excessively affect traffic in this fishing and resort town of about 80,000 at the tip of the Baja California peninsula.

Residents and shopkeepers fear that the store — first proposed, and rejected, at a site near the middle of the city — could harm the town's laid-back atmosphere, where sports fishermen and tourists mingle with locals on the streets. Some also worry the store might replace the trademark stone sea arch as the first view people have when they drive into the city.

Continue reading "They Paved Paradise and Put a New Wal-Mart" »

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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.

Continue reading "Human Rights and Human Resources" »

Posted by Starling Hunter at 9:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) | Link Count

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

Appearing in today's New York Times is an article by Michael Barbaro and Stephanie Strom entitled "Wal-Mart Find's an Ally in Conservatives." My first reaction upon reading the title was "This is surprising why, exactly?" But as I read further I realized a rather important point is being made, one about the possible relationship between donations made by philanthropic foundations and the research produced, the opinion pieces written, and the policy positions taken by groups that receive them.

As Wal-Mart Stores struggles to rebut criticism from unions and Democratic leaders, the company has discovered a reliable ally: prominent conservative research groups like the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation and the Manhattan Institute.

Top policy analysts at these groups have written newspaper opinion pieces around the country supporting Wal-Mart, defended the company in interviews with reporters and testified on its behalf before government committees in Washington.

But the groups — and their employees — have consistently failed to disclose a tie to the giant discount retailer: financing from the Walton Family Foundation, which is run by the Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton’s three children, who have a controlling stake in the company.

That the Times picks Wal-Mart, the Walton Family Foundation, and "prominent conservative research groups" to make its point is not surprising. But to their credit, in an effort to provide some semblance of balance, just six paragraphs in the authors do mention that "liberal policy groups receive significant financing from unions and left-leaning organizations without disclosing their financing."

What I did find surprising is what I found myself saying next: I fundamentally agree with the authors about the importance of the questions they raise about disclosure. But I do have one major concern, too. Before stating it, let me begin by saying that disclosure of conflicts of interest and monetary relationships is a good thing- for all concerned, be that bloggers, columnists, academics, and professional analysts, and private researchers. But as the article makes clear, disclosure doesn't always happen. There can be several legitimate reasons why.

In the article we are told that at times individuals advocating one position or another don't always know the sources of funding of the organization for which they work. At other times, they might not think that making financial or other ties known is relevant or they may not believe donations had any influence on their thinking. Sometimes the foundations that give the money place no expectation on the recipient to disclose. All good and well.

My concern about the article is one about what our priors ought to be. That is to say, in the absence of disclosure about financial and, perhaps, ideological ties, what should we assume about the position taken by a researcher, columnist, or policy wonk? I don't mean what should we assume about the existence of ties and relationships, I mean what should we assume about the merits of the argument. The passage below makes me think that the authors view lack of disclosure as a mark against a position, as discrediting it:

The lack of a clear quid pro quo between research groups and corporations like Wal-Mart makes the issue murky, said Diana Aviv, chief executive of the Independent Sector, a trade organization representing nonprofits and foundations. “I don’t know how one proves what’s the chicken and what’s the egg,” she said.

And what I don't know is whether or not this is the most important issue. If I worry about anything in this article it is the idea that relationships between research groups and corporations are an acceptable proxy for the quality of the research or the validity of the arguments advanced. To my mind, the best use of time for Wal-Mart critics, and defenders too for that matter, is to focus less on who sponsored what research and focus more on what is actually said.

Neither side should attempt to discredit research that they don't like because it was funded by an organization hostile to their own aims or agendas. Rather, arguments should be assessed on their merits; data, sources, and methods should be scrutinized; alternative theories and explanations should be advanced; limitations of the research should be acknowledged; questions still in need of objective answers should be clearly articulated...and then the process should begin again.

And speaking of disclosure, here's mine:

Disclosure: Many bloggers get email from Wal-Mart's PR firm, Edelman, about articles and blog posts written about Wal-Mart. I found out about the Barbaro and Strom article by way of an email message sent directly to me by Edelman earlier today. My doctoral thesis at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business focussed on economic and organizational impacts of retail information systems. While there my thesis advisor and I did once meet over lunch with Wal-Mart's Chief People Officer and some other members of the organization working in the logistics function. I never did, however, receive any funding from Wal-Mart or any other retailer for my research. Here's a link to one research paper I published about stock market reactions to announcements by major retailers about the retailer's investments in information systems and technologies. Warning: don't operate heavy machinery for at least 3 hours after reading it.

File Under: Wal-Mart

Continue reading "Disclosures and Discredits" »

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

In a post entitled "Why Can’t Edelman Manage the Blogosphere?" over at "Writing on the Wal" (a much better name, by the way, than the original "No Cleveland Wal-Mart" ) Peter offers a correction to something I wrote in my "Circling" post a few days back. At the very bottom of the post I had the following disclaimer:

Note: Like many bloggers I get occasionally get email from employees of Edelman about articles written about Wal-Mart. I learned about this article in another way- by way of a "google alert" for news stories about Wal-Mart.

Here's what Peter had to say about that:

I hate to correct you Starling, but it’s not that “many bloggers” get e-mail from Edelman, it’s “many PRO-WAL-MART bloggers” get e-mail from Edelman. Edelman doesn’t want to discuss anything with us here at the Writing on the Wal. They just want to plant stories that make their client look good and, as Bruni implies, you can’t manage a debate if you only talk to one side.

Here's the comment I left on Peter's blog:

First let me say thanks for reading that far down into my post. That means I have at least one person who read (it all the way through) ! As for the substance of your remarks…point taken. I don’t know who gets emails from Edelman so I couldn’t feel confident to assert that only pro-Wal-Mart bloggers get them. Now that fact wouldn’t surprise me if I found it to be true. And if you ask me what I believe, I'd say “that’s what I believe to be true.” But since I didn’t know for sure, I refrained from assuming on this specific point. I think I probably do enough assuming as it is, don’t you? ;-)

And to that I'll add this:

Continue reading "Reply to Peter at "Writing on the Wal"" »

Posted by Starling Hunter at 10:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0) | Link Count

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

Last week in a post entitled "Life Imitating (Wal-M)art" I intimated that Wal-Mart might soon begin a counter-offensive against a growing number of increasingly vocal critics. I had no first-hand or inside knowledge that such a response was forthcoming. It was just an educated guess, a prediction of sorts. Today, Michael Barbaro of the New York Times confirmed my hunch in an article entitled "Wal-Mart Counters Criticism With a Political-Style Ad Campaign." My take on the article is that while it accurately and fairly describes Wal-Mart's recent moves, it fundamentally misreads the underlying motivations for and potential consequences of them.

