Nike: 1. The facts of the situation are that Nike has faced considerable criticism for its use of foreign contractors, because those contractors operate in low-wage countries. Unions and activists -- the former at least has a dog in the fight -- are behind the PR problems for Nike. However, Nike has begun to pay more attention to its practices, resulting in a much better reputation for ethics.
There are many different stakeholders. Internal to Nike are the company's managers, employees, shareholders and channel partners. External stakeholders include the employees of the suppliers, the customers, government, environment and the labor unions would like to include themselves here although it is hard to see how activist groups have a legitimate claim to stakeholdership.
The underlying driver for the unions is opposition to outsourcing overseas, because this reduces their workforce and therefore dues. Their motivation is strictly financial. For activists, the motivation is usually quite different, reflecting a different set of values about the way that society should be organized -- they see injustice and want that injustice to be eliminated.
4. The first ethical principle that Nike must consider is what duty it has and to whom. Duty-based ethics include an imperative to increase shareholder wealthy. However, Nike also has a duty to the people who work for the company (or its direct suppliers). Nike also has a duty of care to customers. While Nike is operating primarily from this deontological perspective, most activists are as well, just with a different perspective on values. There are also some consequentialist arguments on either side as well -- Nike offering that it creates jobs, activists countering that those jobs do not provide a living wage.
5. Nike, the suppliers, the customers, the shareholders, and the people who work for suppliers are the key stakeholders who should have input into this decision. The activists have created this controversy in order to drive an agenda, but Nike has no obligation to be used as a tool for somebody else's agenda.
6. a) minimizing harm to stakeholders means increasing wages at suppliers, and perhaps more importantly developing codes and standards to ensure that the company is not exposed to such criticism in the future.
b) Uphold priority values can be done by increasing wages and implementing restrictions on the amount of hours the workers can work.
c) A good solution starts with the first two, but goes further. Nike can avoid such PR black eyes in the future if it places emphasis on building a culture that pays attention to ethical issues. Nike needs to, in future, consider a total stakeholder analysis in its decision, which would improve the quality of is ethical decision-making.
7. The worst case scenario is that Nike's efforts fail, the activists kick up more fuss, and sales begin to decline. This would result in a reduction of shareholder wealth, increased costs to customers and the suppliers would also get less work from Nike, to the detriment of all concerned.
8. There is already a preventative ethics element to my plan. I did that proactively. Nike needs to build an ethical culture because it does not currently emphasize ethics, and it needs to take multiple different stakeholders into account with its decision-making, something it has also not done well of late.
NEWS: Chaey (2013) outlines the recent comments made by the founder of Lululemon, Chip Wilson, about how the company's yoga pants do not fit some women, specifically those whose thighs rub together. The comment was a somewhat glib response to an issue the company was having with the ability of the pants to maintain their thickness. The comments created controversy for the company, with many seeing the comments as being "fat-shaming," and a clear attempt to position the company away from such customers.
The comments created negative press for the company. In this case, Wilson has a duty to many different stakeholders that he abrogated with those comments. First, he has a duty to shareholders -- not just himself but all of them -- to maximize wealth. This means not only making pants for all customers, but not insulting those customers, as this negative press is likely to harm sales for a long time to come. Furthermore, Wilson has a duty to other stakeholders to safeguard the reputation of the brand, because if sales slump there are thousands of employees who could suffer, and many existing...
Essentially these comments reflected selfishness on the part of Wilson to the detriment of the duty he has to all of the company's other stakeholders. Being ethical means that you have to take into account the duty that you have to others, and uphold that duty even when you would prefer not to. While duty ethics is not consequentialism, there are always consequences to failing to upholds one's duty and these tend not to be positive consequences.
QUESTION 1. Technology certainly does not change the way that ethics are viewed, but it can make it harder to be ethical in two ways. The first is that it presents more opportunity to behave unethically, for example downloading movies and music is fairly easy online. Technology also has some interesting effects on culture, because it creates a situation where people's interactions with each other are online a lot of the time, and this changes communications norms. Comments like Wilson's above are common on the Internet, off the cuff (rather than on the record). Such comments and unethical thoughts can always be justified by somebody on the Internet as well, so in that sense it might be harder to be ethical because of changes in communication norms, increased opportunities to be unethical and people might be more self-centered as the result of having such energy directed at the self especially through personal electronics.
It is also possible to use technology to be more ethical This is especially true with respect to the transmission of ideas. For every person who might convince you to do the wrong thing, there are people who will convince you to do the right thing. In fact, for most ethical dilemmas there are people out there who have gone through the same thing, and therefore can help you to work through the dilemma on your own. This is the benefit of increased communication -- we can actually get help with our ethical dilemmas in real time, reducing the likelihood that we will unknowingly do something that is wrong. The more we know about ethical behavior, the more likely we are to engage in it.
QUESTION 2. 1. The right to free speech in the Constitution reflects freedom from government persecution, so it actually has nothing to do with the workplace. The right to free speech while not at work is constitutional so of course employees have it. Employees also have the right to engage in whatever law-abiding activities that they wish while outside of work. When not on employer time, employees have the right and expectation of privacy. This may not extend to, say, members of the senior management team but that is a slight variation of the question. For the average employee, the right to privacy exists when outside of work. At work, employees should still enjoy the right to privacy when not using company resources. If the employee chooses to use a company computer or Blackberry or whatever, then the employee has no right to privacy. But on personal devices, the employee still retains the right to privacy. It is worth remembering here that while the employer has the right to expect that employees are working on company business while on company time, they do not have the right to monitor private communications in order to enforce this. This is not only an ethical issue but a legal issue. Remember that due process argues that one must have a right to violate privacy. This is why the company has the right to monitor its own equipment, but not the equipment of its employees.
2. The right to freedom of speech is from government and has no bearing on employee-employer relations. Therefore employees need to be smart with respect to their communications about the company. They have no right to say whatever they want about the company with impunity. Such negative comments are a breach of duty. Employees have a duty to represent their employer well, and quite frankly they have to uphold that duty on or off office hours. The employee can say whatever he or she wants, but must understand that when such comments are on the record -- as a Facebook post would be -- this is much stronger than a whispered complaint to a coworker over beers. Further, the employee is supposed to represent the company well, and cannot do that while publicly complaining about the company. The employee has a duty to air grievances internally, and would expect the company to reciprocate. I hardly think an employee would find it ethical to have his or her performance evaluation posted to his or her Facebook page…
