Kmart Ethical Practices

According to Schwartz (2015), a recent survey conducted by the Ethics Resource Center of Washington, D.C. cited more than half of those surveyed as having witnessed some sort of unethical behavior within the past year. From this survey, the most common types of unethical behaviors noted were abuse of company time, abusive behavior, employee theft, lying to employees and violating company internet policies (Schwartz, 2015). In researching unethical practices and behaviors for this week’s discussion, I ran across a civil lawsuit against Wells Fargo for unethical treatment of their employees at a Los Angeles, CA location. This Wells Fargo location had been cited for setting impractical sales goals for employees, leading some to commit improprieties in order to attempt to meet set quotas. Zacks Equity Research (2015) noted that some employees
Much has changed for Kmart in the past decade, with sales totaling over $37 billion in 2000 to just over $12 billion in the last year (CNN Money, 2015). Like many consumers, the ‘Bluelight Special’, is not going to be the deciding factor in purchases for me. It may be an iconic symbol of what Kmart once was, but those days are gone, as are the customers of that era. Kmart needs to employ an action sequence that is geared towards reaching the new customer. With around 979 stores remaining and a 67% dip in sales in the last decade, as a retailer I would not want to pin my hopes on a strategic decision of a bluelight that bankrupted the company the last time the bluelight was brought back. Many Kmart’s have little selection, low stock, dirty, and have not been updated as well as failing customer service. Kmart has little value in the current market in comparison to Walmart or Target who have set the standard for big box retailers at a moderate price. I highly doubt once Kmart is gone, anyone is going to miss