Lulumelon Athletica Ethics in Business

The Ethics of Lulumelon

Lulumelon Athletica, Inc. is an American-Canadian company that is an apparel retailer whose headquarter is in Vancouver and Delaware. The company was founded in 1998 and is the leading retailer of yoga pants and other yoga wear (Marsh & Ahmed, 2020). It has expanded, and today, it sells accessories, lifestyle apparel, athletic wear, and other personal care products. Nonetheless, the company has over 500 stores globally and sells its goods online (Helmore, 2020). The company has been facing criticism after promoting a ‘decolonizing gender’ workshop whose central theme was anti-capitalism, further promoting a backlash from the social media users who claimed that the workshop was ironic.

Capitalism is an economic and political system where a nation’s industry and trade are controlled using the private owners for-profit and not by the state. The production of goods and services in such a system is mainly based on supply and demand in the general market. The most common type of capitalism is referred to as Laissez-faire, a system where the people are unrestrained. They determine where to invest and the goods they should produce and sell. And the prices at which they should sell the goods and services (Berger & Przyrembel, 2019). The laissez-faire marketplace mainly operates without any controls or checks. Capitalism has helped the countries since it has solved the problems related to economic production and resource distribution (Berger & Przyrembel, 2019). Instead of people planning for financial decisions using centralized political methods like feudalism or socialism, economic planning under capitalism occurs through voluntary and decentralized decisions (Berger & Przyrembel, 2019). Lulumelon is an example of capitalism since it is a privately owned company with many retail stores. The company has been vital since it has promoted efficiency in the manufacturing of goods it has been maximizing the value of its properties. The company has made itself more valuable through its trading power in Canada (Helmore, 2020). The company has been categorized as one of the best in the production of yoga wear and other accessories and athletic wear. Its legal rights have been protected, and the company relies on using contracts and fair dealings to become more successful (Helmore, 2020). If it were not for capitalism, Lulumelon would not be where it is today. It was unethical for the company to start a fight against capitalism, yet it is a product of the same. Some people described the move as hypocritical, which was true since capitalism is the cause of the company’s existence, and it was unethical for it to support its end since it would mean that it would also end (Helmore, 2020). The company took part in the campaign only for the money.

The ‘resisting capitalism’ themes were gender stereotypes, consumerism, and colonialism. Even the themes never showed Lulumelon’s real character since it was part of the gender stereotypes when Chip Wilson, its founder, claimed that the company’s products were not for overweight women (Helmore, 2020). It showed that the company was discriminative against overweight women, and they were only meant for its fit customers. This was a stereotype against overweight women because being obese is a medical condition that these women may be struggling with (Helmore, 2020). The action by the company led to a lot of complaints from women, and the company later added plus-size models to its website to show the public that they had accepted the overweight to purchase its products (Helmore, 2020). The company was benefitting and becoming more profitable because of its customers, and asking the overweight ones not to be part of its vast customer base was a setback for the organization since it lost more customers and only corrected this problem after realizing it.

Ethics in business are fundamental. Companies tend to establish business ethics to promote integrity among their workers and even trust from their stakeholders, such as consumers and investors. Business ethics enhance the law by showing the acceptable behaviors that a company should have that are beyond the government’s control (Marsh & Ahmed, 2020). Lulumelon claimed it was committed to upholding ethical sourcing practices worldwide that respected human rights and even elevated the working conditions of all people who participated in manufacturing its product (Marsh & Ahmed, 2020). However, most people have rated the company ‘Not good enough, claiming that its practices have been unethical. They have cited that it lacks transparency in its supply chain and is not socially responsible since it sourced some of its clothing from a Bangladeshi factory commonly known for beating and physically assaulting its female workers (Meyersohn, 2018). This action made people continue believing that Lulumelon was against women and never respected them since it never had a stand on what was happening in the Bangladeshi company, further making it more unprofitable. These actions led to resigning of Wilson since the people were convinced that the company supported the assault on women (Marsh & Ahmed, 2020). It showed that Lulumelon was not a stranger when it came to controversies since its action created more stress among its aid workers, and the company could not promote their mental health.

The workers in the Bangladeshi company continued giving more detailed accounts of how they could work more for fewer salaries, making them struggle to survive. Their managers often called them ‘sluts’ and ‘whores’, and these women continued facing humiliation at the hands of the managers (Marsh & Ahmed, 2020). Lulumelon continued sourcing its products from the company despite knowing this, and the association between these two companies was ethically wrong for the company (Marsh & Ahmed, 2020). After the controversy went public, the company claimed they ordered an investigation on the issue and would take the right actions after these investigations were complete. This meant that if the matter had not gone public, the company would still buy clothing from this company.

It is agreeable that Lulumelon has been unethical in its activities for a long time, and the company must follow its mission and objectives. It should stand for sustainability and show that it cares for all its employees despite their age or gender, and its customers from different parts of the globe (Marsh & Ahmed, 2020). Months after the Bangladesh factory disaster, which killed over 1000 people, Lulumelon has not signed the Bangladesh Safety Accord, which is enough proof that the company does not care about its employees (Marsh & Ahmed, 2020). Furthermore, it shows the company’s lack of commitment to ethics and sustainability. If Lulumelon signs the Bangladeshi Accord, it will be able to offer its customer base and others worldwide that it cares about its workers. Failure to do this shows the company’s reliance on a flawed system of internal inspectors with no independence.

Lululemon sold yoga leggings to women, which had given the company a profit of 128 pounds, but it started a campaign to decolonize gender. It showed that the company did not believe in its products, nor did it have a close relationship with its customers, and that was why it received a lot of backlash on social media. Meyersohn (2018) states that the company charged 80$ to 300$ for a pair of leggings and then decried the economic system it had created for years to sell its over-priced yoga. This was unethical, especially when linking this to resisting capitalism. The other corporate brands were bending backward to a virtual signal to show how ‘woke’ they were in their product campaigns (Meyersohn, 2018). Still, Lululemon’s efforts would backfire based on the anti-capitalist sentiments. The main argument would be that if the company were against its roots, it would also be against its customers at some point since it could never be trusted (Meyersohn, 2018). Yet, it was a capitalist company, which would make people lose trust in the company due to its hypocritical nature.