Handbook of Research on Global Corporate Citizenship - Term Paper Example

? NIKE Corporate Responsibility Discuss a conceptual framework that can explain NIKE's approach to CR Introduction Corporate social responsibility is a type of commercial self-regulation incorporated into a business model. The corporate social responsibility functions as a self-regulating, in-built mechanism where a business monitors and makes sure that its active compliance with ethical standards, spirit of the law and international norms. This is a process that embraces responsibility of the company’s actions and encourages a positive collision through its various activities on the employees, consumers, environment, community, stakeholders and all other affiliates of the public sphere who are also active stakeholders. In other words, the CSR aids an organization to achieve its mission and vision and also serves as a guide in what the company actually stands for and its promise to the consumers. The main focus of this paper is the areas concerned with the organizational process of Nike Inc (Lisbeth 2010). The health of the community in most instances reflects heavily on the health of the enterprise. At the lowest definition, a social responsibility makes use of the sustainable business practices that bring good to community ensuring that it is safe from harm. At the highest point of defining the term, corporate responsibility policies build meaningful and lasting relationships among the employees, public and the consumers. Taking the community into perspective takes into account the expected benefits to an organization especially in the context of improving the financial status of the organization. Creating relationships on the basis of long-term outlooks with the affiliated parties while taking into consideration avoiding instances of socially and environmentally destructive short-term solutions ensures that the company is secure during economic hardships. There are numerous approaches to corporate responsibility and this depends on the organization’s size and the amount of available resources as well as working with growing philanthropic efforts, community level initiatives and focusing on the creation of business plans that generate shared value. Supporting organizations, events and programs in local communities have the possibility to introduce long-term affirmative impacts. There are countless ways for companies to involve themselves in the building and maintenance of the immediate neighbors to the premise of the organization (Banerjee 2007). Nike Inc is a leading innovator in the design and creation of footwear and among the best companies across the world. One of the most significant impacts the organizations has is humanizing the working conditions in the international supply chain and trade all over the world. The three main products for the company include footwear, equipment and apparel and they are constantly under creation in 600 contract manufacturing factories that have an approximately 800,000 employees in over 46 countries worldwide. The organization process of the company aims at building an equitable and an empowered task force. The company has continually worked towards this goal for the last ten years and it is pioneering a variety of approaches that have the goal to influence positive changes in its supply chain. The company learnt valuable lessons from its successes and its shortcomings and it continues to share the training through constant reports as well as the inclusion of other means. Although the company boasts of many improvements, it experiences challenging issues such as the establishment of a favorable operational process to take care of the currently flawed system. As a result, the company began to identify the root causes in their line of work and continued to work to address the tribulations with contracted producers and other brands (Aaron 2008). Currently, the company is in the starting blocks that are a sure way of transforming how the company deals with managing sustainability issues that affect it within the context of the local supply chain. It is actively engaging with contract factories in order to apply lean producing processes, a form of approach that brings to the table the highest quality products and at the same time eliminates all types of waste that includes wasted material and time. The company’s deliberate line of attack to lean manufacturing takes account of worker empowerment and this means that it equips the abilities and skills necessary to manage production and without delay address issues as they arise for example process improvements. These radical changes bring the pronouncements nearer to workers and require high levels of support to ascertain that all employees have the confidence and skills to always generate worthy products. The company believes that the lean manufacturing design holds a great deal and level of promise for building worker improvement to establish a more accomplished and reasonable work force. In addition, the company is also moving towards a more included approach meant to manage the complexity of its supply chain through merging its lean, water, compliance, energy and waste teams into a singular effort and that is sustainable sourcing and manufacturing. The vision of the company is still the same and remains bringing people, profits and planets into a balance. For Nike especially in the