Wal-Mart, under attack now from unions and prominent Democrats, yesterday introduced a marketing campaign that closely resembles the television advertisements used by political candidates. ... For Wal-Mart, the ads represent a significant departure from its practice of rebutting critics in the media but presenting itself, at least in consumer television marketing, as untroubled by its image problems.

Strictly speaking, this seems more like a public relations, rather than a marketing, campaign. The latter term is more appropriately applicable when a firm is trying to persuade potential customers to buy its products or services and existing ones from shopping elsewhere. For example, Ford uses marketing campaigns to tout its cars, to persuade customers to buy its cars and not Chevrolet's or Toyota's.

Continue reading "Circling the wagons or... for the kill?" »

Posted by Starling Hunter at 11:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0) | Link Count

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

If you read only one article about why the Democratic Party's recent anti-Wal-Mart campaign is a bad idea, let that one article be Sebastian Mallaby's "Shopping for Support Down the Wrong Aisle" in today's Washington Post. It is one of those rare articles to which snippets are an injustice. When I say I wish I had written it myself, I give it the highest compliment possible.

File Under: Wal-Mart

Tags: Wal-Mart | WalMart

Posted by Starling Hunter at 8:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) | Link Count

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

It has become fashionable of late to paint the war between Wal-Mart and its critics in starkly antithetical terms. On one side is the undeniably successful behemoth of Bentonville with strong support from the financial community, denizens of and politicians from Red States, pro-family groups happy with Wal-Mart's refusal to vend seemy and obscene CDs, several notable economists and journalists who praise the firm for its creation of massive consumer surpluses, as well as other pro-business types.

On the other side are Big Labor, unsettled but undeterred by its attempts to unionize the firm's 1 million-plus employees; a small army of union-funded and highly-motivated, if not always on-target, anti-Wal-Mart organizations; Blue State senators and big city politicians looking for votes; the brie and brioche-eating, Whole Foods-loving, Saab-driving, I-look-down-my-nose-at-Wal-Mart-and-their-customers types; anti-sprawl activists; small business groups claiming economic damage from Wal-Mart's competitive moves; disgruntled former employees; inefficient suppliers unable and/or unwilling able to meet the firm's increasingly rigorous demands; a large swath of the mainstream media, the New York Times most notably; universal healthcare advocates; and a host of assorted cranks, malcontents, anti-capitalists, organ and axe-grinders.

And while there is more than an element of truth to this characterization, there is also something lost by doing so. The tendency to construe in black and white terms, irresistible and easy as it may be, makes us lose sight of the fact that there are not only shades of grey in this debate, there is an entire spectrum of opinion. In fact, as a recent article by The Morning News of Bentonville Arkansas makes clear, it's increasingly a rainbow spectrum:

Continue reading "Somewhere over the rainbow" »

Posted by Starling Hunter at 9:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) | Link Count

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

Two days ago, in a post entitled "The Wal-Marti Code" I remarked on the strafing of Wal-Mart by several 2008 presidential hopefuls. I noted, in so many words, that life was imitating art. In particular, I observed that several senators among the hopefuls were behaving exactly as the fictional Senator Sedgwick Sexton, a character in a novel by Dan Brown entitled Deception Point. (Brown is also the author of the blockbuster The Da Vinci Code.) Though I didn't express it in exactly these words, I concluded that the senators' strategy concerning Wal-Mart is ill-advised, wrong-headed, and politically tone-deaf.

Today, to my utter and pleasant surprise, I found support for my point of view coming from a most unlikely quarter: The LA Times editorial page. In a piece entitled "Democrats' Shameful Wal-Mart Demonization" the Times concludes that "Presidential hopefuls only hurt themselves when pandering to unions by bashing the country's largest employer."

WITH ONE EYE ON 2008 and one on their labor union base, Democratic luminaries are canvassing Iowa and other states this summer to campaign against the nation's incumbent … retailer. They obviously see Wal-Mart as this season's Enron, the one corporation that represents all that is wrong with America.

But the editors don't just attack the politicians' strategy, they also take issue with its underlying assumptions and unstated motivations. And here they hit the bullseye like a laser-guided bomb:

The candidates are so intent on gaining tactical advantage in the primary season that they risk alienating possible supporters in the general election. ... The gusto with which even moderate Democrats are bashing Wal-Mart is bound to backfire. Not only does it take the party back to the pre-Clinton era, when Democrats were perceived as reflexively anti-business, it manages to make Democrats seem like out-of-touch elitists to the millions of Americans who work and shop at Wal-Mart.

One reason the Democrats may have a tin ear on this subject is demographic. Certainly most of the party's urban liberal activists are far removed from the Wal-Mart phenomenon. The retailer has thrived mainly in small towns and exurbs, which is one reason a Zogby poll found that three-quarters of weekly Wal-Mart shoppers voted for President Bush in 2004, and why 8 out of 10 people who have never shopped at Wal-Mart voted for John Kerry. Denouncing the retailer may make sense if the goal is to woo primary activists, but it's a disastrous way to reach out to the general electorate. Or to govern, for that matter.

I don't know how this will all play out. It is possible that life will continue to imitate art. That is to say, much like their fictional "good friend" the hopefuls will do their funders' bidding up and until the strategy backfires. It's also possible that the target fires back, that The Empire Strikes Back.

File Under: Wal-Mart

Continue reading "Life Imitating (Wal-M)art" »

Posted by Starling Hunter at 6:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) | Link Count

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

Well my summer vacation and blogging hiatus are over. During my absence I did something I can’t recall ever having done: I read four novels. It’s not that I don’t like reading. I just prefer history, biographies, and philosophy. Three of the novels I read were linked by a common theme: all were written by top-selling author Dan Brown. They were, in order of reading, The Da Vinci Code, Angels & Demons, and Deception Point. On the whole I found the novels to be everything their descriptions promised- fast-paced, action-packed, intriguing, highly-readable, and well-researched.

The plots revolve around smart and powerful people with strongly held opinions on and substantial knowledge about some of life’s most important and fundamental questions. The novels make reference to historical artifacts and places, theories, technologies, institutions, policies, and philosophies that guide and influence the lives of billions of people on the planet. And they contain details that are clearly the product of significant background research.

All of that having been said, there was one detail in Deception Point which gave me pause. It was the author’s characterization of Wal-Mart as a depredatory quasi-monopolist rather than a savvy supplier of consumer demand. I wondered whether the characterization was researched, whether Brown made it up, or whether he was interjecting his own opinion. It is a minor point, taking up just one page of the 736 pages, yet worthy of attention.

