热点人物关注：零售业巨头沃尔玛CEO杜克

For a folksy southerner from rural Georgia who spent his childhood eating food grown on the family farm and buying clothes on rare trips to a five-and-dime store, Mike Duke has accumulated an eclectic array of retailing achievements.

沃尔玛CEO迈克•杜克(Mike Duke)是个随和的南方人，来自佐治亚州的农村，在他的童年里，吃的是自家农场种出的食物，很久才去廉价商店买一次衣服。而今天他已经在零售业取得了许多成就。

Since the start of last year alone, Walmart’s chief executive has won Michelle Obama’s endorsement for the company’s healthy eating initiatives; overcome union opposition to win a foothold in Africa; outlasted Bo Xilai, who tormented Walmart in China; and seen off a huge lawsuit over sex discrimination against its US staff.

单从去年年初算起，杜克就已经取得了一系列成绩。他赢得了美国第一夫人米歇尔•奥巴马(Michelle Obama)对沃尔玛提倡的健康饮食计划的支持；他克服了工会的反对，坚持在非洲建起立足点；挺到了薄熙来（给沃尔玛中国公司找过麻烦）政治生命的终结；还了结了一宗有关沃尔玛对美国员工存在性别歧视的大额诉讼。

But in the past week all that has been forgotten. Mr Duke, a craggy 62-year old with a gap-toothed smile, faces devastating allegations that senior Walmart executives hushed up a campaign of bribery to secure construction permits in Mexico. The allegations are the biggest test of a 40-year career for the plain but affable boy from the warehouses, who rose through the nuts-and-bolts ranks of Walmart’s logistics division.

然而在最近一段时间，这些成绩都被忘记了。杜克现在正面临毁灭性的指控：沃尔玛为了在墨西哥获得建设许可证而大举行贿，但该公司高管却掩人耳目。对于朴素而平易近人的杜克来说，这些指控是他40年职业生涯中最严峻的考验。现年62岁的杜克面容粗犷，微笑时经常露出牙齿的缝隙，他最早从仓储工作干起，在沃尔玛物流部门担任过多个职位。

With federal investigations running alongside an independent probe by the Walmart board, it remains to be seen whether the sleuths will prove any wrongdoing entangling Mr Duke, a faithful churchgoer who let it be known this week that he was “fully supportive” of the board probe.

联邦调查与沃尔玛董事会发起的独立调查同时进行，调查人员是否会证实任何牵涉到杜克本人的不当行为尚不得而知。虔诚、常去教会的杜克明确表示，“完全支持”董事会展开的调查。

But even for a company used to the barbs of critics who say it pays stingy wages, bullies suppliers and steamrollers mom-and-pop stores, the allegations are a potent challenge to an evangelical business culture forged in the poverty of backwoods Arkansas by its founder Sam Walton.

尽管沃尔玛已经习惯了各种苛刻的批评，如薪资吝啬、欺压供应商、排挤社区小店，但对于沃尔玛创始人山姆•沃尔顿(Sam Walton)在阿肯色州(Arkansas)贫穷落后地区建立起的福音式商业文化，上述指控仍然有可能构成巨大的挑战。

His doctrine combines down-home style with ruthless penny-pinching and a zeal for logistical efficiency: it enabled Walmart to conquer America from its isolated home town, Bentonville. But the bigger it gets and the harder it pushes for new customers in places where business and politics work differently, the more the limitations begin to show.

他的经营原则将纯朴的风格，与每分钱成本都精打细算、对物流效率的热衷相结合，这使得沃尔玛能够走出总部所在的偏远城市本顿维尔(Bentonville)，征服了美国市场。随着沃尔玛的规模越来越大，这家公司也越来越积极地进入新市场争夺消费者，但在这些新市场，商业和政治的运作方式和美国并不相同，因而越来越多的局限也陆续显现出来。

Mr Duke embodies that culture – but as head of the world’s biggest public company, with sales of $444bn last year, he arguably has too much of the insularity that is its weakness and not enough of the down-home charm that is its strength.

