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Ethical leadership in 21st century global organizations
Ethical leadership on a global scale
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5. Discussion and Conclusion It is clear that five chosen companies all engage in the responsible supply chain management with child labour provisions in their codes of conduct and increasingly behave in similar ways. This phenomenon can be explained by isomorphism in the institutional theory, proposes by DiMaggio and Powell (1983). There are three types of isomorphism: coercive, normative, and mimetic. Coercive isomorphism is pressure from political influence and the problems of legitimacy (e.g. governmental regulations, international codes, consumer groups). Mimetic isomorphism refers to when an organisation is uncertain about what to do, this feeling encourages imitation or copying of other successful organizations (e.g. competitors receive favourable reputation through specific strategies). Normative isomorphism means an independently decided action stems from professionalization such as education and training methods and professional networks. The following section addresses institutional isomorphism to analyse the MNCs’ motivation. Levi Strauss: Normative LS&Co is a value-led business, the company’s vision, strategies and behaviour are based on its core values (Sustainability Guidebook 2013). To bring its value back to life, LS&Co starts from its employees by engaging them in local non-profit organizations to identify needs, plan activities, and create volunteer and donation opportunities (LS&Co 2014). Through charitable activities, employees can be educated to foster empathy and, change the way they do business. It is evidence that this educational programme is one of the factors that LS&Co, as early in 1991, decided to expand its responsibility to child labour issue. C&A: Normative Although few years later than LS... ... middle of paper ... ...he UK: reassessing the issues. London : Child Poverty Action Group. Schlemmer, B. and L'Institute de Recherche pour le Developpement, 2000. The Exploited Children. London : Zed. Spar, D.L., 2002. Hitting the Wall: Nike and International Labor Practices. Available from: http://www.homeworkmarket.com/sites/default/files/q/17/11/700047-pdf-eng.pdf [Accessed 24 April 2014]. Vogel, D., 2005. The market for virtue the potential and limits of corporate social responsibility. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution. Winstanley, D., Clark, J. and Leeson, H., 2002. Approaches to child labour in the supply chain. Business Ethics: A European Review, 11(3), pp.211,222 Wolfe, J.H. and Dickson, M.A., 2002. Apparel manufacturer and retailer efforts to reduce child labor: An ethics of virtue perspective on codes of conduct. Clothing and Textiles Research Journal, 20(4), pp.185.
However, there were many other violations of human rights that were not as promptly resolved. All around America, large industries began to exploit children as a cheaper alternative to adult labour. Knowing that families were struggling to survive in the extreme competitiveness of urban life and had few financial options, employers offered children jobs with extremely low rates. The employment of the youth, often referred to as “Child Slavery,” was notoriously demanding for young children (“The 1930s”). Due to the lack of sufficiently supportive jobs, families were forced to send off their children to supplement the household income.
Rosen, Sonia A., Jaffe, Maurren, & Perez-Lopez, Jorge. (1997). The Apparel Industry and Codes of Conduct: A Solution to the International Child Labor Problems. Upland, PA: Diane.
Shah, Anup. "Child Labor." - Global Issues. Anup Shah, 17 July 2005. Web. 26 Nov. 2013. .
Many children in these Third World countries have no other option but to go to work and help support their families. Otherwise they are left to survive for themselves on the streets ruled by crime and danger. Cathy Young strengthens this point by saying, “Some children, left with no other means of earning a living, may even be forced into prostitution.” Yes, to most people, working in a sweat shop does not seem like a good option but for some it is the only one so why get rid of it.
The expectation that businesses behave responsibly and positively contribute to society all while pursuing their economic goals is one that holds firm through all generations. Stakeholders, both market and nonmarket, expect businesses to be socially responsible. Many companies have responded to this by including this growing expectation as part of their overall business operations. There are companies in existence today whose sole purpose is to socially benefit society alongside businesses who simply combine social benefits with their economic goals as their company mission. These changes in societal expectations and thus company purpose we’ve seen in the business community over time often blurs the line of what it means to be socially responsible, how far a company should go to achieve this and just how much it should cost.
By the end one should be able to understand why child labor is in violation of human rights and should not be accepted and what is currently being done to put an end to it. Many people want to put an end to this plight, but they feel overwhelmed by the complications and the enormity of it that it becomes difficult to find a the right way to tackle it. There have been many implications that have succeeded in aiding this predicament and enabled progress to be ma...