Continue reading "The Wal-Marti Code" »

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• The Wal-Mart Bargain | Tom Slee | Whimsley
  Tom Slee of Whimsley Blog reports on the good, the bad and a bit of the ugly that he sees behind Wal-Mart’s “Always Low Price” strategy. Tom began his blog to help explain and promote his book entitled “No one Makes you shop at Wal-Mart.” It’s a book that I think I will find much with which I agree and disagree. And if the book is even half as good as the blog posts about Wal-Mart, I expect it to be one good and informing read. Money quote: The good thing about Wal-Mart stores is well-known, simple, and can be stated in three of the company's own words: Always Low Prices. The bad things about Wal-Mart are what it does to get those prices low. These are now also well known: cut costs remorselessly and exploit the benefits of scale. Few would argue with the claim that a low price is, by itself, a good thing." I know one who might ;-)
• Wal-Mart? nein, danke | Hadashi | HadashiWorld
  Hadashi feels "somewhat snarkily pleased that despite all its corporate might and yellow-bouncy-smiley-face power, Wally is admitting defeat and pulling out with over $1 billion in losses." Upon reflection, she also reflects on those feelings and recognizes in herself some of the same cultural arrogance that she imputes to Wal-Mart. Who have thought that contemplation on the trials and tribulations of the world’s largest retailer could lead to a moment of self-realization? On a totally unrelated note, the banner pic on Hadashi’s blog is outstanding and worth a visit for that reason alone.
• Death and Taxes | Jeff Hess | The Writing On The Wal
  It’s been said that there are only two certainties in life- death and taxes. Not everyone agrees. The late soul singer Marvin Gaye had a hit record in the 1970's entitled "Trouble Man." He said "There's only three things That's for sure- Taxes, death and trouble.” Jeff Hess over a Writing on the Wal doesn’t believe the old adage either. His post concerns the efforts by 18 of the nation’s richest families to avoid paying estate taxes. Among the “cabal of the uber wealthy” is the Walton family, the source of whose wealth is Wal-Mart. Here’s Jeff’s explanation on why we should care about Wal-Mart’s attempt to reduce the number of life’s inevitabilities to one: So why single out Wal Mart and the Walton family in any of this? Am I simply a Wal Mart-hating Marxist envious of their success? No. This is important because it is further evidence that Wal Mart and the Walton family are no longer simply acting as bad corporate citizens in our Republic. Instead they are acting as an independent, un-elected body setting national tax policy and creating legislation. Not since the days of John D. Rockefeller and Standard Oil has one family wielded this much power. And it’s not good for the Republic that I love. To me it sounds like the Waltons are exercising their first amendent rights to petition the government concerning grievances and that is exercising his frist amendent right to speak out against it- two things which are good for the Republic we both love.
• Alderman Joe Moore: Retail Genius | John Ruberry | Marathon Pundit
  John of MarathonPundit takes issue with Chicago's recent "living wage" ordinance. To his mind, the result will be that retail purchases will continue to be transferred to the web and the suburbs and that the city, already severely under-stored, will remain that way. Liberal activists, columnists, and bloggers are claiming Wal-Mart and Target are bluffing when the retail behemoths state they'll cut back or cancel their expansion moves into the Second City. My hunch is they're not. Look for Wal-Mart to create a "big box" necklace along the borders of America's third most-populous city if the "big box" ordinance stands.
• ProfessorBainbridge.com: Walmart Health Care Law Invalidated
  Professor Bainbridge posted on the demise of Maryland’s Wal-Mart Healthcare law. That law required that “any company with more than 10,000 employees must spend at least 8 percent of their payroll on health benefits or put the money directly into the state's health program for the poor.” As the Professor notes, though Wal-Mart was not named specifically in the bill, “no other employer was large enough to satisfy the text set out in the statute.” Interestingly, the law was not invalidated on these grounds. The Professor explains.
• Wal*Mart Protesters: Intellectual Elites Lose | Jack Yoest | Yoest.org
  Jack Yoest notes how low anti-Wal-Mart protesters were willing to sink last Christmas. According to the article Washington Times article he cites: “[U]nion-sponsored protesters handed out empty, gift-wrapped boxes to children and made them cry...the arrests of...the protesters may have been ...a ...strategy designed by Big Labor-backed WakeUpWalMart.com.” Perhaps Jack should have named this one "How Low can YOU go?" or "Always (be)Low the Belt."
• A Glimpse of Sanity | Smilerz | Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of...
  Smilerz has concerns with the larger implications of cities, states, and municipalities attempting to pass laws that punish Wal-Mart for its success. “If a policy is good it should affect everyone equally (isn’t that what the Equal Protection clause was supposed to accomplish?) whether its loopholes to avoid restrictive regulation or, as in this case, regulation that can only be applied to a single party.”
• What Is Going On At Wal-Mart? | MP Turner | Curiouser and Curiouser
  MP Turner of Curiouser and Curiouser asks “What is going on at Wal-Mart?” He wonders about the wisdom and effect of their new shoplifting policy, one that strikes him as a tad too permissive. Money quote: So, from what I can gather, this is purely a financial and political move. As the manager said, it costs him money to process a low-dollar theft and he loses the difference. And local governments are after all squawking about the extra load on its meager police forces. The only problem with that is that Sam Walton would have none of it. Somehow I feel inclined to agree. But then again, sometimes founders have trouble keeping up with the times.

Posted by Starling Hunter at 5:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) | Link Count

