Analysis of Contemporary Accounting Issues at Nike

This report delves into the contemporary accounting issues at Nike, focusing on the company's ethical dilemmas, sustainability initiatives, and their impact on various stakeholders. The analysis begins with an overview of Nike's operations and its commitment to sustainability, including efforts to reduce energy usage, carbon emissions, and water consumption. The report examines the company's working environment, highlighting ethical concerns related to sweatshops, worker exploitation, and poor working conditions. It explores Nike's strategies and practices to address these issues, such as minimum wage plans, safety packages, and medical plans for employees. The report also discusses Nike's sustainability efforts, including research and development to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and its collaborations with organizations like the Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC). The conclusion emphasizes the importance of Nike's sustainability initiatives in addressing past scandals and ethical concerns, while also considering the interests of both employees and shareholders. The report is supported by various academic references, providing a comprehensive overview of the subject.

CONTEMPORARY
ISSUES IN
ACCOUNTING

Introduction
 The Nike Incorporation works as an American Multinational
Incorporation that is currently engaged manufacturing of various
sports accessories, apparels and services.
 Nike the dominant players operating in the sports and accessories
industry has vowed towards reduction of energy usage, emissions of
carbons, usage of water and thereby creating a value chain for the
company.
 Strategies and Practices followed by the company in the field of
various operations that are carried on by the company is well
important as the same impacts the stakeholders of the company.

Nike Working Environment
 The dominant player in the market that is primarily in the market that
is currently focusing in providing a decent and fair work condition.
 As stated in the sustainability report of the company by Hannah Jones
the Chief Sustainability Officer of the company where worker are an
important stakeholder in the organization.
 The company has also undertaken various steps and initiatives in
order or respect of increasing the overall value of the company.

Business Ethics
 Business Ethics has been of prime importance for the company and
the key reason for the same has been due to the globalization of the
various business operations in international markets and production
process that has been used by the company.

Ethical Issues
 The key ethical issues that the company faced was in relation to the
sweatshops, where the company were deploying manual workers in
the operations at a low rate where the working conditions were not
suitably correct.
 Pro-longed working hours and poor working condition of the
employees with no job security was the key indication that the
companies were charged with ethical issues in exploiting labors.

Strategies and Practices
 The company planned out various initiatives in order to address the
situations and the same would be in the field of the minimum wage
plan planned for the employees in various companies whereby the
workers could be at least entitled to a decent amount of minim pay.
 Workers were offered a minimum better and a good amount of safety
package so that they could be refrained or protected from the
harmful chemicals and reagents.
 A medical plan will also be drawn for constituting and overlooking the
medical plan of the company thereby addressing the medical policies
followed by company in respect to the employees of the company
and the internal working environment.

Sustainability Issues
 The Company has spent a considerable amount of money in the research
and development expenses for swapping the gas used in the sole of the
Nike Air Shoes from FS6, that particularly is a potent greenhouse gas a
primary contribution in the global warming happening in the environment
to nitrogen form gas in the product.
 The changes helped the company in yielding performance innovations
leading the company to develop Airmax 360 (The Business of Fashion
2016).

Sustainability Developments and Indexes
 It was also observed that after various initiatives and actions taken by
the management of the company in improvising the overall internal
environment of the company around 86% of the Nike Contract factories
were rated bronze or above the Nike’s Sustainable Manufacturing and
Sourcing Index (SMSI).
 The index is currently used for the purpose of checking the health of
the factory, safety and environment, thereby indicating the legal wages
that are being paid up.

Collaborations
 Nike is indeed a founding member of the Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC)
an industry wide measure that has around 200 leading apparel and footwear
brands, various suppliers, retailers and academics.
 The company has collaborated with the SAC since the year 2009 for the
purpose of creating an industry wide approach to the environmental footprint
of footwear and apparel products.

Conclusion
 It is important to note from the above discussions analyzed that the Nike’s
Sustainability Initiatives were launched as an action for the purpose of
past scandals, unfavorable events that impacted the brand image and a
question over the ethical issues faced by the company.
 The sustainability initiatives taken by the company in terms of addressing
the various issues in relation to the stakeholders from employees to
shareholders concern of increasing profit was well addressed.

References
 Chen, J.Y. and Baddam, S.R., 2015. The effect of unethical behavior and learning on strategic
supplier selection. International Journal of Production Economics, 167, pp.74-87.
 Good On You. 2017. How Ethical is Nike?. [online] Available at: https://goodonyou.eco/how-
ethical-is-nike/ [Accessed 17 Sep. 2019].
 Kim, S., Colicchia, C. and Menachof, D., 2018. Ethical sourcing: An analysis of the literature
and implications for future research. Journal of Business Ethics, 152(4), pp.1033-1052.
 Nike Sustainability. 2019. Collaborations. [online] Available at:
https://purpose.nike.com/partnerships-collaborations [Accessed 17 Sep. 2019].
 Nike Sustainability. 2019. Governance. [online] Available at:
https://purpose.nike.com/sustainability-governance [Accessed 17 Sep. 2019].
 Nike Sustainability. 2019. Protecting the Environment. [online] Available at:
https://purpose.nike.com/protecting-environment [Accessed 17 Sep. 2019].
 Oregonlive. 2016. Nike adopts ambitious environmental, workplace goals. [online] Available
at: https://www.oregonlive.com/business/2016/05/nike_adopts_ambitious_environm.html
[Accessed 17 Sep. 2019].
 Page, T., 2017. Notions of Ethics in Technology and Design Education. i-Manager's Journal on
Management, 12(2), p.1.

THANK YOU