Introduction
The Nike Corporation is rightfully considered one of the most successful international corporations. Despite its status of the leading athletic shoe and apparel producer, the company’s image has been marred with frequent accusations of exploiting underpaid employees in places like China, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam (Fung, O’Rourke, Sabel, & Cohen, 2001). Although a great deal of responsibility does fall on the company’s management, it is also the governments of host countries who should be blamed for allowing sweatshops operation in their states. Nike has a subcontract with the host countries and the stated reports of Nike weren’t Nike’s doing.
Media has been spinning for a while reports about Nike taking advantage of children, who, admittedly, have been working overtime and under hazardous conditions while receiving less than minimal wages. La Botz (2001), for example, reports that Nike was committing acts in some Asian host countries that would not be legally allowed in the United States. It was found that Nike was committing acts in the countries where its subcontracting manufacturers were housed that would be considered illegal in the United States (La Botz, 2001). Those illegal acts included child labor, labor laws, and physical working conditions. This example proves that while expanding globally, any responsible corporation needs to carefully calculate what legal, ethical, social, and environmental impact it might have in a host country. Nike protected them by hiring a man to go to these countries and assess the situations in each country. His findings were that the countries fed their employees and with some minor issues the countries were not doing anything out of realm from that country.
In their turn, host governments should also share responsibility for the spread of sweatshops in their countries. For example, according to