• Anti-Capitalists vs. "Poor Jack Yoest" | Jack Yoest | Yoest.org
  Jack Yoest, our mid-Atlantic business blogger, got himself into a tiny tiff with the Jeff Hess over at The Writing on the Wal. Despite that fact that he got no comments on his recent “Wal-Mart Wednesday Open Thread” I still think Jeff has one of the best anti-Wal-Mart blogs I’ve seen and I plan to read it regularly. And to comment! What I most appreciate about the little tiff he had with Jack is that both they linked to each other’s blogs. And nothing warms this business blogger’s heart more than link love. And speaking of love, Jack’s got a great wedding picture of he and his beautiful wife, Charmaine, also a dedicated blogger at Reasoned Audacity. I think we should all call him “Lucky Jack” from now on.
• brain-dead customers, thieves, and idiotic commandments | Kenneth Harvey | WalmartSucks.org™
  And speaking of Wal-Mart critics, there are thoughtful ones and then there are ones like Kenneth J. Harvey, proprietor of WalMartSucks.org. Yes I am linking to it. But be forewarned: before you follow the link put on a pair of rubber gloves. The site's toxic.
• Free Happy Hour for Wake-Up Wal-Mart Picketers | Exposing the Paid Critics
  And for the final word in this edition about Wal-Mart critics...I’d like to point direct your attention to a new blog called "Exposing the Paid Critics". It’s a project of Working Families for Wal-Mart that specializes in pointing out what it sees as hypocrisy, mendacity, logical fallacies of Wal-Mart's paid critics. Aside from a few technical glitches (permalink tags are misplaced), it’s a sharply designed site with smartly written content. The above post indicates that "Wake-Up Wal-Mart is so desperate to lure supporters that it is offering a “Free Happy Hour” to winners of a Missouri union local’s Picket Line Participation Contest!"
• The organic market's bet on Wal-Mart and Costco | Brian White | Blogging Stocks
  Speaking of good content. Bloggingstocks is one excellent and informative site. According to the site “Bloggingstocks.com covers some of America's most widely-held stocks deeply, analytically and obsessively.” One of those stocks is Wal-Mart’s and the post on the company’s move into organic produce is as good an analysis as anything I’ve read elsewhere. If you are thinking of investing in Wal-Mart stock or understanding why the stock is or isn't performing to expectation, this is the place to look.
• Saving money without Wal-Mart | Mr. B | Moneylogue.com
  Mr. B. has an interesting post about his shopping experiences with Wal-Mart and one of its local competitors, Kroger. When he factors in the value of his time, the purchase of Kroger brands rather than national brands, the discounts from the use of his Kroger card, as well as the one gets on gas purchases for buying more than $300 per month in groceries, he comes out way ahead. Good on him. He has freedom of choice, like all consumers, and decides based on his own preferences and needs whether or not to shop at Wal-Mart.
• The Cost of Working at Wal-Mart | Stacy Lynn | Nice Cookies
  On a related note, Stacy Lynn -who describes herself as “female, Upstate New Yorker, down-to-earth, feminist, college student, Wal-Mart cashier, amateur photographer, confident, funny, observant… (and a few other PG-15 adjectives)" - ponders this question: I always wondered how much less money I would spend at Wal-Mart if I didn’t work there? The answer may surprise you. The images in her blog’s banner suggests Stacy has a sharp, keen eye. If I ever happen to be in Upstate New York and need a good photographer I know who to call.
• Wal-Mart & The Nanny-State | doinkicarus | defcon:blog
  By far the most interesting blogger represented this week is Defcon blog's “Doinkicarus” (please don’t ask me what it means or how to pronounce it). Here’s his “About me” statement: “I have a passion for liberty and snowboarding, studying for a Master's in Finance, concentrating on Economics. I am not a big fan of statism, and if you are, I'm probably not a very big fan of you. I blog. I party. I read - alot.” A lot of what he’s reading is Ludwig von Mises. A post from the Mises Institute site about Wal-Mart, as well as a Washington Post article about Maryland’s “Fair Share” Initiative are what inspired his post. Sounds very much like me at his age except I didn’t party, blog, or snowboard. But I blog and snowboard now. (I somehow think that Stacy and Doinkicarus were made for one another. Be sure to send me a wedding invitation. At a minimum, call Stacy and have her take better pictures of you and your drinking buddies.)
• Wal-Mart to Allow Petty Shoplifting | James Joyner | Outside The Beltway
  James Joyner has a must read post about the New York Times and its passion for leaking confidential information to the press. This time the leakee is Wal-Mart and the confidential program concerns its new policy on shoplifting. The company plans to change its zero-tolerance policy on shoplifting to a $25 dollars-and-second-offense policy. In other words, if you try to steal less than $25 of merchandise and you've not shoplifted there before, they are no longer going to call the cops. I am sure the general public, the overwhelming majority of whom are NOT professional shoplifters, is relieved to have been informed about this.
• Out of work as a politician, Gore is now flacking for Wally World | Stan | Blogger 1947
  Stan, aka Blogger 1947, is clearly no fan of Wal-Mart as evidenced by the fact that he filed his entry under “Hypocrisy”, he called the firm “The Company from Hell” and his entry featured a cartoon of a flag with the letters “B.S.” being run up a flagpole. Ouch! Not surprisingly Stan took a dim view of Al Gore’s recent address at Wal-Mart. I am guessing from his picture that Stan’s formative years and life experiences were in the 1960’s. Not that’s there’s anything wrong with that. It’s just that somehow I think Stan wishes that Gore had a plan to stick it to “The Man” any way he can.
• Al Gore to address Wal-Mart executives | Jonathan Shaw | Fixing Foibles and Follies
  Jonathan, from my adopted home town of Seattle Washington, is a little less skeptical about Al Gore and Wal-Mart’s motives. He sees the move as part of a “cunningly smart PR campaign.” It’s hard to argue with his logic.
• Rumor: Wal-Mart CEO H. Lee Scott to step down | Aaron | BIGPRU.com
  The first paragraph of Aaron’s post is intriguing. He lives in NW Arkansas, “Wal-Mart’s corporate backyard”, knows a lot of former and current employees, and as a result, says he's privy to a lot of gossip. This week’s tidbit… Lee Scott’s pending resignation. It’s been 11 days since Aaron posted this and there’s no word yet.. but that doesn’t mean it’s not true.
• Wal-Mart must be resolved as soon as possible | Tom Forbes | Palousitics
  Tom over at Paloustics is a man on fire this week. The bloggers there produce some of the best local and national commentary and analysis on Wal-Mart. I consider it a must-read. What’s got Tom’s up in arms is the effort of unions and other critics to draw out, stall, or prevent the construction of a Wal-Mart in the Eastern Washington town of Pullman. The tactics used by the critics (Tom calls them “jihadis”. Ouch! ) are important to observe as they are used in many other towns and counties around the nation.
• Wal-Mart staff has to search for bomb | JP Hebert | Burb Mojo
  BurbMojo thinks that it was a bad idea for Wal-Mart employees to be asked or made to help look for a bomb in one of their stores.
• Tikun Olam | Richard Silverstein | Armando, Political Blogging and Conflict of Interest
  Richard writes about an outing in the blogsophere earlier this summer and some of the acrimony it has engendered. The blogger who was outed was one Armando, a previously anonymous diarist at the blogopshere’s top political site- the reliably far-left “Daily K-os.” But Armando wasn’t outed for his sexual orientation. Rather, it was his economic, professional, political affiliations that got him in trouble with the Kossacks. Armando Lloréns-Sar hails from Puerto Rico where he works as a partner in a corporate law firm, McConnel Valdes. And the crime for which he was banished? According to National Review Online, Armando “…represented Wal-Mart in an anti-trust capacity in Puerto Rico” but failed to disclose this fact in his front-page Daily K-os posts. All this lead Richard, another K-os diarist, to call for “more disclosure from political bloggers of their political affiliations.” According to Richard, Armando “detested” the idea. A “substantial controversy broke out”, one which has now only yet to settle down. Who knew representing Wal-Mart could lead to such hostility?

