Nike Case Analysis

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).

NIKE, Inc., is a company that was founded in by William Jay Bowerman and Philip H. Knight in 1964, and was originally called Blue Ribbon Sports, Inc. It’s name was changed to Nike, Inc. in 1971. It’s base of operation is located in Beaverton, Oregon. NIKE, Inc., is the world’s leading designer, marketer and distributor of authentic athletic footwear, apparel, equipment and accessories for a wide variety of sports and fitness activities worldwide. Entirely owned Nike subsidiaries include Converse Inc., a brand that develops, advertises, and sells athletic apparel and accessories; and also Hurley International LLC, which designs, markets and sells surf and youth lifestyle clothing and many different accessories. Its athletic footwear products are designed primarily for specific athletic use, although a large percentage of the products are worn for casual or leisure purposes. Nike offers products in many different categories such as men’s/women’s training, running, basketball, golf, and more. The company also sells products designed for children and youth athletic activities such as baseball, cricket, lacrosse, outdoor activities, football, tennis, volleyball, walking, and wrestling. Also, Nike sells sports apparel and accessories; and markets apparel with licensed college and professional team and league logos. Further, it sells a line of performance equipment and accessories, including sports bags, balls, eyewear, digital devices, bats, gloves, protective equipment, golf

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

Similarly, Nike’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices were in question. Truly, their CSR was insufficient and lacked in moral obligation to the communities in which they operated. Conversely, supervisors in the overseas factories were just trying to ensure they met production goals and kept costs low so Nike would continue to do business with them (Nisen, 2013). As a result, Nike expanded their compliance staff, invested in the training of staff and overseas suppliers, developed additional auditing protocols, hired third-party auditors to check their internal audits, and spent millions of dollars to improving working conditions in overseas factories who made Nike products (Locke, 2013). According to a case study, “Nike auditors and compliance staff to be serious, hardworking, and moved by genuine concern for workers and their rights” (Locke, 2013, p.

The clothing and shoe giant Nike has managed to turn its image around. Nike Has not fully achirvrd its goal in bringing factories into line,but there's no denying that the company executed one of the greatest image was being wuestion in regards to unethical desicions of using swaet_shops.In 1996 that would change thayt,by Nike estbalishing a department tasked with improving the lives off factory workers.the,in 1997 more allegations emereged and college students around the nUnited states began protesting the company.In 1998 Nike faces weak demand and nrelenting criticism.it has lay of workers,and begins to realizes it needs to change.the real shift would begin in1999 when Nike begun to create the Fair labor asscoation.also in 2005Nike publishes

This criticism of Nike is not warranted because they have adopted numerous practices to change the working conditions of workers at subcontractor factories (Bixjournals.com, 2013). Although this article looks at the 25-year mark that began sweatshop reports, Nike continues to monitor and report on corporate responsibility (Nike, Inc., 2017). Nike led the charge in fair working conditions as many companies took advantage of lower labor costs overseas.

In his 1998 speech, he takes a strong stance against their previous practices by stating: ''The Nike product has become synonymous with slave wages, forced overtime and arbitrary abuse, I truly believe that the American consumer does not want to buy products made in abusive conditions.'' (Cushman, John H). This appeal to emotion highlights the utterly appalling conditions of the overseas factories, and then contrasts it with the strong morals and character that the American people possess. This is effective in convincing the listener that Nike has taken full responsibility for their actions and they are—completely and utterly—dedicated to making a change. Their target audience is primarily made up of activists and individuals troubled by the issue of sweatshops; so the encouragement of their concern and the implication that Nike will strive to become a company deserving of their business strikes a major chord. Even Ballinger, the reporter who had originally documented the abuses occurring in Indonesia, praised the speech as “a very significant statement… I really, really believe that they are going to get after that problem.” (Cushman, John

