Free Critiques Of Environmental And Ethical Decisions Essay Example

Over the years, Nike Inc. has grown tremendously because of globalization, innovation, and technology. Nike Inc. is a company that was started in 1964 and has been in business since 1972. It is believed to have started from a handshake and agreement between Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman who is the track coach at the Oregon University. The company takes pride in being an ethical company. In addition, Nike Inc. takes the priority of placing their responsibility to their internal and external stakeholders. The company is known to spend a great fortune and time ensuring that they are fulfilling their ethical duty as a company and maintaining the highest standards in the market and integrity. According to the company, they have a great opportunity to gain profitable growth and to drive a competitive advantage in the market. Nike Inc. is a universal sports name in wear and equipment.
Nike Inc. has one of the biggest global supply chains that connects and influences people around the globe. It has become a global sports name in equipment and wear and it is known for hiring renowned athletes to advertise most of their products. Even though their products have been able to satisfy their clients, Nike has been on the spotlight for a number of unethical practices. Nike was accused of violating the human rights. In addition, the company has been accused of acting slowly on unethical issues reported to them from their overseas facilities. In the year 1996, Nike was accused of inequitable labor practices, child labor, safety and health issues, unreasonable work hours, sweat shops, and iniquitous wages to employees. The most lingering environmental issue for Nike Company is the sweat shop problem. From then onwards, Nike had a number of ethical issues; for instance in Vietnam there was the violation of working hours and minimum wage. In addition, there was the use of child labor in Cambodia and Malaysia in addition to forced labor. Nonetheless, the company took full responsibility by recognizing their inherent social responsibilities. According to Dutton, “The company took immediate steps to correct the situation, implementing a code of social responsibility throughout its supply chain that improved working conditions for some 800,000 employees at 700 factories in 52 countries” (Dutton, 2012). The company took an ethical responsibility as a global organization and took care of the ethical issues that were arising in their overseas amenities.
Every company has its own ethical and environmental dilemmas. Nike Inc. is a global firm with many facilities around the globe and millions of employees and suppliers. Therefore, ethical dilemmas are issues multinational company like Nike has to face every years. Nonetheless, Nike should not put the benefits of the corporation ahead of the employees’ wellbeing because they are the most important assets for the firm. Nike is facing a dilemma of poor working conditions and environment for its workers. In addition, most of the Nike workers in many nations complain of low wages which is one thing that should be addressed by Nike. As a multi-national company, Nike should take action against these ethical dilemmas to ensure that, the company does not face the same problems in the future. The poor environment dilemma affects the reputation of the company as well as the quality of their products (Conner, 2001). Therefore, it is vital for the organization through its leadership to find appropriate strategies to handle these problems.
In order to handle these issues, Nike should take an advantage of business ethics and improve their brand image. This can be done by focusing on activities that can help he firm improve its organizational identity and the image of their employees. Improving their leadership or rather human resource will help rebrand the company and bring an end to the above mentioned ethical issues. When the company has good leadership that provides good working conditions for its employees, there will be no complains for the public. In addition, the company should focus on the interest of the community regarding the environment for its smooth running. Today, Nike has taken a corporate social responsibility, to clean up its image. In addition, Nike has taken an ethical and an environmental conscious decision to build their customers trust in their products and their company. This is evident because, it was named one of the Top Socially Responsible brands by young adults. Nike is on the fore front in the use of green products, donating to charity, and utilizing fair labor practices to its workers compared to the controversies they were involved in a few years back. In addition, they have introduced the re-use shoe policy whereby they take athletes used shoes and recycle them into new superior performance gears (Greenhouse, 2000). Moreover, they recycle polyester and plastic bottles thus keeping the environment clean and safe. With the re-use and recycle policy, Nike has become an environment friendly company by making sure that they use materials that can be recycled again into new products.
The Nike leadership is doing a great job by making the firm a number pone environmental friendly company despite its previous controversies. After being labeled as forcing children into labor, and a harsh working conditions company, Nike made a mistake of denying the ownership of the companies in overseas. As a result, there were many protests from the workers and the human rights activists who criticized Nike Inc. for taking advantage of their overseas workers and making them work in a destructive environment (Marks, 2013). Nike later on realized that they have made mistake and have made tremendous leaps to correct their mistakes. However, despite the controversy, Nike was able to deal with the legal consequences and fix their damages as a company by creating a reputation. The Nike leadership created a new code of ethics which had to be followed by all Nike stores (Nike, 2008). The company has created a Board of Directors that is responsible for corporate authority in compliance with legal requirements and the interests of our shareholders.
In conclusion, Nike Inc. is a global corporation with a number of facilities around the globe. Nike will always remain a hot subject matter just like any other multi-national company who uses overseas companies to make their products. However, despite their critics, Nike has a positive approval ranking from many of their overseas businesses. Nike was involved in unethical dilemmas with their overseas companies which affected their reputation. Even though they never dealt with the situation in the right was, Nike was able to earn its reputation back after some years of controversy. Over the years, Nike has been able to build a better relationship with their overseas factories and contractors. They were able to build up a Corporate Responsibility Board to guarantee the regulation of policies and laboring laws. In addition, Nike has improved its labors to be more ethical and to keep their business and work ethics proficient. Their main goal was to improve their affiliation with their consumers and to make them value their products one again and this has been done over the past few years.

References

Nike. (2008). Ethics and Conduct. Retrieved from Nikebiz: ity"http://www.nikebiz.com/crreport/content/about/1-4-3-ethics-and-conduct.php?cat=governance-accountability.
Dutton, G. (2012). How Nike is Changing the World, One Factory at a Time. Retrieved from
me/"http://ethisphere.com/how-nike-is-changing-the-world-one-factory-at-a-time/
Marks, K. (2013, January 15). Nike supplier ‘Resisting Pay Rises' in Indonesia.
Retrieved from utm"http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/nike-supplier-resisting-pay-rises-in-indonesia-8452946.html?utm
Conner, T. (2001). "Still Waiting for Nike to Do It." Global Exchange. Retrieved from http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/sweatshops/nike/faq.html.pf (25 Jan. 2004).
Greenhouse S. (2000, April 25). Nike’s Chief Cancels a Gift Over Monitor of Sweatshops. The New York Times.  Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2000