The article in the url below presents a proactive corporate response to the loss of control over the flow of information online (Figure 3.4: The Free Flow of Information, p56). Wal-Mart has created a new blog for its buyers (the firm’s third attempt at blogging) to review critically the products that end up on Wal-Mart’s shelves (Chapter 2: CSR: Do Stakeholders Care? p25):
“Corporate blogs are nothing new -- General Motors, Dell and Boeing have them -- but Wal-Mart's site, called Check Out (http://checkoutblog.com/), turns the traditional model on its head. Instead of relying on polished high-level executives, it is written by little-known buyers, largely without editing.”
Wal-Mart framed the blog as an uncensored insight into the perspective of its buyers. Critics, in response, suggested the NYT was taken-in by Wal-Mart’s PR spin (http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14961). Either way, which products do, or do not, make it on to Wal-Mart’s shelves, to some extent, reflects the tastes of contemporary society and has ramifications beyond the individual supplier firms involved:
“It was a blogger on the Check Out, after all, who first disclosed last month that Wal-Mart would stock only high-definition DVDs and players using the Blu-ray format, rather than the rival HD DVD system. The decision was considered the death knell for HD DVD.”
Take care
Dave
Bill Werther & David Chandler
Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility
© Sage Publications, 2006
http://www.sagepub.com/Werther
Unbound, Wal-Mart Tastemakers Write a Blunt and Unfiltered Blog
By MICHAEL BARBARO
1181 words
3 March 2008
The New York Times
Late Edition - Final
1
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/03/business/03walmart.html
