Stakeholders and their interests on the organization
Walmart is one of the firms that have the largest number of employees in the world. The organization is said to have approximately 2.1 million employees across all its branches worldwide. Walmart has established operations in about 14 countries. This means that the company has a relatively large number of stakeholders. The stakeholders include the top management, employees, customers, as well as shareholders.
Walmart has about 176 million customers who shop in their retail outlets worldwide (Hayden et al. 2002). Each of the organization’s stakeholders has their interests and claims in the organization. The top executives who include the CEO, the chairman and the Board of Directors, as well as the other senior officers are interested in coming up with correct strategies and decisions that will help the organization gain competitive advantage.
As a result, their scope of job focuses on long term organizational strategies and decisions. The Board of Directors, which is elected by the shareholders, is supposed to act in the interest of the organization’s owners (shareholders). The major interest of the shareholders is to maximize their wealth (Jones, 2010).
The other interest for Walmart stakeholders is to ensure that the organization has a good reputation in the society. This can be achieved through corporate social responsibility. Having a good reputation is important for the organization since it has the ability to attract more customers as well as other personnel, and ensure organizational success.
Customers claim to get the best services from the organization at a relatively low price. On the other hand, employees would want to be treated in the right way and have a good working environment, as well as get good remuneration for their services (Hayden et al. 2002).
Stakeholder’s authority and responsibilities to the organization
The main responsibility for Walmart managers and employees is to make decisions. Decision making involves deciding what is right or wrong for the organization. Stakeholders decide on ways through which organizational performance can be improved. It is important to ensure that the right decisions are always made. In addition, ways through which decisions are made should be improved constantly.
This will go a long way in ensuring that managers and employees of the organization learn new ways of performing their duties. It is imperative to note that the current business environment is constantly changing, owing to advancing technology. At Walmart, the authority and responsibility to make decisions mostly rests in the hands of managers.
However, employees can also be involved in the process (Jones, 2010). The other major responsibility of the stakeholders at Walmart is to innovate and ensure creativity within the organization. Innovation and organizational change go hand in hand. Innovation is one of the most effective ways to ensure change in the organization.
The organization will change from the traditional ways of doing business to modern ways that can help it gain competitive advantage in the current business environment. Employees and managers are responsible for organizational change, as well as innovation (Jones, 2010). It is the managers who are expected to stir up organizational change.
Managers communicate the same to the employees using the right channels, then to the rest of the stakeholders who include customers and shareholders. On the other hand, creativity is the responsibility of all the stakeholders. Creativity will enable the organization to improve on the quality of its services and products, and gain a competitive edge.
References
Hayden, P., Lee, S., McMahon, K., & Pereira, M. (2002). Wal-Mart: Staying on top of the Fortune 500, a case study on Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Web.
Jones, G. R. (2010). Organizational theory, design, and change. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.