Ethics: Wal-Mart bounces top marketing executives, ad agency
Wal-Mart bans employees from accepting even a cup of coffee from suppliers, according to today’s Wall Street Journal, and the company apparently bounced two of its top marketing executives and its new ad agency because they allegedly and reportedly violated those rules.
Wining and dining have always been part of the sales, marketing and public relations stratetgies used by all kinds of organizations that sell products and services and raise funds for not-for-profit causes, but the ethics of wining and dining are being questioned in both the corporate and political worlds.
Executives want their managers to select vendors based on merit, not colleagiality and the number of NFL tickets or plane rides they’ll receive from the vendor. And political watch dog groups want politicians to pass laws based on their needs rather than in response to campaign contributions and gifts.
Such rules are needed in large bureaucracies, where abuses often get out of hand. The Securities and Exchange Commission is cracking down on brokers and mutual funds that wine and dine as well as exchange gifts, and voters in Colorado last month approved Referendum 41 that puts severe gifting restrictions on the state’s employees and their immediate families.
The question is how strict should the rules be, and are they enforceable over the long term? At what point will people just ignore them because they’re unenforceable and there is little risk in breaking the rules, and at what point will somebody violate the rules and get in big trouble?
At Wal-Mart, marketing executives apparently hired from outside the company allegedly didn’t buy into its corporate culture, and they’re gone, along with the ad agency they hired.
Wining and dining have always been part of the sales, marketing and public relations stratetgies used by all kinds of organizations that sell products and services and raise funds for not-for-profit causes, but the ethics of wining and dining are being questioned in both the corporate and political worlds.
Executives want their managers to select vendors based on merit, not colleagiality and the number of NFL tickets or plane rides they’ll receive from the vendor. And political watch dog groups want politicians to pass laws based on their needs rather than in response to campaign contributions and gifts.
Such rules are needed in large bureaucracies, where abuses often get out of hand. The Securities and Exchange Commission is cracking down on brokers and mutual funds that wine and dine as well as exchange gifts, and voters in Colorado last month approved Referendum 41 that puts severe gifting restrictions on the state’s employees and their immediate families.
The question is how strict should the rules be, and are they enforceable over the long term? At what point will people just ignore them because they’re unenforceable and there is little risk in breaking the rules, and at what point will somebody violate the rules and get in big trouble?
At Wal-Mart, marketing executives apparently hired from outside the company allegedly didn’t buy into its corporate culture, and they’re gone, along with the ad agency they hired.
Labels: Ethics
