Title

Wal-Mart Store Expansion in the Arid Lands

Authors

Charles R. Britton
Richard S. Smith, Arkansas Tech University
Thomas O. Graff

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2005

Department

School of Business

Abstract

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. was ranked number one in the world by Fortune 500 based upon revenues of $288,189 billion in 2004. This phenomenal company was first established by Sam Walton in 1962 and when it went public in 1970 it had a total of 18 stores. Now it has grown to over 3,500 stores in the United States alone. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. headquarters are located in Bentonville, AR in the far northwest corner of the state, only 25 miles from the Oklahoma border. This location provides an excellent opportunity to study the economic expansion with respect to arid versus humid states since the Arkansas/Oklahoma border delineates the boundary between these two regions. This study examines whether the Wal-Mart expansion has been uniform throughout the U.S. or slanted more toward the arid states of the west versus the humid states of the east.

First Page

39

Last Page

48

Volume

XXI

Recommended Citation

Britton, C. R., Smith, R. S., & Graff, T. O. (2005). Wal-Mart Store Expansion in the Arid Lands. Forum of the Association for Arid Lands Studies, XXI, 39-48.