Nike-Case Study

Nike-Case Study

Nike's Failure to Address Corporate Social Responsibility Early

Corporate sustainable development, corporate sustainability, and corporate citizenship are frequently overlapped with the term corporate social responsibility. Lack of Overseas operations of Nike was the main reason due to which it failed to address the corporate social responsibility. Earlier Nike ignored the claims made by the workers on the basis that they do not own the overseas operations. Company further argued that they even did not hire the employees working in factories overseas (Ferrel et al., 2013). On the basis of these facts company just sidelined and did not accept the wrong doing and any other unfavorable working conditions posed on the workers overseas.

Moreover, the management of the company limited their response regarding the corporate social responsibility. In other words, the management of the company believed that they only owe the liability of their shareholder but not the other stakeholders of the company. This is why they did not respond favorably regarding the diluted working conditions of the workers. From time to time, Nike has been criticized due to child labor, poor working conditions, abuse, harassment and few other allegations.

Sweatshop Labor

The other reason why Nike realized later the claims made by the workers is the low cost strategy adoption. Low cost strategy of Nike was seemed to be one of reason regarding the improper working condition of the labor. This is because the low cost strategy focuses on low-cost production, and this ultimately is linked with the manufacturing. Similarly, the manufacturing is associated with the factories and the labors are working in the factories. Keeping in the view the overseas factories which were mostly planted in the Asian countries, one can analyze the strategy of Nike of low cost production by involving the cheap labor in the production. So, the Asian countries are already tagged as the countries with cheaper labor.

Other important factors which are associated with these countries include the weak labor laws, hostile work environments; excessive working hours, child labor, and much other unethical decision are the common practices in the Asian countries. Hence, collectively these were the reasons which supported the earlier stand of Nike. However, the strong international law and the movement against Nike's practices forced it to change their strategy in these countries.

Evaluation of Nike's Response to Concerns

If we will evaluate the response of Nike, it can be said that the response ...