Posted by Starling Hunter at 5:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0) | Link Count

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

Welcome to the inaugural edition of the Carnival of Wal-Mart. Fourteen posts have been carnivalized and they represent a broad range of perspectives on Wal-Mart and its impacts. I would greatly appreciate the authors adding to the body of their post, this HTML code:

This post was included in the Carnival of Wal-Mart I hosted by The Business of America is Business.

And if your site can send trackbacks, that would be greatly appreciated as well. The trackback URL is:

http://www.thebusinessofamericaisbusiness.biz/MT/mt-tb.cgi/324

• Why Elites Hate Wal-Mart | Jack Yoest | Yoest.org
  
  
  Jack gets us started with five reasons why “left-of-center political activists” hate Wal-Mart: (1) it’s a right-to-work company (2) its political donations favor the Republican party (3) it supports pro-life organizations (4) its billions in yearly profits are outside the reach of those who promote income redistribution and (5) it’s hell on its competitors, some of whose positions on items 1-4 are more to the liking of said political activists.
• Wal-Mart Good for the American Working Class? | James Joyner | Outside The Beltway
  
  
  James takes up a related question with his commentary on a Slate article entitled “Is Wal-Mart Good for the American Working Class?” His answer is “yes, it is” , the same conclusion reached by Slate - no bastion of pro-business sentiment. That conclusion is supported by a few world-renowned economists from both Harvard and MIT- one of whom you might not have expected to weigh in Wal-Mart’s favor. Unfortunately, more than a few of the post’s commenters seem unable to grasp the import of facts and figures presented.
• Wal-Mart and Economic Justice | Evan Coyne Maloney | Brain Terminal
  
  
  Evan finds little merit in the anecdotally-supported arguments of anti-Wal-Mart pundits like Barbara Ehrenreich. Her suggestions are typical, he asserts, of economically-illiterate aesthetes who, in the name of the ill-defined concept of “economic justice”, advocate solutions that would create more “better” jobs yet greater numbers of unemployed and underemployed, as well.
• What's Wal-Mart Without A Smiley Face? | Doug Krile | "On Topic" With Doug Krile
  
  
  Doug links to an article about whether or not Wal-Mart is going to be able to prevail in a court case to control commercial rights of its smiley face logo.
• What Is Wal-Mart Worth To A Town? | Tom Forbes | Palousitics
  
  
  Tom’s question, “What is Wal-Mart Worth to a Town?”, is approached from a novel angle: he links to an article describing what is happening in one city where Wal-Mart has decided to pull up stakes. The estimated tax loss for a city of 3,500 people is over $1.5 million.



• Reasons Not To Like Wal-Mart | Johnny Triangles
  
  
  Johnny T links to an article by Laurence Vance of the Mises Institute which lists 10 reasons not to like Wal-Mart. They are really good reasons and not the same 10 as Jack Yoest listed.
• Wal-Mart: Different Strokes | Jonathan Tasini | Working Life
  
  
  Jonathan, like the NY Times article he cites, seems pleased with the fact that Wal-Mart has been compelled to unionize in Britain. Interestingly, his site contains a blog ad that suggests that a campaign similar to Wal-Mart Watch is being initiated against another “bad employer” – FedEx. That’s a development to Watch.
• Wal-Mart’s best customer vows to clean up their ‘Internets’ and shut
  
  
  A few years ago, political commentator Bill Maher forwarded the idea that every time you fill your SUV, you’re “riding with Bin Laden”. Though not precisely true, the idea has some face value. As The Gun Toting Liberal sees it, there is an analogous situation between shopping at Wal-Mart and supporting China’s crackdown on the internet, blogs, and freedom of expression. For me that’s a stretch: the more deserving target of GTL’s ire would be Google.
• Declare Your Independence From Wal-Mart | Joe Trippi | JoeTrippi.com
  Joe Trippi, former Howard Dean campaign manager, links to a Wake-Up-Wal-Mart Watch press release “asking Americans to declare their independence from WalMart.” There is even a petition they can sign. After doing so, they should go back and read Tom Forbes post so that they know what they signed up for.
• Wal-Mart In The News | Crazy Politico
  
  
  TCP has looked over a recent Rasmussen poll and finds that most Americans are favorably disposed towards Wal-Mart. The only ones that are not, it seems, are “the upper middle class and rich folks, the one's least likely to be shopping there.” This leads him to wonder whether anti-Wal-Mart unions are spending their funds wisely.
• Wal-Mart’s Certain Something | Rita Desai | The Bivings Report
  Rita looked at the same polling data as TCP and wondered about the importance of particular product categories in shoppers preferences for Wal-Mart over competitors, e.g. “if someone was asked if they would prefer to buy clothes from Wal-Mart, Target or K-Mart, would they still choose Wal-Mart? Or, if they were given the chance to have a shopping spree at either Wal-Mart, Target or K-Mart, would they still pick Wal-Mart?” Great questions.




• HSD supports Walmart | Chris | On the BorderLine
  
  
  Chris is pleasantly surprised to see that the Hudson, Wisconsin school district (HSD) is buying Wal-Mart goods by the truckload. He concludes that perhaps last year’s boycott of Wal-mart called by the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teacher’s union, has not succeeded- at least not in his area.
• Wal-Mart Scorecard: Niles 2, Chicago 1: John Ruberry | Marathon Pundit
  
  
  John’s post is not about a score from a baseball game. Rather, it provides an explanation about why the Chicago suburb of Niles, population 30,000, will soon have two Wal-Mart’s while Chicago, population 3 million, still has only 1. The answer is not pretty.
• A Swing and Amiss | Starling Hunter | The Business of America is Business
  Your host's post examines reasons for the failure of Wake Up Wal-Mart and Wal-Mart Watch to successfully promote the Fair Share insurance initiative in several states. To date, Maryland remains their one and only victory in the Fair Shair campaign. For the true die-hard, here's a link to my Wal-Mart archive.

See you next week.

Continue reading "The Carnival of Wal-Mart I" »

Posted by Starling Hunter at 5:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (3) | Link Count

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

Wal-Mart has garnered an astounding amount of attention in the last few years. Several books have been written about the company- both pro and con. Hardly a week passes without some major media outlet publishing an in-depth profile of the Bentonville-based corporation and its leadership, an expose about its struggle with labor unions, or an analysis of its human resource and outsourcing practices.

