Ethical Dilemma Report on Nike Corporation Paper Example

Nike is an American company and a brand that is one of the leading players in sports materials, apparel, accessories, athletic footwear, and services. It's brand products involve Nike basketball, the Jordan brand, football, sportswear, Men, and women training, etc. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a body that ensures that companies conduct their businesses in an ethical manner (Micheal, 2001). They take into account the social, economic, and environmental impact and consider human rights in the specific company. It is important to organizations as they increased demands on customers, employees as well as the government for the company to be more inclusive in their activities to maintain business practice acceptable standards.

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Nike has a global corporate leadership organization structure which includes the office of the president and CEO, finance, the brand, human resource, product, administration, marketing, legal, and operations. The corporate managers make decisions on the global corporate structure of Nike. The human resource policies and procedures serve the purpose of providing clear and effective communication between the organization and the employees with regard to employment conditions, form a basis of equal and fair treatment of employees, possible changes affecting employees, etc. thus the Nike structure aiming at developing interconnections among employees, groups and division of the business. They also check for specific regional demand of target customers such as variation in preference of clothes based on sports popularity and climate (Nike Unethical Practices, 2018).

Unethical institutional issues are common as these companies aim at meeting the demands of their customers and making profits in whichever means possible. These issues occur due to some factors for instance; lack of a positive example being set by leaders, excessive pressure to attain unrealistic performance goals by the company, no room for expression of one's thoughts as it is psychologically unsafe. Also there could be conflicting goals that invoke unfairness and leading to unethical practices. The institution should be very vigilant in observing unethical issues especially if they are illegal (Tang, 2010).

Nike Corporation was discovered to have several unethical issues. Its manufacturing units are found in the Asian area as labor is cheap compared to America. The unethical issues include; firstly use of ladies that could be paid less for their labor and were provided in large numbers by the Asian area. Secondly, the Pakistan counterparts used child laborers to make football and child labor unethical hence bringing the public's attention on them. The companies did not consider the safety conditions of their workers as they were exposed to chemicals and strong smell in humid and hot areas. They were susceptible to diseases that could affect their skins, lungs, and reproductive organs with continuous exposure to these chemicals. Workers were ill-treated as well and worked under a lot of pressure. The women were rebuked, assaulted to some extent, and had to work for long hours to secure their jobs.

The general public has a responsibility to be aware of the ethical issues that they are faced with. Thus the unethical issues by Nike Corporation attracted the media and the general public of America who started attacking its policies and gained a bad reputation among its customers. It gained bad reputation as it exploited the weak economic Asian region. Its advertisements got negative appeals from the public, and thus they decided to do something about the unethical issues. Nike began actions to promote good work culture such as compelling the Pakistan associates to prevent child labor in factories; they effectively checked the safe working conditions as well as supervisor's pressure on the workers to eliminate them as an unethical company to restore their reputation. Forced labor was abolished and introduced a maximum limit of working hours. Discrimination based on sex was abolished as works had the right to fight for their rights.

An ethical leader acts as a pillar to the institutional advancements as he brings a connection through his connection to workers and customers, their relationship with workers to show him as a role model. His/her strategies are what increases demands and profits for the company as well (Nisen, 2013). My view on the ethical issue of women being overworked, discriminated and assaulted, a possible solution would be to give women leadership positions so that they can fight for their rights. Also, men should also be laborers in the production not just be supervisors in the company. His ensures gender sensitivity in the company.

Conclusion

Nike is a well-known company for apparel, sports materials, as well as accessories to their customers. However, due to its unethical practices, people have lost trust in them, and their reputation has been tarnished giving their competitors an advantage over them. Therefore, the set actions to promote good work culture will slowly reboot them back to the trust of their customers.

References

Micheal, Amstrong (2001). A Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice. London. Retrieved on August 15, 2014.

Nike Unethical Practices (2018). Retrieved from https://paper.com/paper-ononike-unethical-practices/Nisen, M. (2013). How Nike solved its sweatshop problem. Business Insider, 9.

Tang, F. Maclachlan, D.L (2010). Disseminative capacity, organizational structure, and knowledge transfer. Expert Systems with Application.