Should Nike Held Responsibilities for Working Conditions in Foreign Factories That It Does Not Own, but Where Subcontractors Make Products for Nike?

Should Nike held responsibilities for working conditions in foreign factories that it does not own, but where subcontractors make products for Nike?

I believe yes, Nike is responsible and accountable for working conditions in foreign factories. Since Nike takes advantage of low cost destination by producing overseas, it should not free itself from social responsibility in the countries where subcontractors are located. I do not exempt Nike from responsibility because I do not believe in Friedman Doctrine’s approach which basically says that the only social responsibility of business is to increase its profit so long as stays within the rule of the game. This approach makes companies free from being responsible toward society which is not quite true. Instead, Nike should adopt the utilitarian approaches in decision-making to determine whether an action is moral or not. Utilitarian approaches basically hold that the right thing to do depends on its consequences. Therefore, since Nike decided to move production operations to other nations for low cost benefit, should be responsible about the harm that workers suffer in those factories because it is considered a consequences of Nike’s decision. Hence, Nike should work on maximizing the good consequences and minimizing harmful by giving back to the societies that enable it to grow and prosper and making sure that workers treated fairly in terms of satisfied wages and working conditions that can let workers have a better living conditions. Nike as a global company has the power over subcontractors around the world through it is ability to move production from country to another; therefore, Nike able to force subcontractors to abide by labor law and regulations to make sure that workers get at least minimum wages and they work in acceptable work conditions according to national and global standards. Although child labor may not be against the law in a host country, but it is still immoral to use child labor to maximize profit because the action conflicts with many held views about what is the right and proper thing to do.

What labor standards regarding safety, working conditions, overtime, and the like, should Nike hold foreign factories to: those prevailing in that country, or those prevailing in the United States?

From a business law perspective, Nike should hold subcontractors to the labor standards that prevailing in their countries as those factories are not located in United States. From a cost benefit perspective, if Nike follows labor standards prevailing in United States it might not be able to enjoy low cost advantages that Nike is realizing by offshoring manufacturing activities and becomes less attractive to produce outside of United States. However, from International business perspective, if Nike adopts just the standards prevailing in the country of manufacturing, then it might not be able to comply with some global standards related