Walmart in China
By: edited by Anita Chan
Publisher: ILR Press
Published: 2011
Place of publication: Ithaca
Language: eng
Number of pages: 294
ISBN-13: 9780801477317; 9780801450204
Subjects: Wal-Mart (Firm); Discount houses (Retail trade); Foreign Business enterprises
Description: "Walmart and 'Made in China' are practically synonymous; Walmart imports some 70 percent of its merchandise from China. Walmart is now also rapidly becoming a major retail presence there, with close to two hundred Walmarts in more than a hundred Chinese cities. What happens when the world's biggest retailer and the world's biggest country do business with each other? In this book, a group of thirteen experts from several disciplines examine the symbiotic but strained relationship between these giants. The book shows how Walmart began cutting costs by bypassing its American suppliers and sourcing directly from Asia and how Walmart's sheer size has trumped all other multinationals in squeezing procurement prices and, as a by-product, driving down Chinese workers' wages. China is also an inviting frontier for Walmart's global superstore expansion. As China's middle class grows, the chain's Western image and affordable goods have become popular. Walmart's Arkansas headquarters exports to the Chinese stores a unique corporate culture and management ideology, which oddly enough are reminiscent of Mao-era Chinese techniques for promoting loyalty. Three chapters separately detail the lives of a Walmart store manager, a lower-level store supervisor, and a cashier. Another chapter focuses on employees' wages, 'voluntary' overtime, and the stores' strict labor discipline. In 2006, the official Chinese trade union targeted Walmart, which is antilabor in its home country, and succeeded in setting up union branches in all the stores. Walmart in China reveals the surprising outcome."--Publisher's website.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Walmart's long march to China : how a mid-American retailer came to stake its future on the Chinese economy / Nelson Lichtenstein; title: Outsourcing in China : Walmart and Chinese manufacturers / Xue Hong; title: Walmartization, corporate social responsibility, and the labor standards of toy factories in South China / Yuu Xiaomin and Pun Ngai; title: Made in China : work and wages in Walmart supplier factories / Anita Chan and Kaxton Siu; title: Corporate cadres : management and corporate culture at Walmart China / David J. Davies; title: A store manager's success story / David J. Davies and Taylor Seeman; title: Practicing cheer : the diary of a low-level supervisor at a Walmart China store / Scott E. Myers and Anita Chan ; translation by Scott E. Myers; title: Working in Walmart, Kunming : technology, outsourcing, and retail globalization / Eileen M. Otis; title: Unionizing Chinese Walmart stores / Anita Chan; title: Did unionization make a difference? : work conditions and trade union activities at Chinese Walmart stores / Jonathan Unger, Diana Beaumont, and Anita Chan; title: Workers and communities versus Walmart : a comparison of organized resistance in the United States and China / Katie Quan.