Case Study : Apple Inc.

Since Jobs’s gaunt appearance at the WWDC in June 2008, Wall Street has been keeping a close eye on Apple. Its share price has been shifting with the different emerging announcements. While there is a segment of the public that feels that a person’s medical condition is a matter of privacy and not under the realm of public disclosure, there is a segment that insists that, in this case, it is indeed within the purview of shareholders. Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times emphatically stated that “Apple has allowed its institutional arrogance, its culture of secretiveness, and possibly its solicitude for and fear of Jobs to lead it down a path of rank corporate irresponsibility.”4 Apple is facing credibility issues with both its corporate communication and with concerns regarding the company’s success without Steve Jobs. As Dylan Ratigan stated on CNBC’s Fast Money, “…the quality of information we’re getting from Apple is inconsistent at best and misleading at worst.”5 Combined with post-Jobs jitters, it seems unlikely that such a highly praised, successful company with an extremely loyal customer base would invoke such backlash and concern about its future over any single employee, but clearly Steve Jobs proves to be the exception. Early Days Apple Computer was established on April 1, 1976, by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald

Immediately after the allegation, Apple launched an investigation and worked with their manufacturers to ensure that conditions were acceptable by its standards. In 2007, Apple started yearly audits of the labor conditions of all its suppliers, slowly raising standards and severing relationships with suppliers that did not comply—yearly progress reports have also been published since 2008.

China Labor Watch (CLW) is an independent not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization. CLW conducts investigations of factories in China and creates report to educate the communitity on supply chain labour issues as well to enforce corporations to improve conditions for workers. According to Li Qiang, the founder and executive director of China Labour Watch, the Apple is making technological advancements resulting in fantastic profits. It can also make great improvements in the working condition of the workers, but have not made sufficient efforts. Apple CEO Tim Cook said: "We care about every worker in our worldwide supply chain." However, sufficient efforts have not been made to keep up the promise. In a report by CLW, human rights and labour

Apple’s success can be attributed to Steve Jobs leadership skills. He made corporate culture an important part of its success. They employ highly skilled employees who strive to do things “the rights way” (Ferrell & Hartline, 2014). All these things are true only in the corporate sector of Apple. When it comes to the manufacturing process, Apple’s product components are manufactured in other countries and they have faced scrutiny for this process. Despite every effort to audit these factories to ensure compliance, they still do not comply and fail to meet Apple’s standards.

In a report by suppliers, it stated that approximately 400 suppliers revealed that Apple was using child labor in 11 of their factories for production. There were also cases reported in which Foxconn, a major supplier of parts for Apple, was using unethical and unjust practices against their workers. Apple has a tremendous impact on us. It produces All of the Idevices that we use in our routine lives.

Apple has many suppliers in their large supplier network, which Foxconn is one of them. Foxconn is a Taiwanese manufacturer of electronic, which has many different factories in different countries. Foxconn is notorious for making iPhone in China and being brutal with their employees. This included poor working conditions, illegal overtime, and treating their employees like robots with no respect. Apple states that they had no idea this was going on in Foxconn, but that’s up to you if you truly believe them. Apple took some precautionary actions against Foxconn stating that Apple will join the Fair Labor Association (FLA) in order to run external audits once a year, and they developed a global supplier code of conduct. Apple released a statement

These corporations make large sums of money despite the fact that the workers are the one’s suffering trying to produce their products under poor working conditions, for long hours, with small pay, while being denied their basic rights. Under a long list of violators Apple has been found guilty of such. Charles Duhigg and David Barboza’s article “In China, Human costs are built into an iPad” shines light on the terrible working and living conditions Foxconn’s workers must undergo each day.

