Critical Analysis on NIKE

Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight started Nike Inc. in 1971, formally known as Blue Ribbon Sports. Bill Bowerman was a former track and field coach at the University of Oregon, and Phil Knight was a student-athlete at the University of Oregon. After numerous years of supplying under Blue Ribbon Sports, the two decided to enter the athletic shoe manufacturing business. The first employee of the company was Jeff Johnson, who helped them with branding what is known today as NIKE Inc.

In Vietnamese factories, workers making Nike merchandize have been found to be forced to work over 600 hours of overtime a year, which is more than 400 hours a year above the legal limit in Vietnam (“Fact Sheet”). Workers have reported being coerced into the overtime hours through threats of unemployment or forced indirectly by the low pay to volunteer for the hours in order to support their families. This in other words is a form of slavery. There are only 24 hours in a day and to spend 16 hours or more at work in order to keep a job is a complete denial of a right to life, or in other words a human rights violation.

The factories are also known for providing very poor living arrangements for the workers to live in through the extent of their contracts. There has been evidence found of individuals being forced to live in extremely overcrowded and dirty quarters with poor bathroom facilities. Workers and organizations all around the world have tried to push the Nike corporation to put a stop to these sweatshops, but none has prevailed. In some of the factories that Nike owns, the workers have attempted to form a union to protest the conditions of their contract, but they have never succeeded. The Nike corporations fight the unions by shutting down the factories and relocating the jobs to a different non-unionized factory (Bain). Nike has been criticized ever since the start for allowing these conditions to continue, and to this day, this problem is still

Nike was founded by Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight. The two men met when Bowerman was coaching track and field at the University of Oregon and Knight was a middle distance runner on his team. After earning an MBA from Standford, Knight returned to Oregon and approached Bowerman with an idea to bring in low priced, high-tech athletic shoes from Japan to compete in the United States athletic shoe market. With a handshake and a five hundred dollar investment by both men, Blue Ribbon Sports was born in 1964. BRS began importing shoes from Onitsuka Tiger, with Knight making sales at high school track meets and Bowerman

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

Nike is a huge supplier if athletic shoes for the world these days. Philip H. Knight, the founder of this corporation came up with an idea of an athletic shoe at the track field of the University of Oregon.

The highly recognized name brand—Nike— fails to notice the faults that are happening in factories that are violating a few disturbing rules. The company’s reputation has decreased due to demands and claims Nike; implying that they utilize sweatshops to produce more products at a lower pay. The company has been sued numerous times for abusing and exploiting their employees in factories for years. Another problem that Nike has faced throughout the years was making employees work in poor environments that affected the health of many— which contributed to being abused by the manager for not going to work. Nike distributes and sells merchandise of high quality for a high value. The company is giving the satisfaction of quality service to their

Phil Knight started a company that wasn’t even real just to make to build his real vision, which was the company Nike. After Knight graduated at Stanford he met with Bill Bowerman and they became business partners. His dad gave him a small amount of money to start his company that would later become Nike. Knight met with the company Onitsaku Tiger and told them that he wanted to sell their shoes at Blue Ribbon Sports, which wasn’t even a real company (Entrepreneur.) Knight and Bowerman began selling the shoes at high school track events across the state of Washington. After Phil Knight had made three million dollars he and Bowerman decided to cut ties with Onitsaku Tiger and started Nike. The company’s name came from the

First of all, I do not agree with how Nike clothes are made. Working for many hours and not receiving enough money to support a family is not acceptable. The people working in Tangerang, Indonesia lived in terrible conditions that couldn’t support their basic needs. They were paid close to $1.25 a day. That’s not enough to scrape by!

To combat these accusations, Nike instituted a code of conduct to prevent factory owners from forcing overtime, paying low wages, and being abusive. “Critics have charged that Nike’s Code of Conduct is minimalist and not fully enforced, claiming that posting the Code in factories where most employees are functionally illiterate and/or do not possess the power to insist on its implementation is simply window dressing” (MIT). Sweatshop workers feel they cannot rise up at risk of being fired. Managers may feel they cannot enforce some of the regulations because of deadlines and limited amounts of money. As the accusations grew, Nike established a department that oversaw the lives of the workers in their subcontracted factories. (BUSINESS) In 1997, a subcontractor of Nike in Vietnam forced 56 women to run outside until twelve of the women collapsed. These women were punished for wearing improper footwear to work. (Vietnam) Nike claims they were horrified that this happened. Some may argue that Nike could be more horrified that this report had surfaced. To assuage the demand for action, Nike created the Fair Labor Association (FLA), which has its own code of conduct to help regulate the condition in

Phil Knight and his track-and-field coach Bill Bowerman found one of the world’s well-known sports brand, Nike in 1964. With the beginning of Nike first “office” being the laundry room of Knight’s family home it has now become the biggest sports and fitness company in the world with international recognition. The vision statement of Nike as an organization was to think ahead in the long term and not to simply focus and be content with the present as described by Tom Clarke, chief executive of Nike.

The company I am presenting is Nike which was founded in 1965 by the athlete Phil Knight. Nike is a well known brand which is selling its products worldwide and has 36% of the market share.

Although Nike may be technically removed from responsibility in some areas, it clearly has the obligation to be certain that exploitation by subcontractors do not occur. Certainly the pay and working conditions that the workers of subcontractors receive is due in large part to the contract that has been negotiated by Nike. If Nike had chosen to make improved working conditions a part of the arrangement, them those benefits may have been passed on to the workers. Still, Nike is a publicly owned firm whose goal is to improve the wealth of its shareholders. The workers in these Asian countries were happy, even eager, to accept the conditions that were provided as a manufacturer of Nike. The reason is that those wages were probably equal or superior to wages available from other sources. If Nike were to leave the country because of the pressures placed upon it, the workers would undoubtedly suffer greatly.

Before Nike came into existence Nike's brand was conceptualized at the University of Oregon .at university bill Bowerman was knights track coach.. After his running days were over at university knight enrolled at the prestigious Stanford business school for his master's degree in finance. Whilst

Nike began as an enterprise in Oregon with its founder, sports enthusiast Phil Knight. In 1962, Nike started under the name Blue Ribbon Sports. During this time, the athletic shoe industry was dominated by the Adidas and Puma companies. Knight recognized there was segment of serious athletes that had specialized needs that were not being addressed by the major companies.