Political consultants now routinely offer advice on how to court (or to avoid offending) regular Wal-Mart customers. Economists, management scholars, and law professors hold academic conferences to debate Wal-Mart’s impacts on society. Even film-makers and documentarians have entered the fray using their art form to raise controversial and compelling questions about the firm, questions deserving careful consideration.

While bloggers have not exactly been silent about Wal-Mart, until now there has been no place in the blogosphere for gathering and summarizing the best of what bloggers think about the world’s largest retailer. Until now, that is.

With this in mind, Starling Hunter of The Business of America is Business blog announces the creation of “The Carnival of Wal-Mart”. In the tradition of other blog carnivals like the highly successful “Carnival of the Capitalists” and “Carnival of the Vanities”, this carnival invites bloggers to submit posts pertaining to anything related to Wal-Mart- it’s leadership, its businesses practices, its products, and its plans.

The Carnival of Wal-Mart will be published once weekly. Submissions should be sent through the carnival’s web page on the Blog Carnival site. (The first edition is here. )

While posts that criticize Wal-Mart are welcomed as much as those that support or defend it, the key consideration for inclusion in the weekly carnival is the degree of thoughtful and original commentary. The Carnival of Wal-Mart is not a place for (re)posting press releases or content generated by major media organizations, activists, pundits, or PR firms.

Please direct any questions and comments to the carnival moderator, Starling Hunter, at starlingdavidhunter at gmail dot com.

Continue reading "Announcing the Carnival of Wal-Mart" »

Posted by Starling Hunter at 7:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1) | Link Count

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

Rick Karlin of the Albany-Times Union reports today on two stinging defeats resulting from recent rounds of hardball. Rick's not a sports reporter, however. His beat is the capitol, the game is political hardball, and the losers are labor and consumer groups.

A controversial measure that would have forced businesses to provide health care insurance or pay an additional tax appears to have died in the Legislature, along with a bill to force drug companies to reveal how much they give physicians who prescribe their medications. Both bills were of keen interest to labor and consumer groups, who say their collapse is a setback in the health care arena. Opponents, however, said the insurance bill was unaffordable and would have killed jobs. They called the drug disclosure bill unneeded and unfair.

Continue reading "A Swing and Amiss" »

Posted by Starling Hunter at 4:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) | Link Count

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

For the last few years, critics of Wal-Mart and other successful national chains have asserted that the entry of said chains devastates local economies, runs mom and pop businesses out of business or leaves them as mere shadows of their former selves.

In fact, if I had a dollar for every journalist that repeats this illogical meme as fact I'd be a rich man. Better yet, had I a dollar for every blog or webpage "Wal-Mart" and "mom-and-pop" in the same breath, I'd have well over $1 million- enough to buy the Rolls Royce Silver Shadow pictured above.

Apparently I am not the only one who has noticed this unfortunate trend. Jennifer Youssef, in article in an today's Detroit News entitled "Thriving in Wal-Mart's Shadow: Small retailers rival big-box foes by creating customer niche" takes issue with the conventional wisdom concerning the entry of big box stores in local markets:

Continue reading "Silver Shadows" »

Posted by Starling Hunter at 3:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0) | Link Count

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

I love movies. I also love factoids and trivia about movies. If I could have any other job in the world other than college professor, it would be as a screen writer. The reason why is that I love good dialog. One of the more interesting factoids I picked up recently was that a study of screenplays of American movies found that the most common line of dialog was an imperative statement: "Let's get out of here!"

Other lines that I know from experience are common in police, or military-themed tv shows, war movies, and the like, are these two: "Stand down!" and "Hold your fire!" The lines are invariably delivered by someone in authority (a captain, a lieutenant, a sergeant) to troops or officers under his command, usually in the midst of some kind of gun battle, firefight, or confrontation where shots are being fired in anger. If you search google for those two lines, along with the word "screenplay", you'll find such notable films as "Full Metal Jacket" (written by Stanley Kubrick) and "The Rock" starring Nicolas Cage.

Continue reading "Hold your fire! Stand down!" »

Posted by Starling Hunter at 6:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) | Link Count

• Why do people get worked up over Wal-Mart? | Jay Evensen | Deseret News
• Wal-Mart Goes Organic | Truthdig.com
• Wal-Mart Says Change Is Helping | Matthew Borghese | All Headline News
• Mass Natural: Walmart's Organic Strategy | Michael Pollan | New York Times
• Live blogging the 2006 annual Wal-Mart shareholders meeting | Brian White | BloggingStocks.com
• Raging Grannies protest outside Mtn. View Wal-Mart | Jessie Mangaliman | MercuryNews.com
• Wal-Mart to Decrease Inventory | Jenny Bryers | The Benton County Daily Record
• Wal-Mart Weighing E-85 | Convenience Store Decisions
• Wal-Mart to test controversial tags | Marina Strauss | Globeandmail.com
• Wal-Mart touts changes at annual meeting | Chuck Bartels | AP , BusinessWeek Online
• Wal-Mart takes cancer causing clothes of the shelves | Progressive U
• Critics Weigh in Before Wal-Mart Meeting | MSN Money
• Get Wal-Mart | Debra Saunders | SF Chronicle

Continue reading "Wal-Mart Links, The Logo Edition" »

Posted by Starling Hunter at 5:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) | Link Count

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

Unless your profession involves Presidential security then chances are you have neither heard of Richard C. Weaver nor know how and why he earned the nickname, "Handshake Man." Wikipedia explains:

Richard C. Weaver is a mysterious Californian man known by the nickname Handshake Man. Weaver has earned notoriety for the way he is frequently able to bypass the US Secret Service and shake the hand of the American President. Weaver has allegedly been able to personally shake hands with every US President since Jimmy Carter, in some cases even multiple times on different occasions. Not much is known about Weaver other than the fact that he is apparently a strong, possibly fundamentalist Christian of some sort. He is a self-proclaimed minister of a non-denominational church in Sacramento. His handshakes are often used as a way of passing "notes from God" to the presidents. According to his site, Richard C. Weaver is a born-again christian who...believes that God has directly spoke to him and calls him a "modern day prophet." On February 6, 2003 Weaver attended the National Prayer Breakfast meeting and was able to hand Bush an eight page typed letter about Iraq "from God".

