The company that boasts of "Always Low Prices" might have been better off heeding another slogan: Buyer beware.
As part of an increasingly aggressive campaign to burnish its image, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. decided in August to sponsor an academic conference to explore the retailer's effects on the U.S. economy and local communities.
And to make sure the findings were credible, the company turned over management of the conference to independent consultant Global Insight, which pledged to select papers only for their academic rigor, not for their pro-Wal-Mart bent.
When the scholars delivered, some of their findings didn't exactly cut in the company's favor. At the conference Friday in Washington, billed as "An In-Depth Look at Wal-Mart and Society," the retailer will be stuck with them anyway.
"To us it's worth the risk to have a real healthy discussion," said Robert McAdam, vice president of corporate affairs for the Bentonville, Ark., retailer. "We start out with a bias because we think we have a positive economic impact. If the results come back and they show that we don't have a positive economic impact, that will be a disappointment, but at least it's an honest look."
Wal-Mart critics say the company's willingness to hear dissent at the conference will be meaningful only if its executives decide to make changes.
"There's a lot here that requires legitimate listening" by Wal-Mart and actions based on the study findings, said Tracy Sefl, a spokeswoman for advocacy group Wal-Mart Watch. "There is a compelling empirical case being made about the scope of their problems."
The 10 papers are to be presented by economists, urban planners and other experts.
Some of their findings, which a few of the researchers released before the conference, tend to confirm what Wal-Mart critics have been saying for years.
At least two concluded that Wal-Mart stores' pay practices depressed wages beyond the retail sector. Another found that states on average spent $898 for each Wal-Mart worker in Medicaid expenses.
One study concluded that Wal-Mart's giant grocery and general merchandise Supercenters brought little net gain for local communities in property taxes, sales taxes and employment; instead, the stores merely siphoned sales from existing businesses in the area.
Not all the news was bad for Wal-Mart. Several of the studies noted that its stores led to lower prices throughout a region. Two suggested that Wal-Mart increased a county's total employment, with one pegging that long-term gain at 1% to 2%.