operational processes, it is not really about trading an individual against the other and it means that its sole goal is trying to understand that sustainability is the path to profitability. A sustainable business model must always result in reasonable supply chain and attending to the needs of the profits makes the institution prosper (Timothy & Sherry 2011). Nike enjoys a well managed and strong brand distribution process including a compelling product provision. However, with the entrance of new competitors with a relatively better lead time and better services, supply chain excellence is having an upward trend given the past few years and this is a competitive weapon in the organization processes. On the subject of improving consumer satisfaction, the supply chain transformation focuses on the consumer, meeting their product preferences and requirements, improving requested delivery and not forgetting civilizing and maintaining customer relations. The supply chain management approach is another technique employed in the structure of the company to make sure that it remains a force to reckon with in the industry. The only way that Nike intends to meet future needs of people is through the introduction of virtual organizations in the supply chain management. They base their arguments on intellectual capital brands, new product creation, technology and new channel tactics with activities largely outsourced. The resulting action is the emergence of strong supply chain specialists that play vital roles in the advancement of the company’s mission. It is easy to observe such trends already with an instance being the fact that Nike makes sales amounting to $9 billion that reflects on the athletic shoe sales only for each year. It is imperative to note that it does not accomplish this due to the fact that it does not own factories on its own, reducing cancellations and claims, and performance in order to lower holding costs. Rather, it focuses on the actual point of sale demand and processes in turn become transformed from the retail shelves backwards and this assists in achieving a balanced good throughout the delivery chain. There are several overarching policies of the company’s supply chain management employed in the quest for success and improvement of the organizational processes. It pays close attention to the vital few prioritized investments critically aligned with the business strategies and returns. It simplifies end to end that means driving out complexities and wastes from the processes first so as to avoid customization and also to enhance standardized solutions for the aim of securing the institutional processes (Tracy 2010). It is common to find that people have similar opinions concerning the processes that are most prevalent in Nike Inc. many individuals believe that the company is a form of learning institution. They are the simplest divisions of learning where employees and the customers and all parties involved with the company gain valuable knowledge and still derive satisfaction from the products and services. The management is well aware of what it needs to do, but it does not involve itself in undertaking the exercise as it may hinder by a large extent their chief capitalistic goals. It came to the sound realization that it does not have the will to do as it pleases because there are people out there watching over all actions and decisions made and will not hesitate nor think twice to bring to light the controversies that surround operations. This also means that the company has to abide by all the set rules and regulations as stipulated by the government and this makes sure that it does not rub shoulders with the policies that dictate its existence and success. The company is a smart endeavor that came to the realization that it did not necessarily have to forego the set standards in the provision of their services and goods. It is possible to play by the rules and still receive the much deserved acclamation from the population across the world (Andreas 2008). I am of the opinion that the company is in a transition process from strategic to civil learning because it makes use of the organizational processes in its business model so as to perk up their overall performance across the globe where they have a considerable high market share. References Banerjee S. B., (2007). Corporate Social Responsibility: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Edward Elgar Publishing. 211pages. Timothy Coombs & Sherry J. Holladay, (2011). Managing Corporate Social Responsibility: A Communication Approach: John Wiley & Sons. 184pages. Odies C. Ferrell, John. Fraedrich & Linda Ferrell, (2012). Business Ethics: Ethical Decision Making and Cases, 9th Ed: Cengage Learning. 576pages. Lisbeth Segerlund, (2010). Making corporate social responsibility a global concern: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. 203pages. Corinna Sinzig, (2010). Corporate Social Responsibility " a Comparative Analysis of Germany and the USA: GRIN Verlag. 68pages. Tracy Carbasho, (2010). Nike: ABC-CLIO. 132pages. Geoff Hollister, (2008). Out of Nowhere: The Inside Story of how Nike Marketed the Culture of Running: Meyer & Meyer Verlag. 326pages. Aaron Frisch, (2008). The Story of Nike: The Creative Company. 46pages. Andreas Georg Scherer, (2008). Handbook of Research on Global Corporate Citizenship: Edward Elgar Publishing. 615pages. Read More