Nike is a athletic apparel company that has been in and out of the spotlight because of some of its oversea practices that people have a social and ethical issue with. These oversea practices would be its manufacturing. Though Nike does not own their manufacturing plants, because they sublease the work out to independently owned manufactures, they are willingly working with companies that are ethically and morally wrong. Many people have stated that these independently owned factories are creating sweatshops. These sweatshops have practices that include underage workers, underpaid workers, and overall unethical treatment of workers. Nike is willingly participating with these companies to make a profit, but not to be socially responsible. The issues that conflict in this case is that Nike is a U.S. based company but all of its manufacturing and unethical acts take place overseas in Indonesia, Vietnam, China, and Thailand. Nike is supporting these unethical acts that are classified as illegal or morally wrong in the U.S. but not in these other countries. In these other countries there is a very low labor cost which means Nike can give employees next to nothing while they stuff their pockets making millions. The major issue that the case address is are these practices ethical and/or legal. Other sub-issues would be are other groups or individuals for or against sweatshop ethically or morally right? For example Andrew Young, was

This is particularly important for a company like Nike, which is facing significant pressures from consumers and stakeholders to show high levels of corporate responsibility, whilst also under significant market pressure to be cost competitive and to ensure that it can still compete in difficult economic conditions. It is expected that the mainstream CSR and business ethics theories will not be directly applicable to Nike due to its specific and high profile market position, and if this is the case then the research will make a significant contribution to the literature in this area.

Nike corporation had a reported revenue of $20,900,000,000 with profits of $2,100,000,000 (Keady, 2011). To obtain this cash flow, worldwide Nike is noted for employing 1,000,000 workers in 1,000 factories in fifty-two countries (Keady, 2011). Adding to this idea of worker exploitation, it is reported in Nike’s corporate responsibility report in 2005 that 25% to 50% of Nike’s overseas factories that workers experienced physical, verbal, sexual, and psychological abuse (Keady, 2011). In 50% to 100% of those factories, work hours exceeded Nike’s code of conduct (Keady, 2011). Finally, in 10% to 25% of those same factories, the wage was also reported inaccurately (Keady, 2011). It is important to understand that commodity fetishism is at play

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

One of the ethical standards is employment practice, which pertains to ensuring that the company adheres to policies regarding the health, recruitment and safety of its employees (Newey 196). This way, Nike has been able to fix the labor practices issues in contract factories making Nike products. The other ethical standard is addressing the key environmental concerns that are as a result of the company’s continued existence. For example, Nike has been aiming at reducing the discharge of hazardous chemicals. Nonetheless, this might take time given that the company has to invest in innovation as well as research and development. Nike’s mission and corporate social responsibility is also premised on community investment as well as engagement. This is where the company engages in activities that aim at giving back to the community. An example is increasing access to sports for the disadvantaged youth. In addition, Nike is also determined to increase transparency and corporation with the outside world. The major stakeholder is the customer. For Nike, the customers have a top priority because they have a direct impact on the company’s revenues (O’Toole and Mayer 89). The major customer’s interest that Nike has to conform to is ensuring that it provides high quality products at reasonable prices. In fact, this is why Nike has heavily invested in research and development. The other interest of the customer is to see to it that the company acknowledges and adheres to the axioms of

The Pou Chen factory is located in a place where the minimum wage is far below the national average. It has 10,000 workers who make Converse sneakers. Most of the workers are women, and they earn only 50 cents an hour. The amount that they earn is not even enough to cover their food and very poor housing. In this factory, the women are both physically and verbally abused. Nike’s own investigations have proved these complaints to be true. The company made a statement saying that immediate actions would be taken to deal with the situation. It is interesting to note that, “an internal Nike report, released to the Associated Press after it inquired about the abuse, showed that nearly two-thirds of 168 factories making Converse products worldwide failed to meet Nike’s own standards for contract manufacturers. Twelve are in the most serious category, ranging from illegally long work hours to

Report on the Case Study Nike This report has been produced to provide an insight into the consumer decision-making process, buyer behaviour factors that consumers of Nike are influenced by. The report also details recommendations based on the findings. 2.0 Summary = =

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.”