Wal-Mart’s Public Relations Problems

Public relation is a fundamental tool for any organization in maintaining a good image and also for it to achieve its full potential. This is why companies must always strive to employ the best public relations practices to avoid negative image or public relation related problem. This paper will extensively analyze the negative way of Wal-Mart’s public relation problems while focusing on its employees and the community at large. At the same time, this paper will show the ways Wal-Mart does or does not adhere to the public relation principles. Wal-Mart’s Public Relations Problems Introduction

Public relations revolve around the collective truth. Its opinions are based upon facts which can be successfully changed by an organization through opinion persuasion which will also lead to a change in sequence behaviors. In order for an organization to succeed in its public relations a set of principles need to be followed which mostly begins with an identification of problems and challenges to setting of public relations’ goal. These can be done by use of persuasive messages, key communications tactics, through monitoring progress as well as crisis management (WorldWideLearn, 2006).

Lack of enough preparation in managing crisis and public relations may lead to undesirable and negative results within an organization with regards to the organization’s employees, business and customers. However, in order to succeed in today’s business world, businesses ought to manage all changes and crises carefully in order to develop strong plans in crisis management and public relations. Generally, public relations is important in enhancing marketing efforts, increasing a company’s visibility and events that impact a business among others (Carmichael, 2008).

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Wal-Marts Public Relations problems: employees and community Public relations is a very important tool for any company to run its daily business smoothly since it is through this that a company will be able to build and uphold its image. However, Wal-Mart, the largest public corporation across the world has been going down the line when it comes to the company’s public relations issues. What is appalling though is that these public relations hitches cut across both the company’s customers as well as the employees not forgetting the community at large (Renton, 2008).

An example of Wal-Mart’s public relations problems is the case of the college student who stayed behind bars for two days for allegedly being in possession of fake money orders which he had purchased at Wal-Mart in the first place. Good public relations would have guided Wal-Mart to carefully look into that matter and prevent the student’s arrest until the whole issue was confirmed. On the contrary though, Wal-Mart did not do anything to stop the arrest of this student, instead they just let the student go behind bars yet they knew that the matter had not even been confirmed (Renton, 2008).

Besides, Wal-mart’s PR problems also came to light when they demanded that the student pay them $200, a charge for shoplifting that never occurred. To make it worse, Wal-Mart also disregarded an investor’s inquiry into that matter while also trying to cover up for the mistake that they had done with regard to the student’s arrest. This tainted the company’s image in the public eye since consumers would in the first place shy away from purchasing Wal-Mart’s money orders, let alone other products.

Wal-Mart’s wanting PR also probably affected existing and potential investors who would not want to be associated with a company they considered irresponsible (Renton, 2008). However, if the company’s public relations were good, Wal-Mart would not have covered up the mistake they had done by trying to make their irresponsible move look good. Good public relations would have demanded that the company accept the bad service they had offered instead of making it look good. What is more, it would have also been important for Wal-Mart to show concern about its customers, the community as well as its investors (Renton, 2008).

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