The Making and Unmaking of the Third World - Case Study Example

Clothing Retailing Business:] [Name:] [Institutional Affiliation:] Introduction Retail business is a business which is involved in the task of offering goods and services to the last consumer. This is the most essential part of production as it makes profitability and sustainability to climb up the steps of production to the producing company. This is therefore the part of production process which is involved in making sure that there is satisfaction of the customers through value addition and also offering quality customer services. They are also involved in channeling information from the customers to the producers to enable changes and better productivity. Exploitation in third world This is whereby companies deal unfairly with the people who work with them in the industry. These lead too many negative effects to their health and to their psychological behavior. Companies have been found to exploit workers and in less developed workers in many ways as a shown below. Relatively long working hours One of the ways of which multinational companies operating in les developed companies do is to make people work for very long hours without rest. This is against international human rights and it is less applied in these less developed countries because the law enforcers there do not want to lose the investors and also they are fighting other factors which kill their economy like corruption and so on. These companies therefore with the sole motive of earning maximum profits and also making productivity go up (Muller, 1982). These companies therefore make it hard for this people working in their factories to get time for their families and social life in general. This will thus lead to broken marriages and also it may lead to a generation which lack quality parental quittance as the parents are busily engaged in work and cannot be there for their kids. The longer the time that people work without rest also may mean health and thus inactivity in the building of their county. Unreasonably low salaries Another way of exploitation that global companies do apply in undeveloped countries is that of payment of low wages to workers (Sardar, 1988). These companies migrate to countries where laws on wage limit are not very strict which make the companies leave their countries of origin like USA and Europe where wage bills and laws are tight to be able to go and produce in less developed countries mainly in southern Asia and Africa. With the cheap access to labor, these companies gain a lot of profits and competitive advantage in the market as they are able to be sustainable and also increase profitability. These factors are very positive in the side of the companies but the problem comes when the lives of the employees involved com e into picture. This includes poor living standard as the people living under low wages cannot be able to pay bills and pay for expensive lives. These factors will force them to live under poor housing because they have no sufficient funds to purchase or pay rent for good houses and thus they find themselves in housing conditions which are inhumane and expose them to many dangers like murder by killers, diseases like malaria and pneumonia and other dangerous factors like exposure to fire breakouts and other accidents as these people find themselves in a condition in which they live in the same room and cook in the same room which is dangerous to their lives (Escobar, 2011). On the other side, the people working for these multinational companies find themselves in very unstable conditions and thus they may also not be able to access clean drinking water thus their living conditions will be worse. The companies should therefore make sure that they change the conditions which apply to their workers in order to make sure that their welfare is kept strong and worthy. From the above graph, it is seen that many poor countries’ citizens undergo the exploitation of low wages. Poor working conditions Poor working conditions are one of the ways in which companies exploit employees in the third world. This results to accidents which may lead to injuries and loss of life. An example is the collapse of the Rana plaza in Bangladesh as a result of substantial factory setup. This incident let to loss of thousands of lives and left many injured (Khan, and Islam, 2015). This was a risk to the lives of these employees and thus the company had to answer judges in court. Companies should therefore make sure that they protect the rights and also present good working conditions for their employees. Image example of poor working conditions in the clothing industry. Poor citizens of third world countries also are exposed to exploitation by multinational is the the workshops. This is because with lack of strong workers unions and also support from respective government on employees who work in these companies, thus these companies take the advantage of this situation in cutting their operational expenditure by making sure that they don’t offer other secondary benefits to their clients and thus the clients are the ones finding themselves at poor working conditions. This will make them insecure and also their families and relatives may find it bad when they need compensation in case of accidents. This is other words is exploitation of employees and can hurt the workers as they don’t enjoy all human rights. Theories of exploitation This theory explains various reasons why different things happen during exploitation process. It also talks about the internal factors which affect the exploitation process. This also contributes to the historical emergence of various themes in exploitation. The main contributors in these theories are the Scottish Enlightenment who was famously known as the Ricardian Socialists. These writers wrote many essays to prove that socialism is more superior to capitalism. Stakeholders There are numerous stakeholders in this kind of a topic. These stakeholders range from governmental bodies to non-governmental ones. These stakeholders include the UN, labor unions and others. These stakeholders should make sure that they take up appropriate steps in making sure that there is no exploitation again. This can be done by mobilizing workers and enlightening them about their rights and roles in the industry. Globalization This is whereby businesses operate in the global arena and produce products which are being consumed worldwide. This