Continue reading "The Handshake Men" »

Posted by Starling Hunter at 5:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0) | Link Count

• Wal-Mart seeks rights to smiley
  (tags: Wal-mart Walmart intellectual+property smiley logo)
• Wal-Mart to sell 'DIY' PCs
  (tags: Wal-Mart Walmart personal+computer Dell)
• Movie review: Wal-Mart: The High Cost Of Low Price
  (tags: UK Wal-mart Walmart Robert+Greenwald)
• Wal-Mart Tries to Enlist Image Help
  (tags: Wal-mart Walmart NYT New+York+Times Michael+Barbaro)
• "The High Cost of Low Price" is a must see documentary
  (tags: Ireland Wal-mart Walmart Robert+Greenwald Documentary)
• Wal-Mart 'turns to organic foods'
  (tags: BBC Wal-Mart WalMart organic+food)
• More On Wal-Marts Wikipedia War
  (tags: Wal-Mart WalMart Wikipedia)
• Whitedust: Wal-marts Wikipedia War
  (tags: Wal-Mart WalMart Wikipedia)
• Wal-Mart Leads Call for Online Marketplace for TV Ads
  (tags: Wal-mart Walmart advertising television)
• Wal-Mart crime magnet, foes say
  (tags: Wal-mart Walmart Walmart+Watch crime)
• Wal-Mart Managers Can't Sue as a Class
  (tags: Wal-mart walmart class+action)
• Wal-Mart Is Right
  (tags: Wal-mart walmart op+ed)
• Walk-in health clinics catch eye of Wal-Mart, Case
  (tags: Wal-mart walmart healthcare retail)
• The 800-Pound Ad Review: Wal-Mart
  (tags: Wal-mart walmart advertising)
• PC Parts and Wal-Mart? No Match
  (tags: Wal-mart walmart personal+computers PC)
• Is Wal-Mart good for america?
  (tags: Wal-mart walmart Documentary journalism pbs)
• Film Review: Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price
  (tags: UK Guardian Wal-mart walmart documentary)
• Let Wal-Mart have its own bank
  (tags: Wal)
• Wal-Mart rolls back cost of living
  (tags: Wal-mart Walmart cost+of+living)
• The man who set out his stall against Wal-Mart
  (tags: Wal-mart walmart UK)
• Big-Box Organic: Natural foods industry braces for Wal-Mart's presence
  (tags: Wal-mart Walmart organic)

Continue reading "Wal-Mart Roundup, the Barcode Edition" »

Posted by Starling Hunter at 5:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) | Link Count

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

Yesterday, an article penned byMichael Barbaro entitled "Wal-Mart Enlists Bloggers in P.R. Campaign." appeared in the new York Times

There is much that I can and will say about this article. For now I will remark only on the first four paragraphs:

Brian Pickrell, a blogger, recently posted a note on his Web site attacking state legislation that would force Wal-Mart Stores to spend more on employee health insurance. "All across the country, newspaper editorial boards — no great friends of business — are ripping the bills," he wrote.

It was the kind of pro-Wal-Mart comment the giant retailer might write itself. And, in fact, it did.

Several sentences in Mr. Pickrell's Jan. 20 posting — and others from different days — are identical to those written by an employee at one of Wal-Mart's public relations firms and distributed by e-mail to bloggers.

Under assault as never before, Wal-Mart is increasingly looking beyond the mainstream media and working directly with bloggers, feeding them exclusive nuggets of news, suggesting topics for postings and even inviting them to visit its corporate headquarters.

Yours truly is one of the people to which Mr. Barbaro is referring in this last paragraph. I have been "fed" some of these "exclusive nuggets" and have had topics suggested for posting. And though my blog was not mentioned in the Times article, I'd like make to make one thing clear: excluding this one, I have written 12 other posts on Wal-Mart in the last five months. I started writing them long before I knew about or heard from Wal-Mart's PR firms.

Every one of those posts is original. That is to say, I picked the article, the theme, and everything that was written- every sentence and every word and every typo. I challenge Mr. Barbaro to find even one sentence in those 12 posts that was written first by someone else.

I also have a question or two. How is it that my blog escaped your notice? It is the number one blog in Technorati about Wal-Mart. It has a dozen highly original, detailed, and analytical posts on that firm, each of which averages over 700 words. It's written by a former MIT professor whose dissertation and first published papers were about information technology in the retailing industry. I ask not out of concern for not having my blog included in the article but because of this: if you missed that, what else did you miss?

Tags: walmart | wal-mart | WalMart | Wal-Mart | new york times | ny times | nytimes | NYT | newyorktimes |

Continue reading "The NY Times Takes on Wal-Mart" »

Posted by Starling Hunter at 7:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0) | Link Count

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

With the start of a new semester, the Danish boycott, and now the Dubai Ports World row, I had all but forgotten about one of my favorite blogging topics- the war against Wal-Mart. By far the most interesting development in the last few weeks is that Wal-Mart critics are receiving assistance from a new source, and an interplanetary one at that.

I discovered this quite by accident after having read a recent NY Times article by Steven Greenhouse and Michael Barbaro about Wal-Mart CEO Lee Smith's website, Lee's Garage. A careful reading of the article reveals it comes neither from New York nor anywhere else on Earth. Rather, it has come to us from a planet somewhat like Earth, but in a parallel universe. I don't know the name of the galaxy or the specific name of the planet. For the purposes of this discussion I'll call the planet "Marxon".

As a professor of strategic management and organizational behavior, I find the reportage from Marxon quite fascinating. What keen Marxonian observers say about business on Earth can provide us with many valuable clues about how business is conducted in a parallel universe. Gleaning insights into the vastly superior and advanced Marxonian business-model may provide lessons on how to improve business practices on Earth. Let's have a look-see shall we?

The article begins, interestingly enough, with a statement that makes clear that not everything on Marxon is different from Earth. Apparently reporters have confidential sources; often these are employees that have axes to grind.

In a confidential, internal Web site for Wal-Mart's managers, the company's chief executive, H. Lee Scott Jr., seemed to have a rare, unscripted moment when one manager asked him why "the largest company on the planet cannot offer some type of medical retirement benefits?" Scott first argues that the cost of such benefits would leave Wal-Mart at a competitive disadvantage but then, clearly annoyed, he suggests that the store manager is disloyal and should consider quitting.

[Scott's] tone is at times biting. In his response to the store manager who asked about retiree health benefits, Scott wrote: "Quite honestly, this environment isn't for everyone. There are people who would say, 'I'm sorry, but you should take the risk and take billions of dollars out of earnings and put this in retiree health benefits and let's see what happens to the company.' If you feel that way, then you as a manager should look for a company where you can do those kinds of things."