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.
Based upon the situation some specific sectors where the practice of child labor is taking place. Depending upon the economic conditions of a country, and other external factors, some families could be faced with the prospect of starvation if their child is not earning some income to ensure the survival of the family. One question that is raised early in the analysis of child labor is, is child labor categorically wrong? The practice of child labor was a long standing institution in many western European countries, and had a general glint of acceptance. It was only in the nineteenth century that we find the rise of the contemporary ideal of childhood emerge, and the wave of anti child labor sentiment reach a stage where it faded away ...
Child labor is common in agriculture, domestic service, the sex industry, the carpet and textile industries, quarrying and brick making in countries in Asia and Africa (IPEC, 1). Employers in these industries buy children from their debtors or through the labor contractors (1). Sometimes children work to help pay off a loan incurred by the family (Grootaert, 2; IPEC, 1). In some cases the parents give their children to outsiders to work without pay in exchange for better living conditions in wealthy houses (IPEC, 1). Child labor also results from the system of apprenticeship, in which a child is sent to work to learn a trade. But actually they work more than they learn (Grootaert, 5).
Child Labor is not an isolated problem. The phenomenon of child labor is an effect of economic discrimination. In different parts of the world, at different stages of histories, laboring of child has been a part of economic life. More than 200 million children worldwide, some are as young as 4 and 5 years old, are slaves to the production line. These unfortunate children manufacture shoes, matches, clothing, rugs and countless other products that are flooding the American market and driving hard-working Americans out of jobs. These children worked long hours, were frequently beaten, and were paid a pittance. In 1979, a study shows more than 50 million children below the age of 16 were considered child labor (United Nation labors agency data). In 1998, according to the Campaign for Labor rights that is a NGO and United Nation Labor Agency, 250 million children around the world are working in farms, factories, and household. Some human rights experts indicate that there are as many as 400 million children under the age of 15 are performing forced labor either part or full-time under unsafe work environment. Based upon the needs of the situation, there are specific areas of the world where the practice of child labor is taking place. According to the journal written by Basu, Ashagrie gat...
So I believe that the issue of child labour is not simple. As Unicef’s 1997 State of the World’s Children Report argued, children’s work needs to be seen as having two extremes. On one hand, there is the destructive or exploitative work and, on the other hand, there is beneficial work - promoting or enhancing children’s development without interfering with their schooling, recreation and rest. ‘And between these two poles are vast areas of work that need not negatively affect a child’s development.’ My firm belief is that there is a difference between child labour and child work and that in both cases the issue is whether or not the child is deliberately being exploited.
During the last couple of years businesses all over the world have tried to improve labour standards in order to clean up their image in the western world and to improve living conditions in the places where the bad practices are employed. The majority of these companies have been using the so called compliance model to combat this - a company would create a voluntary code of conduct for the suppliers used to outsource production. Then their progress would be monitored to see whether the supplier follows this code of conduct. The next step in this model is to create a correction a plan – a series of actions that the buyer would demand from the supplier. Richard Locke describes this as “police mechanism”.
Child Labor had begun around the era of the Industrial Revolution. As the world was becoming more dependent on the workings of machines and all of the advancements the revolution was bringing along, more workers had to be employed in these massive factories in order to keep them running, and to handle smaller day-to-day tasks. Children around the ages of four or five would be found working in these factories, the conditions in these factories were incredibly dangerous, and much of the time, fatal. Looking at child labor in this way, many countries have deemed it a...
Globalization has brought with it both threats to and opportunities for better global governance, regulation and multi-agency work aimed at reducing the risks and impacts to vulnerable groups around the world. One such group is children, and one way in which they are vulnerable is through exploitative labour.
Child labour is an issue that has plagued society since the earliest of times. Despite measures taken by NGOs as well as the UN, child labour is still a prevalent problem in today’s society. Article 23 of the Convention on the Rights of a Child gives all children the right to be protected from economic exploitation and from performing any work that is likely to be hazardous or to interfere with the child 's education, or to be harmful to the child 's health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development.1 Child labour clearly violates this right as well as others found in the UDHR. When we fail to see this issue as a human rights violation children around the world are subjected to hard labour which interferes with education, reinforces