Stigma Of Nike

There are always two sides two a story, Nike’s is really just one large argument. The argument against is that Nike exploits it’s workers and can set the price of their products as high as they want and the argument for Nike is that it brings billions of dollars into these struggling countries, employs thousands of people, gives these people security, accommodation and food. In our countries Nike’s actions would be illegal but this is the exact reasons that they have shifted manufacturing overseas because of the fact that it is so much cheaper and efficient to produce their goods.

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.

Producing product overseas puts Nike at risk of overseas sourcing, manufacturing, and financing. Nike buys and sells to different countries using different currencies. The currency rate fluctuates very often and Nike, at times could take a loss. This is a risk most companies cannot take. Nike has the ability to produce materials, import product and sell product in international market during a time of disease outbreaks, terrorist attacks, and military conflict. With these risks there are few companies who can afford to take these risks (aflorzak.com). This also proves no new threat for Nike.

Economically, these shoes are not the cheapest kind to get, however people will continue to buy them because of the popularity and the role of the Nike shoe in society. Even the Nike symbol alone reminds people of sports and athletes. Nike has professional athletes who are admired by millions of people appear in their commercials. By doing this they are saying this person wears Nike, and that everyone else should too. This also can give the hope that if you wear this Nike shoe you will be just as good as this professional athlete that you admire.

Nike is one of the most well established companies who sponsor famous athletes that impact their buyers in a more inspirational and positive way. Although Nike has been keeping their illegal sweatshops in hiding and not revealing the truth to its consumers. Nike could solve these problems of their illegal sweatshops and fix their business image and still be one of the biggest companies.

Have you considered checking out news-related articles about them? There is actually a huge fallout going on in Nike right now. Manny Pacquiao, a boxer among other things is causing a stir with some controversial comments he made which prompted Nike to drop his contract. Just today, in fact, there was a story about his fans burning Nike shoes in protest. Sounds like a pretty serious event. Check it out here:

In 1997 it was reported by the New York Times that the manufacture plants in Vietnam were considered unsafe when it was discovered that workers were exposed to a high amount of carcinogens (Greenhouse, 2016). Exposure to Carcinogens cannot only cause respiratory problems but as well been linked to cause cancer. Many workers who worked at the plants suffered from such neglected conditions. The company faced backlash over backlash until the year 1998. Information of stakeholders ratings were not revealed because in this situation Nike did not own these factors they such worked with them. For eight years Nike did nothing to change such business habits or even accept fault for they believed it was the owners of these factories who should be held responsible. Throughout those eight years of silence Nike faced backlash by college students protesting against wearing Nike products, athletic spokesmen as well received backlash for having connection with Nike. Sales for Nike plummeted when everyone began to boycott the company.

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.

For years, Nike has been sourcing from factories that seek to meet the company 's minimum standards for good labor performance. The policy of Nike is to evaluate potential contracted factories before they enter the supply chain. Throughout their business relationship with Nike to assess compliance with high standards of social and environmental performance, including country-related risk for issues including forced labor, human trafficking and slavery Nike (n.d).

If I were dealing with the same issues that Nike experienced, I would have probably done the same thing that they did. The need to get the suppliers and factories to adhere to save and fair treatment of the employees along with a decent wage would be my first priority. To openly talk to the press, customers or whoever would listen and inform then that yes, the ball was dropped and we have problems, but we are working on correcting the problems and then outline the steps that were being taken to resolve the issues. I grew up in Oregon and have heard numerous times how the company started. I know people who work in the corporate office and Nike treats their employees in the United States very good.

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.

Nike should not be allowed to claim they are an ethical company especially when they are still outsourcing to impoverished countries in Asian. The company takes advantage of low living standards and lack of democracy in those countries. There was nonexistence of labor movements in countries like Indonesia. The government never allowed

In case which the company had done otherwise its only concern would be that of the low wages and that argument would be treated by projecting the excuse that this was the anticipated reward for this kind of work. As it is well known that in developing countries the wages are very low, in order to avoid any accusations Nike could launch a policy of providing extra benefits to its workers according to their production (for instance, coupons for buying goods from grocery shops),or rewarding them by giving a day off when a target is achieved.

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.

Nike’s CEO’s and management made a decision to begin using sweatshop labor in order to save money and begin aggressive marketing. They used this aggressive marketing to have a one up on their competitors, in fact, Nike spent 280 million dollars alone on advertising in 1994 (Schwartz, 2000). Nike would give great athletes million dollar contracts to endorse and wear their clothing. For an example, Andre Agassi received 70 million dollars to endorse Nike's tennis clothing line. The choice to start aggressive marketing is the reason why Nike entered into this crisis and started making unethical decisions. Once the top management of Nike realized the profitability and popularity of hiring professional athletes to wear and endorse their clothes, regular advertising would not suffice. The company became greedy and were willing to use cheap abusive labor so that they could pay professional athletes millions of dollars (Schwartz, 2000).