Comparitive Study of Two Multi National Corporations

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Table of Contents

Abstract
Introduction
Common Characteristics
Conclusion
Works Cited

Abstract

Wal-Mart Company and London Cake Company are the chosen multinational corporations for this analysis. In analyzing the two companies, the main focus will be centered on how these multinational corporations differ in terms of the way they treat workers as well as employees from various countries. Under this analysis, the paper will also focus on the common practices and characteristics, which are relevant to these two multinational corporations.

Introduction

It is evidenced that the main differences that are often witnessed in these two multinational corporations are gender inequalities among both the workers and the employees from different countries. In fact, the practices of gender inequalities and other socio-economic factors have really affected the productivity of both the Wal-Mart Company and the London Cake Company.

Gender discrimination is any form of unequal opportunity awarded purely based on sex of an individual. Social discrimination is any form of a move aimed at decreasing the status of a given gender in the social sphere of life. The most common social discrimination occurs to women. Gender discrimination among women is a form of an abuse, which lowers their dignity and capability in executing tasks to men.

Differences analyzed

There are more ways by which discriminations are experienced in the work place in the Wal-Mart Company. For instance, direct inequality happens when employer offers driving jobs to only male applicants.

This is gender discrimination practiced among the employees and workers. There are also indirect discrimination cases where the given work conditions only favour one group of people. Women are forced to work until late and even overtime irrespective of any domestic responsibility that they might have (Drucker 29).

Harassment of any kind is a way of reflecting inequality at the work place. This mainly takes place in the offices or dinners held by the company for the employees, most of which are sexual harassment. In addition, victimization at work place is rampant. The employer might favour one person of the opposite sex based on personal interest.

Treating a person unfairly also amounts to discrimination at work. This mainly happens to employees who are ignorant of their rights. It should to be admitted that some employees at the Wal-Mart Company felt inequality based on gender or race (Hamel 79).

Work place gender discrimination has been witnessed to be the most common form of bias in the social set up. People with the same academic qualification, experience, and competencies have been unethically given promotion and job opportunities based on their sex. Job discrimination can either be under the whole employees group or on individual basis.

Following statistical evidences, women are the most discriminated in pay and promotion, although the trend is gradually changing. Women segregation on pay has also been witnessed to decrease in gap. Between 1990 and 2000, payment was increased by 75 percent for men and only 25 percent for women.

Women are also given job opportunities based on childcare (Drucker 47). This has shown that most women only getting part-time jobs, while men get permanent employments. Women are also horizontally segregated in work place environments.

The Wal-Mart Company has distinct types of positions, which women can occupy while the rest are perfectly design for men. It was indicated by 2001 that only 20 percent of women were managers in Wal-Mart stores. Men occupied the largest 80 percentage. The pay gap was at around 20 percent with women earning at 72.5 percent (Hamel 96).

Attention of many people has been drawn towards the operation of this multinational corporation on its sexism strategies. Wal-Mart Company has been seen in strings of gender based cases, especially in the Supreme Court. Most of this allegations are based on unequal treatment of women and men, especially on basis of promotion and payment policies.

It has been an escalating task for the court to offer a verdict on this case, following the fact that the Company has a well-structured policy outline against any form of gender disparity. At the same time, the court has found it very hard to prove the allegations due to problems of evidence collection.

Even though, many have doubted the possibility of Wal-Marts’ possibility of performing in the competitive market, it has been proven by several studies that the company has taken unhealthy approach towards the gender bias. Researches carried through interviews and questionnaires have shown that Wal-Mart Company created gender disparities both vertically and horizontally. In addition, the court cases pulling down this organization have brought out this clear picture.

Horizontal segregation has been noted by the fact that most of women across the branches of this organization work in almost similar departments. Men’s departments in the work places have shown that they were evenly distributed both in the department and positions. It was shown that large percentagesof administrative and management body were carried out by men. At the same time, men filled the supervisory portfolio as well as ranks, which are down the ladder.

Most women in the Company are working at the level of secretary and sales. The percentage of women in the administrative and management system are hardly 25 percent today in this Company. It can be proven that the criteria are not purely based on job qualification as women respondents believed some of them were holding if not equal then above in credentials.

Vertical segregation is the biggest challenge in an organization operating like Wal-Mart. Vertical segregation occurs in a place, where the promotion aspect is being addressed in terms of grades and pay. Despite their grades and competencies, women tend to stay longer on low-level jobs as compared to men.

