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Ethical issues in multinational corporations across the globe
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Many Multinational Corporations (MNC’s) and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGO’s) face significant ethical and social responsibility dilemmas. Discuss the variety of strategies and business practices that MNC’s and NGO’s may utilise in order to maximise success in the newly global environment. You should seek to provide specific MNC and NGO examples to support your answer Ethical and Social Issues on Sweatshops Ethical and social responsible conduct of Multinational Corporation is vital in strategic management. Multinational companies such as Nike, Reebok, Adidas, Levis and Puma are only few of the Multinational Corporation who uses sweatshops in order to maximise profit. Nike who owns 40% of the market share was established in 1964 by Phil Knight and Bowerman. The issue of Nike is almost similar to the other clothing companies mentioned above. For Nike, in the earlier years, the company became well known in providing lighter footwear to sport runners. Knight sold shoes out of the trunk of his car while Bowerman continue to find ways on how their products can provide a competitive advantage to athletes. Through the years Nike products continued to evolved and expand its product line. The company was able to gain huge market share because of its attractive design and technology combined with its traditional strategy “big athlete, big ad, big product formula” (Nike, 2014). Like for example, Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods are only two of Nike’s huge product endorsers that brought billions of dollars to the company and its shareholders (Nike, 2014). The success of Nike’s advertisement has depended on the company’s capability to attract its target audience. To maximise Nike’s profit, the company have to explore ways on how the... ... middle of paper ... ...etting the support they need. Supporters asked the founder of the NGO and denied the accusation. This non profit organization is facing law suits today for the children to get what they deserve. In an Individualism point of view we can say that Integrated Rural Development Centre is ethical because they are trying their best to get funds in their supporters in order to fund their projects. However, In a Utilitarianism point of view we can argue that this non profit organisation is unethical because the funds of the organization are not being use properly instead they are being use for the personal expense of the founder. The same with the Kantianism theory, this non profit organization is not consistent and irrational as the funds are not properly used. It does not promote goodwill as well because there were proof that corruption is exists in the organization.
Since its creation, Nike has proven itself as a popular brand and it has created niches by selling products such as footwear, apparels and various types of sports equipment. This paper will attempt to trace the product development of Nike shoes from its origins in conception and design to the manufacturing and production process located in contract factories in developing countries to advertising and marketing of Nike as a cultural commodity and finally, the retailing of the footwear around the world.
Nike publicizes itself as one of the leading industries in corporate responsibility. However, they do not comply with several human rights obligations overseas in countries like Thailand, Pakistan, China, Vietnam and Indonesia. In these countries, production facilities called sweatshops have been running for almost 35 years employing workers as young as 13 years of age. The conditions of these factories are adverse to say the least and deprive workers of the moral human rights they should be entitled to. Sweatshops are unethical, immoral and demonstrate Nike’s ignorance towards their social responsibilities abroad. Within these facilities, workers endure stressfully long days under undesirable conditions, often with no breaks and very little pay. While this is going on overseas, sponsored athletes are being paid million dollar salaries here in North America. Although Nike’s reputation has been foiled through the tabloids regarding this issue, they have been making a substantial effort to “clean up” production messes in the East.
This paper will give a brief introduction about the history of Nike Sweatshops which will shed the light on their public image and their manufacturing process. It will further move to the suggested alternatives, what facts impact them, their stakeholder and their impact on the economic as well as social basis. In the end, it will discuss if the given choices are legal and ethical or not.
...rible situations for people who do not have the laws like U.S. workers have. Even though NIKE has implemented different methods to improve the companies’ image, there have still been many reports that show there has not been much change at all. At a net worth of 67 billion dollars and expected to grow, loyal customers is what allows this multi billion dollar company to grow in profit, the only way there will be an impact on those working in NIKE sweatshops is if today’s society takes action.
Nike has always been a company that's been questioned ethically. People have heard about the stories of the sweatshops in Southeast Asia exploiting adolescent employees for unreasonably small amounts of money. This had blemished Nike’s reputation several years ago, but since then, it has strived to become a truly respectable company. Located on Nike's website you can find Phil Knight's credo about ethics. It is as follows:
Nike does not merely sell products these days. They spend billions of dollars for advertising contracts with famous athletes like Tiger Woods to increase the value of the brand by associating the factor of lifestyle to their products. The company's image has been damaged many times by press releases as well as a variety of NGOs who have long pointed out the inhumane working conditions in the production facilities of sporting goods manufacturers. This leads to the question whether should Nike orientate the regulations of the suppliers to the labor standards in their respective countries or those in the United States? The labor conditions are so inhumane that Nike at least should try to converse to the US standard to improve the situation. The following analysis of an abstract of Nikes’ Responsibility Concept, including SHAPE and their Code of Conduct, should give an insight into the difficulties of the Sweatshops.
