Business Ethics : Nike

Nike NIKE (NI-KEY) is a winged goddess of victory according to Greek mythology. She is said to sit at the side of Zeus. The twentieth century Nike footwear lifts athletes to new achievements. The ‘swoosh’ resembles the winged goddess who was an inspiration to warriors since the beginning of time. Phil knight had two influential people that inspired him to create Nike.

Like other large corporations, Nike looked to expand their operations outside North America. Many companies do this because of the law and wage demands of the United States making overseas operations very appealing. Employment laws are scarce and labor is cheap in most third world countries and can be easily become targeted by giant corporations such as Nike.

Nike started to open up manufacturing factories in countries like Indonesia, Pakistan and Vietnam. Due to the wants of Nike to increase their revenue they tried to outsource the labor of their products since labor work in the US is very high and expensive. This was a bad idea due to that Indonesia pays their workers extremely low wages. Pakistan doesn’t have an age limit for them to be able to legally to work so many children in Pakistan were making

Unfortunately, the same factor that contributed to Nike’s exponential growth (low-cost labor and production) also contributed to hurting Nike’s public image as a leader in “athleticism, health and fitness, and innovative marketing and design” (Locke, 2002). Nike was criticized for unethical practices by their subcontractors, which included underpaid workers, poor working conditions, child labor, and abuse (Locke, 2002).

The ethics of businesses are under more scrutiny than ever before (Bones, 2014). Ethics can be considered as following a code of behaviour agreeable with the context of society and can also be defined as the application of moral and ethical considerations in a business environment (Hurn, 2008). Sport businesses have been targeted a lot more in recent years due to the conditions they place their workers in has become more apparent to the outside world. Nike are one of the world’s leading sports brands but have been faced with many allegations in recent years (Daily Mail, 2011) in regards to the conditions they put their workers in and their ethics and morals have been questioned. This report will critically evaluate the impact ethics has on the business operations of Nike and then analyse the reasons for why ethics impact the sport organisation. Finally, recommendations will be made to improve Nike’s business ethics.

This paper describes the legal, cultural, and ethical challenges that confronted the global business presented in the Nike sweatshop debate case study. It illustrates Nike’s part in the sweatshop scandal and it also takes a look at the ethical issues that surround this touchy subject. This paper

One of the biggest and most popular brands in America, Nike, who targets athletes of all ages to be better athletes engages in unethical behavior by exploiting people from other countries by providing bad working conditions and low wages. Nike produces athletic equipment as well as apparel that is not only appealing to athletes, but also to the general public. However, the people that work for Nike and make these products are people being physically abused by supervisors and have to deal with horrible working conditions. According to an article written by Zaid Jilani, he said that thousands of women in Indonesia are being exploited by companies such as Nike where the wages being paid to these women are not enough to survive. Nike is well aware of what they are doing to these people in Indonesia, but still continue with it because the profits they receive at the end of the day is more valuable to them than the poor working conditions they offer to these Indonesian women. This shows that Nike uses the the Utilitarian approach because the company weighs out the pros and cons of the situation and still decides to produce products in Indonesia where it’s perfectly legal to pay low wages and have bad working conditions even though it is

Nike was established in 1972 by Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight. These two men were visionaries. The goal for Nike was to carry on Bowerman’s legacy of innovative thinking by helping every athlete reach their goal or by creating lucrative business opportunities that would set the company apart from any competition. This included providing quality work environments for all who were employed by Nike.

This paper will discuss the company Nike. Nike has had many ethical issues, which will be addressed. The ethical dilemmas that Nike faced will be evaluated under two ethical frameworks. The whistleblower part that was played in exposing Nike will be analyzed. This paper will evaluate whether Nike used marketing or public relations successfully when trying to repair the damage caused by the reported lapse in ethics.

Phil Knight and his track coach Bill Bowerman founded Blue Ribbon Sports in 1964. The company started as being a distributor of Onituska Tiger athletic shoes which were imported from Japan. In 1971 they broke away from Onituska and created their own of shoes. The company was renamed, Nike. It became the largest worldwide seller of athletic shoes. They branched out and created various products lines; shoes, clothing, sporting goods and digital devices. They used celebrities to promote their products. The first athlete to wear and promote their show was runner Steve Prefontaine. Their now well know swoosh was first seen in the 1972 US Track and Field Trials. Every basketball player in high school wanted a pair of Michael Jordan’s,

The purpose and intent of this paper is to describe the legal, cultural, and ethical challenges that face the Nike Corporation in their global business ventures. This paper will also touch on the roles of the host government and countries where Nike manufactures their products and the author will summarize the strategic and operational challenges that Nike managers face in globalization of the Nike product.

Nike has seldom manufactured products own premises, except their air bladders. The shoes are manufactured through outsourcing and alliances with other companies. A successful company like Nike formed its organization on the customer values that have the MOST impact on the consumers mind – Design/R&D, Marketing and Distribution. Even though manufacturing is a vital function to perform, Nike realized that there were other ways to go about this function and thereby save both cost and maintain its focus on the critical customer value areas.

During the late 80s and early 90s Nike was faced with a series of labor strike back at home due to unethical labor practices by its independent countries in third world countries. It is well known for Nike to outsource almost all its production from third world countries at cheap prices and sell them in U.S. market at an abnormal profit. The company began outsourcing its products from Japan where labor was competent and wages were very low. The living standards were raised which prompted Nike to outsource its products from Thailand, Pakistan and Indonesia since wages in these countries were extremely low and labor for these products were competent due to rapid development of the Japanese economy. The outsourcing of footwear products from Asian countries enables Nike to earn high profits and enjoy a competitive advantage over its rivals in the footwear industry. The company invests the high profits realized in marketing its products through celebrities. For instance, Michael Jordan was used to advertise the positive image of Nike Company (Lipschutz and James, pp. 87-96).

Nike business model has always been contracting underdeveloped countries, mainly in Asia, to produce its athletic shoes at a much lower cost as compared to its competitors. As it is simple to manufacture an athletic shoe, Nike’s contractors are often able to capitalize on the abundance of unskilled and low-wage workers in their home country to cut down on production costs.

The main ethical issues were that there were sweatshops were being underpaid, there were children working in sweatshops, and some factories were violating health laws which exposed employees to harmful chemicals. When looking at all of these from an outside perspective one can see that Nike allowed these to happen because they did not care for the quality and rights that humans have. In the United States, these would never occur because of US Labor Laws to protect people, but in these third world countries there are no regulating laws.