This is majorly contributed the organization strategies rather than inefficiency among women. For those that manage to get promotions to the higher positions, they suffer the ‘glass ceiling effect’. The ‘Glass ceiling effect’ is where the women can get to the top only in theory while they cannot achieve it in practice.

The speed of promotion is also noted to be higher among men as compared to women. This could be noted by the fact that job stagnancy is more in percentage among women as compared to men. Some women end up falling out of their jobs out of frustrations, while others seek judicial interventions.

Pay gaps have been seen as another determinants of gender disparity in the Wal-Mart Company. It can be evidenced that many women seek aid from the court over their pay as compared to men. Men in this company feel satisfied with their pay and promotion according to women respondents.

Pay in any work set up is tied to promotions and job ranks, thus women are generally disadvantaged in this multinational corporation. The pay gap between men and women is not that distinct on the employees on the same rank. However, the general pay gap is larger on men than on women.

The gap is taken from the total some payable to equal number of employees of both sexes separately. A number of cases have been filed over the company, which includes poor remuneration policies among women, but the company has come to a great defense on its operation system.

The gender segregation in Wal-Mart Company cannot be understood properly, as its own policies are clear and against any form of gender biasness. It was thought that gender issues affecting this company are local problems within the branches, but this has been disputed by the accumulating cases across the branches.

Business organizations always have very objective management system. The system must have clear and sound strategies on the approach of challenges experienced. When these challenges are overturned, the company shall have better results, which translate to reasonable profit. This is why management is termed as a result oriented concept. Good human resource is very vital for the success of any system.

Moreover, this topic is useful to the company because it helps them have the analysis of their human resources and tackle the changes. The management strategies are also useful to ensure proper accountability and ways in which this can be improved. The other objective is to ensure a good strategic management to divert any eminent challenges in future so as to have a clear roadmap for the business.

Analysis of major factors affecting the strategic management is looked at. The political and social environment can determine the productive nature of the organization’s performance. Economic factors can be described as the market stabilities, which are affected by either inflation or deflation.

Presentation of literature captures on these categories such as environmental analysis, competitive strategies, human resource challenges, organizational behavior, leadership roles, and other employees attendance incentive schemes. In the research study, the results obtained from the London Cake Company are very useful to the multinational corporation and any other related business organization.

The company knew its competitors and applied these instrumental strategies, thus mobilized their market share. It is through this that they were able to capture the market and have large sales. They also knew that food industry is an investment that will never fall, especially when one goes with the emerging trends in the market. The multi-corporation also applied technology in their strategy.

Technology played a major role in this company. The London Cake Company Limited opened a web site. This site was able to attract many people, especially those who even never knew about their products. Customers accessed them through the web. Through this, they have enhanced their marketing strategy to reach many people. The shape of their cakes is very appealing to the customers. This is one of their strengths.

The main is the trends in the environment and their events. These have potential to affect the given strategy. The analysis is able to identify these events and trends plus being able to estimate their impact and chances.

In performing this analysis, it is essential to limit the analysis to those places, which are relevant and can have considerable impact on the intended strategy. Environmental analysis has five categories, political, technological, economical, and sociological aspects.

Political happens when the government has political good will, hence the regulations being put in place change business mode of operation. Like good policies and political good will to enhance business operation. These taxes and incentives can affect business strategy development.

Technology determines what extent the existing technology to be effective. The company uses an advanced technology to enhance its products output. They have well equipped modern factory, which has enhanced production of more Cake products.

Focusing on the economic aspect, the U K has a stable economy hence this has ensured minimal cost of production and good supplies. The inflation or deflation is not realized in the company because of the stable economy.

Socio-cultural reflects on the current emerging trends in the lifestyle since they were dealing in food industry, these products are really selling and they have a good market. The emerging trend in life style is that people really value cakes for their celebrations and general usage of the house. The ready market enables the company to expand rapidly because it is in line of its business strategy (Handy 46).

HR challenges regarding the workers and employees of the Wal-Mart Company

Human resource challenges are numerous in number because they are of different categories. The most important challenges are change managements in the business.

The environmental HR challenges, workplace diversity, leadership development, retention and motivation or HR effectiveness measurement, compensation, and attracting the best talent. These mentioned challenges and others are discussed effectively in the following paragraphs.

In the Wal-Mart Company, workplace diversity is broader than the London Cake Company and its dimensions include age, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, physical abilities, race, educational background, geographic location, income, marital status, religious beliefs, parental status, and work experience.

The company was able to deal with all the forms in the most professional way. The human resource manager introduced training on knowledge development based on utilization skills and continuous training to enhance individual competency.

