Nike: Cross-Cultural Perspective

Nike is one of the world’s largest producers, marketers, and sellers of athletic footwear, apparel, equipment, and accessories. The company manufactures Nike products in 142 factories across 15 countries. Most of its product is manufactured in foreign nations, including Vietnam, China, and Indonesia, followed by Argentina, India, Brazil, and Mexico (Nike, 2016). In 1991, activist Jeff Balling raised national concern over Nike’s business practices in Indonesia. In a Harper’s Bazaar expose in 1992, Balling called out Nike for using an Indonesian subcontractor who paid workers 14 cents an hour, while working in dismal factory conditions. The report created a near-immediate backlash against Nike, which continued until 1998, when Nike CEO,

Three key issues contributed to the disappointing sales. First, internal organizational challenges prohibited the growth of the line. Rigid

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

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

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

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

The company Nike operates in over 50 different companies. This makes them a very large global company. Nike makes all kinds of products including gym shoes, clothing and apparel, equipment and accessories. “In 2004, Nike products were manufactured by more than 800 suppliers, employing over 600,000 workers in 51 countries” (Locke, Kochan, Romis & Qin, 2007, p. 6). Nike came under fire because of their workers that work outside the United States. In other countries, labor laws are unlike those within the United States. Large corporations often exploit the fact that they can pay laborers significantly less outside of the United States. Companies may also provide less than favorable working conditions to its labor force outside of the United States.

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.

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.

Apparel and shoe manufacturers continued to offload the more costly yet easily replicated part so their business models to concentrate on brand building, marketing, sales and attaining greater distribution channels globally. These are the pressures all apparel and shoe manufacturers face, and it is particularly challenging in the athletic show industry (Kynge, 2009). Adidas, Converse, Nike and Reebok have been outsourcing production of their shoes for in some cases nearly three decades. Nike was one of the leaders in this strategy, seeing to create a more efficient supply chain and also drop the labor and union costs of manufacturing in the U.S. (Boje, Khan, 2009). Adidas, Converse and Reebok have all followed Nike's lead, with Adidas benefitting from the fall-out generated when investigate reports showed Nike using child labor throughout Pakistan and Vietnam (Boje, Khan, 2009). All four of these companies share a common prioritization of manufacturing operations, yet none of them with the exception of Nike has a comprehensive Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program in place to ensure ethical compliance to global standards of outsourcing in their industry (Nike Investor Relations, 2012). The intent of this analysis is to compare and contrast the four companies mentioned and their outsourcing practices. Their reasons for choosing to outsource are very much the same; the industry is shrinking

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.

Nike began as Phil Knight’s semester-long project to develop a small business, which included a marketing plan. This project was part of Phil Knight’s MBA course at Stanford University in the early 1960s. Phil Knight had been a runner at the University of Oregon in the late 1950s. His idea for his project was to develop high quality running shoes. He thought that high quality/low cost products could be produced in Japan and then shipped to the United States to be sold at a profit. His professor thought that Knight’s idea was interesting, but not much more than a project.

Mythology to society is just ancient past, but essentially it’s not. It’s thriving and very alive. Take a trip to your local mall and check the footwear department of any sporting store and there you’ll find the goddess. The name Nike characterizes the goddess who exemplified victory on the battlefield. In retrospect, if persons were asked the name Nike, Greek mythology is least expected to arise. The name Nike is now renowned as the most iconic brands around the globe. Though, not many people know the story it all began selling shoes from the trunk of a car. The crazy idea that emanated from Phil Knight that grew to become the global phenomenon today. This study will give insight into the creation, growth, and evolution of Nike.

Firstly Nike sold its franchise licenses in different countries expanding the market share in sports wear industry, and then the company moved towards purchasing shares in equity to reduce the risk uncertainty. Finally the company managed to bring the dealers’s corporation under one direction enabling them a better control and monitoring capabilities. Nike is making new policies, analyzing the performance of marketing and advertising with the standards they have set to make sure that the company is in line with its required its standards in addition; company is moving towards improving its advertisement in order to make it more effective in different regions. Nike has also faced different issues while internationalizing the business, such as capabilities, access, finance and business environment; unavailability of trained workers, limited information about the market, inability of contacting foreign customers and new business environments describes these issues on a vast ground.