杜克就是这种文化的化身。沃尔玛去年销售额达4440亿美元，是全球上市公司中最高的。杜克作为这样一家企业的负责人，他身上可以说表现出了太多的偏狭性，而淳朴风格却稍嫌不足，前者正是沃尔玛的劣势，后者才是沃尔玛的优势。

Jimmy Wright, who worked for Mr Duke aFTer he joined Walmart in 1995, says: “Mike is a nice guy first and foremost. Likeable and not arrogant. He treats people with respect and rarely will mutter an off-colour word.” Yet while “Mr Sam” oozed star quality, many people say Mr Duke lacks charisma. He clearly tries, but in speeches the delivery of his passion lines can be tinny and laughter lines can fall flat.

吉米•赖特(Jimmy Wright)在1995年加入沃尔玛后曾与杜克共事，他说：“迈克首先是一个彻彻底底的好人，亲和也并不高傲。他对人很尊重，极少言辞无礼。”不过“山姆先生”散发着明星气质，许多人却形容杜克缺乏魅力。杜克显然在努力表现出魅力，但他在讲话中表达激情的句子有些单调枯燥，笑点也并不好笑。

What he has in spades, however, is discipline. Mike Cockrell, an ex-Walmarter who worked with Mr Duke, most recently as chief merchandising officer in India, says: “He’s the only person I know that never looked at his watch and always sat with his back to clock, but five minutes before the meeting was supposed to be over he’d say: ‘Let’s wrap up. What you got?’ ”

然而他无疑有很强的纪律性。曾在沃尔玛与杜克共事的迈克•考克雷尔(Mike Cockrell)表示：“在我认识的人中，他是唯一不用看表，背对着时钟，却能在会议预定结束前五分钟说‘开始总结会议成果’的人。”考克雷尔在沃尔玛的最后一个职位是印度区首席商品官。

He also has organisational nous and an ability to fix stuff, honed by a Georgia Tech engineering degree that he got before joining a regional department store – a choice that was inspired by his high-school physics teacher’s advice that service industries were the future.

杜克也拥有组织头脑和解决问题的能力，这得益于他从佐治亚理工学院(Georgia Tech)获得的工科学历。毕业后他进入了一家地区性百货商店，杜克作出了这样的职业选择是受到高中物理老师的启发，这位老师说过，未来属于服务业。

“You’ve got to give him a lot of credit for making difficult decisions,” says Mr Cockrell. “He tries to consider the human component and emotional side of decisions. But . . . that doesn’t cloud his judgment.”

考克雷尔说：“他作出了许多艰难的决定，这值得称赞。他会努力考虑决策中人性和感情的因素，但是……那不会干扰他的判断。”

As chief executive since 2009, he has reversed disastrous moves that diluted Walmart’s focus on price and narrowed its product range, alienating low-income US shoppers. Last autumn he ended a run of nine consecutive quarters of falling sales.

杜克从2009年起担任沃尔玛CEO，他取消了淡化对价格的关注、减少产品品类、疏远美国低收入消费者等一系列灾难性策略。去年秋天，他还结束了销售额一连九个季度的下滑。

In China last year he oversaw the departure of Walmart’s country head after the Chongqing authorities, run by the now purged Bo Xilai, said it had mislabelled ordinary pork as organic – another sign that all was not well beyond US shores.

去年在他任上，沃尔玛中国区总裁辞职。在此之前，重庆市官方称沃尔玛将普通猪肉错标为绿色猪肉，当时重庆市由现在已经失势的薄熙来主掌。这起事件又一次显示，在美国本土以外沃尔玛并不是一帆风顺。

He was also on Walmart’s senior executive team when Tom Coughlin, a vice-chairman, was convicted for embezzlement in 2006.

