So, what does this flurry of petty thieves departing the ranks of Wal-Mart management tell us about the culture of Wal-Mart? Even the Financial Times chose to give front-page play today to the resignation of Thomas Coughlin as a company director because of an “alleged unauthorized use of corporate-owned gift cards and personal reimbursements that appear to have been obtained from the company through the reporting of false information on third-party invoices and company expense reports. The amount in controversy is estimated to be in the range of $100,000 to $500,000.”
Translation: so the guy padded his expense accounts.
What’s interesting is that this is a trend at Wal-Mart. In the current investigation, three other employees, including a company officer, were also dismissed. And back in December, three other executives and four employees were fired for violating “unspecified” company rules–one presumes those rules had nothing to do with treating workers badly (that kind of conduct actually calls for promotion or at least a one-time visit to the company’s executive washroom) but with other financial wrongdoing.
But, why should this be surprising? The culture of Wal-Mart encourages criminality among its leaders. Think about it: you’re an officer or board member and all around you bad behavior, criminal and otherwise, happens every day–women are harrassed and denied fair treatment (witness the class action gender discrimination lawsuit ); workers are illegally fired for trying to form a union and your company spends millions to thwart workers basic rights; your company does deals with the authoritarian regime in China to make sure it has a ready supply of underage, underwaged children to produce its products, no matter that every international standard views working conditions in China as below standard; and, the Walton kids themselves are cheapskates, piling up a vast fortune and giving back a pittance to the community. When you see that, what’s a few hundred thousand dollars in inflated expenses, morally speaking? It seems right at home with the culture.