So one interesting thing we learn about management practice on Marxon is that firms can have their cake and eat it too. Apparently, Marxonian firms don't have to control costs to maintain competitive advantage over their rivals. Interesting as well is the use of the word "planet" in the manager's question. Makes you wonder if said manager was fed the question by the Marxonian reporters.

Most intriguing of all, however, is how reporters from Marxon interpret disucssions about what we Earthlings term person-organization fit, i.e. " the congruence of an individual's beliefs and values with the culture, norms, and values of an organization." According to earthling consultants and Industrial Organization psychologists like Dr. Charles Handler, "the idea of ensuring a good fit between a candidate and a job or organization is pretty much the main idea of the entire hiring process." And it applies to retention, too.

Not so on Marxonia, it would seem. There, everyone fits with the organization's values and norms- whether they like it or not.

Copies of Scott's postings covering two years were made available to The New York Times by Wal-Mart Watch, a group backed by unions and foundations that is pressing Wal-Mart to improve its wages and benefits. Wal-Mart Watch said it received the postings from a disgruntled manager. While the existence of the Web site and Scott's participation in it have been known, transcripts have never been made public before.

From this I infer that on Marxon a labor union backs interest groups with the sole aim of increasing benefits and wages of all workers. They do not, it would seem, back these groups as a means of advancing the union's goal of unionizing the workers. And why should they? The workers of Marxonia have already united (and have nothing to lose but their chainstores).

Continue reading "Dispatch from a Parallel Universe" »

Posted by Starling Hunter at 10:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) | Link Count

Continue reading "Walking Contradiction" »

Posted by Starling Hunter at 1:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1) | Link Count

Continue reading "Wal-Martification?" »

Posted by Starling Hunter at 7:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (1) | Link Count

Where would Jesus shop? According to union-backed critics of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., not at the world's largest retailer. WakeUpWalMart.com on Thursday unveiled a religious-themed campaign Thursday asking shoppers whether God wants them to buy things from the Bentonville, Ark.-based company.

The group, funded by the United Food and Commercial Workers union, launched a TV ad and released a letter signed by 65 clergy members and religious figures. The group says Wal-Mart's policy over wages, health benefits and other issues harm families and communities.

Continue reading "Where Would Jesus Shop?" »

Posted by Starling Hunter at 5:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (3) | Link Count

Continue reading "Wal-Mart Roundup, the Shanghai Greeters Edition" »

Posted by Starling Hunter at 7:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1) | Link Count

From the moment Wal-Mart saw the trailer they went into full attack mode complete with a war room, political operatives and spin doctors. They may have an unlimited bank account (well, actually they OWN the bank), but this film will not be swift-boated.

Continue reading "Wal-Mart Roundup, the Wal-Martians Edition" »

Posted by Starling Hunter at 8:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0) | Link Count

Our concept is simple. We’ve chosen 5 corporations to boycott. Each of these corporations makes large contributions to the Bush administration. These corporations also behave in specific ways that are detrimental to the world in some way, such as damaging the environment, working with sweat shops, adamently preventing unionization, or supporting state terrorism, etc.

Continue reading "Wal-Mart Roundup, the Hot Air Balloon Edition" »

Posted by Starling Hunter at 12:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (3) | Link Count

He (Greenwald) takes no profit off the documentaries. "The reason was I knew that I would be attacked," he says. "I didn't want the Bush administration, Fox News or Wal-Mart to attack, saying I wanted to make a buck. That's always the first line of attack. This makes them silent, at least for a while."

Continue reading "Wal-Mart Roundup, the T-shirt Edition" »

Posted by Starling Hunter at 4:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (3) | Link Count

A recent Christian Science Monitor header screamed, "Is shopping at Wal-Mart immoral?" The sub-headline in the Monitor explained, "Big discounters help the poor make ends meet, but they create more poverty when they pay low wages and force local stores to close." That sums up the liberal conventional wisdom surrounding Wal-Mart's presence in communities, but it isn't entirely accurate. Other groups involved also have dogs in the fight and are protecting their own self-interest.

Continue reading "The Political Dimensions of the War on Wal-Mart" »

Posted by Starling Hunter at 9:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (5) | Link Count

Barriers to Entry: This 4-page, 880-word report contains a "barriers to entry" analysis surrounding Wal-Mart's efforts to gain approval to build a store in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. The report contains four bibliographic references. It also has an appendix with the titles of and links to seven (10) additional articles about Wal-Mart's need for approval from local governments to enter new geographic markets and to enter new markets for services, e.g. check cashing.

Rivalry: This 7-page, 2580-word report contains a "Rivalry" analysis on Wal-Mart. The report is based upon several news accounts of its recent low-cost, generic drug program. The report includes a discussion of how some of Wal-Mart's local, regional, and national rivals have responded with programs of their own. The report contains eight (11) bibliographic references. It also has an appendix with the titles of and links to six (8) additional articles about rivalry between Wal-Mart and French retailer Carrefour, Canadian grocer Loblaw, and Apple.

Reports are updated frequently. Please bookmark the above pages and check them regularly if you anticipate needing more examples. Reports on other forces are currently under development and will be made available over the next 7-10 working days. Please write to me at starling at mit edu for more details or for a complimentary copy of the above reports:

Original Post Date: 24 November 2005
Most Recently Updated: 07 October 2006

Tags: WalMart

Posted by Starling Hunter at 11:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) | Link Count

An independent study of Wal-Mart's (WMT) impact on the economy found the giant retailer's lower prices result from a savvy technology system that helps lower distribution costs and makes suppliers more efficient — not from underpaying its workers.

"There's no denying the company has had an impact, but the economy is better off and there's no evidence that that came about by paying less than minimum wage," says Chris Holling, executive director at economic forecaster Global Insight.

The retailer's efficiency has also had an indirect effect on the economy because competitors have been forced to rethink ways to lower costs and prices as well, he adds.

Continue reading "The Economic Impact of Wal-Mart" »

Posted by Starling Hunter at 12:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (4) | Link Count

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

Having apparently grown weary and wary of the out all assault upon it by increasingly well-financed, organized, and motivated groups, Wal-Mart has deciced to counter-attack.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is enjoying its best publicity in years as even its harshest critics laud the retailer's Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. But Chief Executive Lee Scott isn't resting on his laurels just yet. For years, Wal-Mart largely ignored its image problems as customers flocked to its stores and its growth seemed nearly unstoppable. But the company acknowledges that it can no longer dismiss increasingly vocal and well-organized groups that are having some success in blocking its U.S. expansion, particularly in urban areas.

Continue reading "The Empire Strikes Back" »

Posted by Starling Hunter at 12:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1) | Link Count