2006年沃尔玛副董事长汤姆•库格林(Tom Coughlin)被判贪污罪名成立，当时杜克也身处沃尔玛高管团队。

When Mr Duke became head of Walmart’s international division in 2005, one of his first acts was to close down its lossmaking German business, where Walmart’s cultural clumsiness was exemplified by decisions to stock baseball bats that German shoppers didn’t want.

2005年，杜克成为沃尔玛国际部负责人时，他最先作出的举动之一就是关闭亏损的德国业务。沃尔玛德国分部决定采购德国消费者不想买的棒球棒，沃尔玛在文化方面的迟钝，此事件中可见一斑。

If Mexico reveals a few bad apples that need to be thrown out, or a systemic rot that needs to be cleared up, Mr Duke sounds like the man to do it. But he could be compromised. The New York Times, which made the allegations, said the bribery was happening before he took charge of the international business but continued while he was there, and that a preliminary internal probe was shut down on his watch in 2006.

如果墨西哥行贿事件暴露出沃尔玛内部有几颗坏苹果必须丢掉，或者暴露出公司内部存在系统性问题必须根除，那么杜克似乎能够挑起这副担子。但他本人也可能会受到牵连。向公众抖出这件事的《纽约时报》(New York Times)称，贿赂行为在杜克接手国际业务之前就已存在，但在他任内仍一直持续，而一项初步展开的内部调查却在他任内在2006年终止。

While many pundits have said bribery is a fact of life in a lot of markets in which Walmart operates, others say they would be astonished if anyone at a business that is so visible – and subject to puritanical US anti-graft laws – could expect to keep it under wraps.

尽管许多专家表示，在沃尔玛经营的许多市场，贿赂是现实中存在的现象。但还有一些人则指出，在一家如此受人关注、并且受到极为苛刻的美国反腐败法律约束的企业，有人居然以为能够瞒天过海，十分令人惊讶。

Nelson Lichtenstein, a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and author of a book on Walmart, says the company offers “a highly structured moral order” for its employees. But it also nurtures a cowboy bravado that says “get it done today, we don’t care how you do it”, an attitude he links to the Sundown Rule created by Mr Walton.

加州大学圣塔芭芭拉分校(University of California, Santa Barbara)教授尼尔森•李奇登斯坦(Nelson Lichtenstein)写了一本关于沃尔玛的书，他说这家公司给员工提出了“很有条理的道德要求”，但它同时也培育着一种牛仔的勇敢精神，“今天就搞定，我们不管你怎么办到”。李奇登斯坦将这种态度的形成归结于沃尔顿确立的“日落原则”(Sundown Rule)。

Despite Mr Duke’s victories, critics say he has kept an outmoded business model ticking over when he should have responded more boldly to the growth of ecommerce and convenience-store shopping.

尽管杜克取得了许多成功，批评人士还是认为，他本来应该对电子商务和便利店销售模式的发展采取更果敢的对策，结果他却让一种过时的商业模式维持运转。

“He has brought to Walmart a continuity, but not a personal imprint,” says Walter Loeb, a retail consultant. “He’s administrating the company but he has not moved the needle very much.”

“他向沃尔玛赋予了延续性，却并没留下个人印记，”零售业咨询师沃尔特•洛布(Walter Loeb)说道。“他是在管理公司，但他却并没有作出什么创新。”

Any talk of new shops and shopping habits will go out of the window if serious wrongdoing is found. If Mr Duke emerges unscathed, he will probably be given his final task as a fix-it man. But it is the last task the warehouse whizz from the farm would have wanted.

如果被发现存在重大过错，那么再怎么谈论开设新店或者消费者的购物习惯也只是空话。如果杜克不会受到牵连，那么搞定这件事或许会是他的最后一项任务。这位出身农场的仓储专家，恐怕并不想要这样的任务。

The writer is the FT’s US retail correspondent。

作者是英国《金融时报》美国零售业记者