Phil Knight started his shoe company by selling shoes from the back of his car. As he became more successful in 1972 he branded the name Nike. In the 1980’s Nike Corporation quickly grew and established itself as a world leader in manufacturing and distributing athletic footwear and sports' attire. The Nike manufacturing model has followed is to outsource its manufacturing to developing nations in the Asia Pacific, Africa, South and Latin Americas; where labor is inexpensive. It quickly became known for its iconic “swoosh” and “Just do it” advertisements and products. Its highly successful advertising campaigns and brand developed its strong market share and consumer base. But, the road has not always been easy for Nike; in the late 1990’s they went through some challenging times when their brand become synonymous with slave wages and child labor abuses. During this period, Nike learned that it paramount that the company understands its stakeholders’ opinions and ensures their values are congruent with their stakeholders. Nike learned that their stakeholders were concerned with more than buying low cost products; their customers were also concerned with ethical and fair treatment of their workers. Because Nike was unwilling to face the ethical treatment of its employees, the company lost its loyal customers and damaged its reputation. Nike has bounced back since the late 1990’s and revived its reputation by focusing on its internal shortfalls and attacking its issues head on. Nike nearly collapsed from its missteps in the late 1990’s. They have learned from their mistakes and taken steps to quickly identify ethical issues before they become a crisis through ethics audits. This paper is based on the case study of Nike: From Sweatsh...
manufacturing products overseas, specifically in Bangladesh. The focal point of the article was how Nike was attempting to achieve the lowest possible manufacturing costs while still maintaining worker safety and producing high-quality products. Both consequences and benefits of manufacturing in foreign companies was discussed in the article. In addition to how manufacturing costs affect the financial outlook of the company, the article addressed how having factories in less-developed countries has an impact on public opinion of Nike.
As we can see in the essay, “The Noble Feat of Nike” by Johan Norberg, the globalization of companies like Nike isn’t all bad. There is some positive light to it, for example, the fact that workers are finally making enough money to live a decent life and send their children to school. In addition to this, workers are guaranteed jobs and don’t have to endure the tough labor of working on farms in the harsh weather conditions. So from these effects we can conclude that the globalization of Nike in third world countries like Nike isn’t a disadvantage to these workers, in fact it serves as an advantage.
With the increasing awareness and publicity of poor working conditions in subcontracted factories in East Asia, Nike has stimulated an uprising of activist and watchdog groups working toward seeing these conditions changed. With Nike in the negative spotlight, various organizations have revolved around generating a negative outlook on Nike’s practices of social irresponsibility. Certain campaigns such as the “National Days of Consciousness” and “International Day of Protest” were organized to educate people on the deplorable working conditions in Nike’s Asian manufacturing plants, and were designed to get more people involved in global employment issues.
This investment can be from a number of different things, however for the Nike Company, they should worry more about focusing on a Kantian Traditional view. To do this first, they must attempt to diminish the unfair treatment accusations of their overseas employees and begin to respect the dignity of each individual human being. Second, acting according to those rules that can be universally agreed on by all people will tremendously aid in the investment of employees and consumers. Third and last, Nike must treat all people as an end in themselves and never as a mean to their own ends, which is where their ethical issues were rooted from in the first place. Nike has made a significant turnaround in their image and practices over the past couple decades.
Nike is the number one innovator in the world in athletic footwear, apparel, equipment, and accessories. This worldwide company operates in an extremely different organizational structure than other companies, such as Reebok and Adidas. Nike operates tremendous marketing strategies and develops inventive designs to inspire athletes around the world. This company is one of the largest suppliers in the world in athletic footwear and apparel, main producer of sports equipment, and making Nike the most valuable brand among sports companies. The task for Nike is to join diversity and inclusion to encourage ideas and innovation. Around the world, this company is a popular brand.
Nowadays, there are so many famous sportswear companies that exist in the market globally, which make people have more product varieties that they can choose. In addition, most of those companies have become very important for its host countries, in terms of supporting their economic development. Yet, the existence of those companies can also possibly bring some problems to the host countries, as well as negatively affect the countries’ people (Pettinger, 2008). In order to explain it better, the existence of Adidas in Indonesia is used in this report to give more information about what makes Adidas becomes a successful company in the world, as well as providing problems that Adidas has in Indonesia.
This project concentrates on the Nike Sports shoe; Nike is one of most significant shoe manufacturing company worldwide. Sportswear manufactured by Nike is known for quality and is most liked brand of athletes. (Daniel, 2011)
The problem that was investigated consisted of a question that Milton Friedman posed in one of his articles, which was featured in The New York Times Magazine in 1970. The question was, “What does it mean to say that “business” has responsibilities” (Friedman, 2007, p. 173)? Friedman (1970) elaborated on how businesses cannot have assigned responsibilities. Furthermore, he described how groups or individuals should be the only ones that can hold responsibilities, not businesses. He stated that associating responsibilities with the word business is too ambiguous. I will examine three discussion questions and three compare and contrast questions which Jennings (2009) posed in a case study that is related to Friedman’s (1970) article “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits”.