Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Walmart Management Discourse Community
Walmart Management Discourse Community
Randy Ross
RWS 1301
Discourse communities are defined as groups of individuals that all share a written or
spoken form of communication throughout the group. Discourse communities can range from a
small local club or a community of friends that play golf together every weekend or even an elite
community such as the Freemasons. Almost everyone living in Earth is a part of a discourse
community. I am currently pursuing a career in business management and my degree begins with
meeting my pre business requirements. Later in my studies I will be able to begin the classes that
focus directly on my future career. I find Walmart interesting, specifically the way management
works. I decided to use their business as my discourse community. The Walmart community is
very large community with a detailed structure and vast forms of communication. I am interested
in understanding how Walmarts management is structured and how their managers communicate
Walmarts management level community fits in every one of the six characteristics that
Swales describes. The management team of Walmart has the important job of keeping the store
working and running smoothly. Management is entrusted with the operations of the store floor.
They are required to distribute any information that is sent down from store managements
supervisor to store employees. The information could vary from of an important letter or a
memo. Managers also have different ways in which they relay the various messages to the
employees. Managers of a store also create newsletters that are posted in the offices that informs
Literature Review
John Swales describes what he believes to be the true definition of a discourse
characteristics that must be met in order to be classified as a discourse community. The six
its members, provides information and feedback, the use of one or more genres for
communication, a specific lexis, and members with a reasonable ratio between novices and
experts. (Swales, 2011). In contrast, a speech community is made up by members who have
similar linguistic goals but are not very structured in the matter of the novice to expert. In a
speech community members are inherited as opposed to a discourse community where members
must be recruited with some form of persuasion. Once those members are persuaded to join the
community then they are trained and made to meet a specific standard of the community.
Walmart is a very diverse community that is not just located in the United states but also
around the world. Walmart also has distributors and manufactures in nearly every country as has
Discussion
The first of the six characteristic that Swales described as the community has a broadly
agreed on set of public goals. These goals must be shared throughout the community in order to
meet the standard. Walmart has a variety of goals that they are trying to achieve every year. One
of goals in the company is a desire to achieve a three to four percent growth in sales annually
(Holley, 2015). Walmart will attempt to reach this goal by opening smaller corner stores, which
would increase the opportunity for costumers to have a Walmart closer to their residence.
Walmart has also raised their wages for over 40% of their 1.3 million employees in the United
States (Patterson, 2015). The company will be under taking a billion-dollar investment into their
work force. Even though this sounds like an extreme undertaking sales growth for the country
Intercommunication is how communication takes place between lower ranked members and top
ranked members. This could be how the lower ranked member communicate to each other. These
forms of commination can include meetings, newsletters, and conversations between members of
the discourse community. Walmart displays this characteristic by having web blogs and
newsletters displayed in their breakrooms at the Neighborhood Markets and Super Centers. The
Walmart CEO has also sent out an email with a letter with an attached video from him directly
explaining the wage increase that was approved for 40% of U.S. employees. Management also
posts articles on their website that the public has access to.
The third characteristic that Swales sees as necessary for a community to be a discourse
feedback could be anything from a suggestion for the leaders of the community to a written
survey that was handed to everyone in the community. Walmart handles the feedback from their
members with the use of help desks, surveys, and online platforms. The help desks that are set up
for Walmart are available to employees in order to give their opinion on how they believe senior
management can improve the store. The surveys are all on a volunteer bases and if an employee
wants to submit a survey they have the platform to do so. The largest feedback system that
Walmart has in place is on their website. Walmart uses blogs and questionnaires to get
information from their employees and the employees are still able to be 100% anonymous.
Walmart uses communication channels to their full advantage. They keep and maintain
good communication between their employees and even with the public outside of the
employees be open to the public. Official memos or documents that are sent to the store
managers to explain store performance are not available to public. The CEO finds it convenient
to relay information to the everyone that is an employee of Walmart through the internet because
it makes it significantly easier. In letters to associates, the CEO explains in detail what every
entry level employee can expect when the pay raise is in effect. The CEO also attached a video
and a chart to breakdown how the new pay and benefits will affect them.
Anyone who has ever worked for a retail company knows that they have different names
for certain items, skill, or methods. These terms are unique to retail companies and Walmart has
a set of their own. This is called a lexis and the definition of a lexis is the totality of vocabulary
item in a language. Walmart has their very own language that is unique to their discourse
community. The letter from the CEO included many of these terms and in the interview of the
CEO you could see the terms as well. Some examples include referring to employees as
associates, talking about sales growth, and titles like RGM (Regional General Manager).
Someone that does not have some back ground in Walmart or in retail wouldnt be able to tell
The sixth and final characteristic that Swales stated is that any discourse community
should have is that the community will have a suitable degree of relevant content and having a
discoursal expertise. This means that every community should have some sort of ranking or
rating system for all the members of the community. Walmart like other discourse communities
is constantly changing by gaining members and losing members. Walmart displays the inflow of
new members every year when they hire for seasonal positions and then at the end of the season
they choose which employees they will keep to positions within their community. Then there are
also seasoned employees that has put in their two weeks because they are ready to retire.
Walmart also has a very simple ranking system, with novice members being the hourly associates
followed by team leaders, assistant managers, and then store managers. Beyond stores there are
district managers, regional managers, and then the vice president and finally the president or
Conclusion
Walmart falls into the category of discourse community because they meet all of the six
requirements. Walmarts management and structure makes them a very organized and structured
company that still allows for communication from the bottom up. Walmart is a retail giant that
must maintain the lines of communication open in an orderly fashion. They maintain their end
References
Bill Simon. (2010, January 28). Organizational Change Memo From Bill Simon . Retrieved from
Walmart: http://news.walmart.com/organizational-change-memo-from-bill-simon-2010
Holley, C. (2015, October 14). Walmart strategy drives growth and sustainable returns, Plans $20
billion share repurchase program over two years. Retrieved from Walmart News:
http://news.walmart.com/news-archive/2015/10/14/walmart-strategy-drives-growth-and-
sustainable-returns-plans-20-billion-share-repurchase-program-over-two-years
McMillon, D. (2015, Febuary 19). In Letter to Associates, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon
http://blog.walmart.com/opportunity/20150219/in-letter-to-associates-walmart-ceo-doug-
mcmillon-announces-higher-pay
Patterson, G. (2015, Febuary 26). Wal-Mart CEO Doug McMillon talks workers, customers,
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/business/2015/02/26/0226-walmart-ceo-
interview.html