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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart is the world's largest retailer, and every store sells copies of the biography of its founder, Sam Walton, that expounds his personal philosophy. As he wrote in 1992, Walton believed that it was inappropriate to use corporate funds for charitable purposes:
We have built a company that is so efficient it has enabled us to save our customers billions of dollars, and whether you buy into the argument or not, we believe it. That in itself is giving something back, and it has been a cornerstone philosophy of our company … we feel strongly that Wal-Mart really is not and should not be, in the charity business. We don't believe in taking a lot of money out of Wal-Mart's cash registers and giving it to charity for the simple reason that any debit has to be passed on to somebody – either our shareholders or our customers … By not designating a large amount of corporate funds to some charity which the officers of Wal-Mart may happen to like, we feel we give our shareholders more discretion in supporting their own charities.
The Wal-Mart attitude changed radically in twelve years, and in this chapter we will examine some of the possible reasons why corporations should allocate resources towards the common good. In 2004, Wal-Mart cash donations to charity were the largest in the United States, at over $170 million. It supported over 5,000 reading programs and ran a literacy hotline serving over 40,000 people annually.
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