We first must look at their organizational behavior. Organizational behavior is a field of study devoted to understanding, explaining, and ultimately improving the attitudes and behaviors of individuals and groups in organizations (Jason Colquitt, 2011). Now by Apple going into other corporations and handing out their black cards that is just making their employees think poorly about the corporations they work for; thinking there is better out there. To some, Apple’s behavior can be considered good, hard-nosed business, but to most it is considered to acting unethically. By developing this black card strategy Apple is not just trying to hire anyone, they are trying to steal employees from other companies, so they already know they will be good for the job. Apple really needs to take a step back and look at their behavior. They need to find the correlation between their actions and other organizations. The type of organizational behavior being displayed here by Apple is the method of intuition with a bit of experience. It is obvious that their strategy is working and there experience tells them so. That does not make it right though. They are still costing other organizations good employees. The job performance showed by their employees is very negative. Apple needs to go out and get a 360 degree feedback from an outside source.

While the business ethics of Apple should and does come under scrutiny, the company is, in fact, also dependent upon its employees' countless generations of ingrained Chinese, and a foreign workplace that does not easily change to match that which is considered acceptable by developed nations. Indeed, factory management staff who are Chinese may not understand why it is wrong for a willing teenager to work, as hard work is a virtue long valued by their culture.

In 2006, the Mail on Sunday stated that Apple’s China factories had sweatshop conditions. It also said that the iPod factory workers had 60 hour weeks. (Heffernan 2013) Following this allegation, Apple started an investigation, working with their manufacturers to ensure that conditions were acceptable by Apple’s standards. (Heffernan 2013) Audits of the labour conditions of all its suppliers, raising standards slowly and stopping relationships with non-complying suppliers. (Heffernan 2013) Progress reports post 2008 have been a reality. (Heffernan 2013) Chinese workers in 2010 had planned to sue iPhone contractors over poisoning from a cleaner used to clean LCD screens, with one worker claiming they weren’t informed of possible occupational illnesses. (Heffernan 2013) Following the 2010 Foxconn suicides, A 2014 BBC investigation found excessive hours & other problems persisted, despite Apple promising to change factory practices. (Heffernan 2013)

In February 2011, the media reported the child labour issues had worsened at the suppliers for computers, iPods and iPhones. Apple’s Supplier Responsibility Report 2011 revealed 91 underage workers at the suppliers.

This report investigates the suppliers of the components found on the logic board of the Apple iPhone 6. We find that while most of the product design and software development of this phone is carried out in Apple’s headquarters in California, USA, most of its components were indeed manufactured by companies scattered all over the world. The final assembly eventually takes place in China and Brazil before being shipped back to Apple’s USA offices for warehousing and marketing. A key finding is that Apple reaps quantum benefits from the global nature of the electronics industry and in so doing, increases the speed of its product development while lowering its overall cost of operations.

Apple Inc is popular in the computer technology word; Apple Inc leads the computer industry in innovation thanks to the award winning desktop and notebook computer known as OS X operating system (Slind). Based in my researchable Apple Inc is the biggest company in the entire word. It is therefore important to define strategic management, according to (Certo, Peter & Ottensmeyer) , strategic managements is a continuous process that directs an organization to be appropriately suited to its internal and external environment. Strategic management benefits organizations by providing personnel, capital, helps to set standards and most importantly activates people. For an organization to have or successful strategic management plan, the mangers

As it is illustrated by the article “In China, Human Costs Are Built into an iPad”, Charles Duhigg and David Barboza show the detrimental impact of this corporation upon its Chinese employees. Apple is now identified for its harmful working condition in its factories. Employees work excessive overtime without a single day off during the week as these sweatshops work all day, every day. To produce the merchandise efficiently and effectively, the workers stand at all hours of the day and leave with a decreasing amount of energy every passing day. The company provides most of its workers with the benefit of satisfying dorms. 70,000 Foxconn, Apple’s major manufacturing partner, workers are obligated to live with 20 other people in a slum three-bedroom apartment. Under age workers are unfortunately adding onto Apple’s

Exploiting Foxconn’s fear of contract termination, Apple offers low prices for widgets which reduce its own expenditure but slash Foxconn’s profit margin. The low marginal revenue compels Foxconn to minimize its production cost by cutting wages. To maintain its share in the ever-changing consumer electronics market, Apple has to frequently revise its production forecasts and consequently its orders for widgets. It is impossible to meet such urgent demand which exceeds Foxconn’s regular productivity, so the underpaid employees are forced to