is a characteristic of largely grown companies like Nike. Negative effects of globalization Global commerce is led by organizations whose main goals in the market in the market are to make profits (Mohanty, 1997). This has made them to only focus on making money and thus they don’t care about the development of the local nation or for the individuals who are involved in the production processes. With this in hand, the country will find itself in exploitation end and thus they will not develop easily. Another negative effect which results from globalization and affects these people in underdeveloped countries is the fact that they lack cultural uniqueness as a result of cultural homogeneousness. The companies bring this to them thus kill their culture at the end. Due to the competition to attract investors which happen between developed and less developed countries, less developed countries find themselves in a situation whereby they lower their standards of operation environment and thus kill the dignity of workers who find themselves in this kind of operation environment. This is thus a negative factor of globalization (Takala, and Uusitalo, 1995). Ethical issues With the diversity in governance and culture worldwide, organizations have been able to develop code of conduct to be able to make them operate with ease in the global markets. With this in place, the organizations which operate in the global hand have the following to follow and make sure that they keep into hand the ethical issues (Hassler, 2004). Addressing diversity in culture The world is full of diversity of culture. Companies should therefore find a way of making sure that these factors are put into positive account. To hold high this respect, the companies should make sure that they produce goods and services which are cultural specific and also Mking sure that the commodities produced build on the cultures of the people in the society. This has been found to be opposite with globalization in some way and thus the clothing industry has been found to fail in this way (Prasad, 2005). Upholding trust and integrity This involves dealing in business in such a way that there is honest and trust in the quality of products and the services offered. Many companies have worked hard in order to uphold these requirements. Some other doesn’t keep this alive as they provide counterfeit goods which do not meet the specification thus acting as a part of exploitation (Guscina, 2006). This has therefore led to poverty and other issues in these countries. Comparison of different brands The following graph is an illustration showing the comparison between various brands of footwear segment clothes. From the graph, it is found that Nike is scoring very high in the market followed by Adidas and finally Puma. This shows that Nike is more competitive and profitable as compared to the other two producers in the market. The graphical illustrations also show that Nike is producing quality and desirable products in the market thus it has been able to win more market share. Another probable event in this kind of market is that Nike is applying more effective advertising methods which makes it popular to more customers and thus win in the market. In the other hand, Puma is the least competitive and from the statistics, the company is serving the smallest market share and thus it is struggling to remain in the market. This can be as a result of poor marketing techniques or even as a result of production of poor quality goods which are not desirable in the market. Fig1.1: comparison amongst various brands Corporate social responsibility This is whereby a business is involved in activities which are directed on improving the conditions of the society and the environment which it is practicing in. this can be done though environmental conservation techniques, helping the needy in the society, offering required needs like clean water and also making the environment fit for living. This is a very good virtue and changes should not happen in future in regard to this as it returns benefits to the consumers who offer profits to the company. Conclusion In conclusion, retailing is whereby a business offers services and products to the last consumer. It helps so much in the production line as it makes profitability and growth of a company real. In this paper also exploitation is discussed. This exploitation is practiced by companies which have branches in small countries’ which are not very strict in making sure that all factors concerning employees are put into control and many other factors causing this exploitation is discussed in the paper (Auty, and Elliott, 1998). Other things which are discussed in this report is the negative effects of globalization, ethical issues and also the comparison amongst many clothing brands in the clothing industry. Corporate responsibility is also discussed here. Bibliography Muller, M., 1982. The Health of Nations: An Investigation of the Pharmaceutical Industry's Exploitation of the Third World for Profit. Sardar, Z. ed., 1988. The revenge of Athena: Science, exploitation and the Third World (p. 1). London: Mansell. Escobar, A., 2011. Encountering development: The making and unmaking of the Third World. Princeton University Press. Mohanty, C.T., 1997. Women workers and capitalist scripts: Ideologies of domination, common interests, and the politics of solidarity (pp. 3-19). na. Takala, T. and Uusitalo, O., 1995. Retailers' professional and professio-ethical dilemmas: The case of Finnish retailing business. Journal of Business Ethics, 14(11), pp.893-907. Hassler, M., 2004. ‘GOVERNING CONSUMPTION’: BUYER‐SUPPLIER RELATIONSHIPS IN THE INDONESIAN RETAILING BUSINESS. Tijdschrift voor economische en sociale geografie, 95(2), pp.206-217. Prasad, E., Rogoff, K., Wei, S.J. and Kose, M.A., 2005. Effects of financial globalization on developing countries: some empirical evidence. In India’s and China’s Recent Experience with Reform and Growth (pp. 201-228). Palgrave Macmillan UK. Guscina, A., 2006. Effects of globalization on labor's share in national income. International Monetary Fund. Auty, S. and Elliott, R., 1998. Fashion involvement, self-monitoring and the meaning of brands. Journal of Product & Brand Management, 7(2), pp.109-123. Khan, M.M.R. and Islam, M.M., 2015. Materials and manufacturing environmental sustainability evaluation of apparel product: knitted T-shirt case study. Textiles and Clothing Sustainability, 1(1), p.1. Read More