1. What were the main elements of the control system created by Sam Walton? It is evident that Sam Walton believed in the importance of control systems in an organization; as it has established some strategic control systems in the society. Walton wanted everyone in the organization to be committed to Wal-Mart's goal of "total customer satisfaction," and strategic control systems were set up accordingly. There are various elements of the control systems used in Wal-Mart which are: Personal control An example is when there is a poorly performing store; top managers visit these stores to lend their expertise to employees. They also fly to various Wal-Mart stores monthly to check their performance. Output Control Company managers and even employees can share financial information through a sophisticated company-wide satellite system that includes store profits and inventory turnover rates. Behavior Control There is a behavior control system in the company such as rules and budgets in order to shape and predict employee behavior. Each store performs the same tasks in the same way, and all employees receive the same type of training to behave in the same way with customers. This is how Wal-Mar managed to standardize its operations and thus save a lot of additional costs. Using Information Technology IT control systems are integrated with almost all other control systems. For example, Wal-Mart has a sophisticated satellite system used for its output control systems. Strategic Reward Systems The company uses a performance linkage system to reward strategy to increase performance; where the performance of managers and the ability to achieve objectives...... at the center of the paper...... the largest lawsuit in history, in which 1,600,000 women demonstrated that they had suffered gender discrimination in quality of company employees since 1998. In my opinion, the above control systems have allowed Wal-Mart to grow more and more; and although they were very successful and did very well, they used unethical methods to achieve even higher profitability because they were very greedy. They have so many successful control systems that make their business as much as four times more profitable than their largest competitor, so they shouldn't go around violating laws and workers' rights to make more money and break customer trust. References: Viskovich, Giulio. "How Wal-Mart Really Works". Elio.Ribeiro, Silvia . “The Costs of Walmartization.” ZNet.