Q1. What are the challenges regarding corporate social responsibility that companies in the apparel industry face in its supply chains around the world?
Companies have started to outsource their products from a variety of suppliers who are often located in different regions across the globe. Availability of cheap labor and low production expenses attracts these companies to outsource their activities. This has brought about many challenges to these companies which includes cases reported regarding abusive treatment to employees in work place. Majority of the factories restrict access to toilets and drinking water during work day and even deny workers at least one day off in a week. The working hours often exceed the standard working hours set by law and workers are forced to do overtime without payment. (International Management-6th Edition-Helen Deresky, p.57)

Q2. Discuss the meaning and implications of the statement by a Nike representative that “consumers are not rewarding us for investments in improved social performance in supply chains.”
Nike invested a lot of money in improving the working conditions of their employees. They took up social responsibility and enforced many measures to be employee-friendly and even banned hiring of children. All these measures were implemented with a thought that people would reward their efforts by buying more products from them. However these efforts turned futile. This lead to the above statement, “consumers are not rewarding us for investments in improved social performance in supply chains”(International Management-6th Edition-Helen Deresky, p.57) whereby the Nike representative meant it was not worth investing money into being more humanitarian because at the end, things did not result in what was intended.