Ethical and Social Responsibility Issues at Nike

As such, it applied cultural relativism to justify the use of child labor, unsafe labor practices, and near slave labor in its factories. Since then, Nike has been a driving force to ensure fair labor practices across the apparel industry. In 1999, Nike was a key contributor to the establishment of the Fair Labor Association, an organization that is “…dedicated to protecting workers’ rights around the world” (Fair Labor Association, 2016). Today, Nike continues efforts to ensure that contract factories comply with its Code of Conduct to improve labor standards in overseas factories (Nike, 2016). Because of Nike’s efforts to expand and enforce social responsibility at its factories and given the lessons learned from its sordid past, it is unlikely that Nike would resort to any of the straw men fallacies. However, given the pressure by investors to expect solid returns, one hopes the company continues its altruistic social responsibility efforts while veering away from the Friedman Doctrine and its assertion that “… the only social responsibility of business is to increase profits” (Hill, 2011).

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.

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

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.

As a leading company in footwear industry, Nike believes they have the responsibility to conduct their business in an ethical way and also expects the same of its business partners. Moreover, Nike focuses on working with long-term, strategic suppliers that demonstrate a commitment a safe working conditions to their employees (Nike, Inc., 2014).

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.

1. A decision to retain an in-house arm of agency Weiden & Kennedy by Nike exemplify the concept of organizational design by allowing Nike use the agency’s creative designers to focus solely on Nike work, giving them un-parallel access to executives, researchers and anyone else who might provide Nike advertisers with their next inspiration for marketing greatness before listening to any other organization. Having the agency in the building is having them at their disposal at anytime they need them and also the agency will have to consider them first incase of any new ad or good idea discovered by the agency or when Nike needs to salvage a problem with the help of the agency. Thus, the agency at their finger-tips serves great advantages

This case was about the struggles with sustainability with in Nike as well as the fashion industry. Greenpeace came out and slandered Nike, Adidas, Puma, and several other fashion designers for pollution resulting in the manufacturing process of their products. There are several chemicals used in the process of manufacturing clothing and shoes. Several chemicals are also used in the Dying process. Although these facility are 3rd parties and these locations are not used by Nike it has fallen on them along with their competitors to reduce pollution with in the manufacturing process.

American business should not be permitted to claim it is an ethical firm if it ignores unethical practices by its international suppliers. For the purpose of this assignment I will use the Nike Company to highlight its unethical practices. Despite the popularity of Nike in the American market, it has been accused of exploiting employees abroad. The corporate social responsibility stipulates that a company should maximize its profit and minimizes its cost in operations and manufacturing, also at the same time benefit the community it operates in. This paper will further elaborate on the global strategy employed by Nike Company as it outsources its goods and the unethical issues its

Based on the four methods of ethical reasoning (see Figure 3), we are able to analyse Nike’s behaviour.

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.

Nike’s management understands how important a relevant strategy is in the global environment, as Don Blair, Nike’s CFO, stated “...we are refocusing our efforts, increasing our investments in innovation, using our voice for stronger advocacy and looking at how we incubate new, scalable business models that enable us to thrive in a sustainable economy.”