Corporate Social Responsibility Incident: Nike's Failures Report

This report critically examines Nike's corporate social responsibility failures, particularly focusing on incidents of worker exploitation and unethical labor practices. It details Nike's history of sweatshop issues, including instances of wage theft, verbal abuse, and unsafe working conditions in its contract factories, specifically highlighting the situation at a factory in Vietnam. The report analyzes Nike's violation of the International Labour Organisation Convention by exploiting child labor and the company's actions that led to job losses. It underscores the importance of ethical business practices and the need for companies to prioritize employee well-being, fair wages, and safe working environments. The report concludes by emphasizing the necessity for Nike to address these issues by ensuring air quality, providing proper wages, and treating employees with respect.

CSR Incident Outlining The Organisation’s
Failure To Meet Their CSR Responsibilities.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction..............................................................................................................................................3
Discussion..................................................................................................................................................3
Conclusion.................................................................................................................................................5
References.................................................................................................................................................6

Introduction
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) happens to be currently one of the most
discussed topics and a very topical issue within the contemporary time. The concern
comes at a time when there happens to be greater awareness by individuals regarding
the environmental matters, workplace rights, sustainability, occupational health and
safety and the issues that are certainly concerning labour in other countries. Many
worldwide corporations these days happen to provide for ample evidences the
importance of prioritizing the CSR. Although the fact is that the various industries
from varying sectors due to an initiative of their own or pressured by governments,
Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and other stakeholdersthese days trying to
minimize aretrying to minimize their very impact on society (Russell, 2016). A
growing interest in the in the genre of Corporate Social Responsibility has been
particularly observed sinced the last decade. Not only the consumers, but also the
producers are found to be equally concerned for this particular issue. The reports of
the customer abuse and the high exposure made by the media has made the consumers
realize regarding the impacts that the businesses may have on society and on the
entire world.
The present paper will certainly focus on the outlining the absolute failure of the Nike
in the specific terms of corporate social responsibility (Fatma, et al. 2016).
Discussion
For this particular context, there happens to be four basic social responsibilities of the
corporate houses and that comprises of the economic, legal, ethical, and discretionary
responsibilities. For any company that wants to achieve its business goals following
every specific level of the CSR happens to be of foremost importance. While the main
objective of the CSR remains to certify the business organizations regarding the
matter that they are properly following the business rules or not, the particular areas
of business where CSR happens to have maximum emphasis are employees, the
corporate management, environmental commitments, community programme,and last
but not least guest and community. So, the social care, economic , and environmental
consideration of human rights happens to be the very basis of evaluation of the

companies by the CSR.
In this technical era, the world is becoming highly globalized and interconnected and
the same has constructed the path for the growth of the social and environmental
business challenges as well as the concern of the general public regarding the business
and the social relationship that certainly happens to persist. Very much likely as a
consequence of that and from the external pressure that happens to come from the
governments regulations and the NGOs has made the consumers act out and raise
their voice against the unethical businesses and certainly challenge them. In this
context, the corporate social responsibility happens to be a specific business approach
whereby the companies certainly integrate environmental and social concerns within
their business interactions and operations with the stakeholders. But when the specific
concern is regarding ethics or CSR in the global environment the very fact happens to
be that inspite of the visibility of various initiatives regarding the corporate social
responsibility (CSR) over the past few years, better we say the last decade, the real
change that has been happened to be found in the corporate behaviour has certainly
tended to be modest (Ghosh, 2015). The very conception becomes clear from the fact
that only a small fraction of the various firms happens to report transparently making
the effective use of the guidelines that are suggested for the particular issue while
publishing their annual reports. Instead of focusing on their corporate social
responsibility factors most of them instead happen to design their annual reports with
glossy reports showcasing the good deeds of the organization, fancy media campaigns
etc.
In this context, the Nike case happens to represent specifically an absolute failure
concerning the corporate social responsibility (Torabi, 2017). The Nike’s sweatshop
problem was a major issue in the year 1998, but then the company was ceratinly
forced to change its practices, and for the following decade Nike happened to work
accordingly. But the same issue happened to return back to the platform in the year
2017, when there happened to be a day of protest against Nike by the activists and
students around the world and the same was organized by the United Students Against
Sweatshops (USAS). The specific issue was that the workers of a Nike contract
factory situated at Hansae, Vietnam, suffered verbal abusen and wage theft. Added to
that they also claimed that they had to work for hours in temperatures that was much
over the stated legal limit of 90 degrees to the very point where the workers happened

to collapse at their sewing machines (Ali, 2018). Along with that Nike was also
accused for the fact of cutting jobs at the factory that was shifted to Hansae from a
factory that was based in Honduras where there is the strong presence of the union
and that in turn resulted hundreds of workers to lose their vital jobs. Doing this the
Nike has certainly violated the International Labour Organisation Convention of 1973
by the means of exploiting the child labour in their production process. Although the
company later described that leaving the Honduras factory was not the decision of the
Nike, rather it was certainly kicked out by another apparel firm, Gildan Inc. So, here
we can certainly conclude that Nike have certainly cheated and abused the employees
by cutting their wages, misbehaving with them and moreover their move to shift the
production location had happened to be the reason for a whole lot of people to lose
their jobs (Cohen, 2017). Where the very company had introduced the best in the class
apparels and other accessories for the customers, it remains to be a pathetic part to
expect such behaviour from the end of the similar company on a repeated basis. It is
very much exptected that the company will ensure the proper implementation of the
action plan so as to provide a safe enough workplace to the employees now onwards.
Conclusion
Owing to the very fact that there happens to be the usage of certain heavy machineries
and some dangerous chemicals and raw materials in the footwear factories inhaling
which may cause severe health hazards must plan the removal of the child labor on an
urgent basis and with that it must ensure that the quality of the air in which the
employees are breathing is strictly maintaines as per the standards set by the United
States Occupational Safety and Health Administration. And along with that the other
issues that the company must look on is the provision of proper wages to the
employees and treat them with the proper behaviour as at the end of the day they
happens to be the basic unit for any brand.

References
Cohen, E., 2017. CSR for HR: A necessary partnership for advancing responsible
business practices. Routledge.
Ali, I., 2018. A STUDY OF CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
PRACTICES IN INDIA. International Journal of Management Research and
Reviews, 8(1), pp.12-19.
Torabi, S., 2017. Corporate Social Responsibility Motivations: How Audiences
Respond to a Company's Motivations Post-Crisis (Doctoral dissertation).
Ghosh, S.K., 2015. Misuse of CSR in Bangladesh.
Fatma, M., Khan, I. and Rahman, Z., 2016. The effect of CSR on consumer
behavioral responses after service failure and recovery. European Business
Review, 28(5), pp.583-599.
Russell, C.A., Russell, D.W. and Honea, H., 2016. Corporate social responsibility
failures: how do consumers respond to corporate violations of implied social
contracts?. Journal of business ethics, 136(4), pp.759-773.