The company would never succeed without all these professional approaches towards the proper management and treatment of its employees (Lamb 57). In comparison to the London Cake Company, the treatment and management practices can be analyzed under the following paragraphs.

The treatment of workers and employees of the London Cake Company Analyzed

The London Cake Company observed that the average number of years or tenure for some professional employees is less than three years. This applies to IT professionals, marketers and other middle strategic managers. The company offers good remuneration to maintain its employees. There is also a problem of attracting the best talents.

In a tensed job market, most organizations always experience concurrent demands to get the same kind of talented professionals. In their pursuit for talented employees, they end up cajoling talent all over the world.

This company has designed ways of attracting these talents by knowing the reward factors contributing to this. An employee with good communication skills, with capacity to think logically and being able to be analytic coupled with excellent leadership qualities is of great importance to the organization.

The London Cake Company never faced all these challenges. When these challenges are addressed, it will have certain implications. The company may offer to pay the required amount at the market demands, but the cost of operation is going to be raised rapidly. This has the effect of reducing the profit margin.

For its effectiveness, the management should undertake regular assessments on all issues. These include pay, work environment, benefits, administration, and promotional opportunities to monitor the progress in long term basis. Appropriate tools for measuring development must also be put in place. Introduction of IT training to all the staff will be very effective and motivational to the employees of the London Cake Company Ltd (Asnoff 49).

Government roles in terms of legislative and regulatory settings, monitoring and enforcing ethical policies

The British government had formed a commission referred to as Equal Opportunities Commission. This commission is championing on unfair treatment of employees at the work place. The commission was formed in 1975 and is still active to date. In Wal-Mart, women on part-time employment are paid less by 38.4 percent as compared to men. Full time workers have a gap of 17.2 percent (Blaxill 19).This shows high level of inequality in Wal-Mart workplace.

In the Wal-Mart Company, the government asked some of the independent bodies to investigate women harassment at the offices and even in the armed forces. In addition, around 30,000 workers lose their jobs in Wal-Mart because of being pregnant. Finally, many cases of sexual harassment and discrimination have been handed by the court system in the Wal-Mart. All these confirm that there is no equality in most of the working places (Boxall 23).

Common Characteristics

Retention and motivation of both the employees and workers can also be termed as HR effectiveness and measurement. Motivation and retention of personnel are “very difficult not only to the Wal-Mart Company, but also to the London Cake Company. It has become a general concern today” (Ansoff 74).

In fact, the technological challenge affects both the human resources resources of both the Wal-Mart Company and the London Cake Company. This problem has really affected the management and treatment of the workers of these two multinational corporations. Technology is a very prominent item that can have either direct or indirect effect to any company. Technology provides better ways of management, when applied in the right way.

It comes in various fields and specification required when dealing in any business transaction. Some computer software may develop technical problems and it only calls for an expert to correct. The company did not train all the employees and workers on computing issues.

Only IT departments had the capacity. However, this was not crucial, as measures are underway to implement the policy that all the employees must be knowledgeable in basic computer skills. The purpose is to facilitate communication between the organization and the employees, which is crucial in solving conflicts on management and the treatment of the workers (Boselie 102).

Conclusion

In sum, it has been witnessed from the two multinational corporations, which have been analyzed above that they unfair treat both their workers and employees because they often practice gender inequality. This has been seen in the cases of both the Wal-Mart Company and the London Cake Company.

These unfair practices in the employment set ups have prompted the British government to set up independent organizations to investigate the case of Wal-Mart Company. In fact, such unfair treatment of workers should be discouraged through strict laws and regulations so as to achieve success and growth among these two prominent multinational corporations.

Works Cited

Blaxill, Mark, and Ralph Eckardt. The Invisible Edge: Taking your Strategy to the Next Level Using Intellectual property. London: Irvine Publishers, 2009. Print.

Boselie, Peter. Strategic Human Resource Management: A Balanced Approach. Boston: McGraw Hill Higher Education Publishers, 2010. Print

Boxall, Philip. The Oxford Handbook of Human Resource Management. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Print.

Drucker, Peter. The Age of Discontinuity. London: Heinemann Publishers, 2004. Print.

Hamel, Gary. Leading the Revolution. New York, NY: Plume Publishers, 2002. Print.

Handy, Charles. The Age of Unreason. London: Hutchinson Publishers, 1989. Print.

Igor, Henry. Corporate Strategy. New York, NY: McGraw Hill Publishers, 1965. Print.

Lamb, Robert. Competitive Strategic Management. New Jersey, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1984. Print.

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