Nike culture
- Know who you are
- Commit to being you
- Be control freaks ( in the right ways)
- Tell stories
- Nike’s founder- Phil Knight sold shoes in the back of his RV. The clock inside the Winnebago reads 2:59 all day in symbolic reference to a sub-3 hour marathon
Swoosh
- To keep its reputation: builds a committed force
- Employees really identify with the company and really believe in it.
- Workers actively quote the company's maxims
- The company makes its employees aware of its history
- The company uses the Winnebago to use as a conference room (according to legend)
- The waffle iron Bill Bowerman destroyed is kept “like a museum piece”
Symbolic Frame
Political Frame
Challenges
Environmental Concerns
- dumping and burning of Nike scrap shoe rubber in villages around factories
- greenhouse emissions of factories
- carcinogens
- Scarce resources make power a key resource
- Goals evolve through negotiation and bargaining of multiple levels of authority
- Scarce resources and incompatible preferences cause needs to collide within company - matrix structure can cause division
- Sources of Power: position, control of rewards, coercive power, information and expertise, reputation, personal power, alliances and networks, access and control of agendas, controlling meaning and symbols
- Society ecosystem –business, government, and public are embedded
Labor conditions
- began utilizing sweatshops in the 1970s
- outsourced to China, South Korea, Indonesia, Taiwan, Vietnam
- workers had long hours (up to 70 a week)
- low wages
- employee abuse
- exposure to carcinogens without any form of protective gear
- came under fire in the 1990s for selling products made in sweat shops
- advocacy groups shed light upon issues
Human Resources
- Code of conduct for factories SHAPE Safety, Health, Attitude, People, and Environment
- Human resources training
- workshops & management training, making sure the management has the skills to improve working conditions in factories and reduce impact on the environment
- modules cover issues on health, safety and the environment (HSE)
- environmental sustainability and energy/greenhouse gas management
Symbolic Frame
- addressing environmental and labor issues to maintain a good reputation
- reputation important to keep employees
- changes align with Nike's commitment to innovation
Scrap Shoe Rubber
Human Resource Frame
Shoe Factory in Vietnam
Structural Frame
Nike, Inc.
Political Frame
- Bottom-up political action – trade unions, advocacy groups
- "The most significant shift for Nike was when we began to sit down with the very people who had been critical of us and started to engage not in a denial conversation but in a conversation on how to solve the problems."
- operates on six continents, employs over 30,000 people worldwide and has a workforce of over 800,000 workers in contract factories
- Hierarchy: Global Headquarters --->Regional Headquarters (EMEA)---->Subsidiaries
- Nike is set up as a Matrix Organizational Structure, i.e. combination of functional and divisional structure
- multiple lines of authority and some individuals report to at least two managers
- employees report to team managers who relay the progress report to a department manager
- each branch consists of it’s own department and has separate department managers who act independently of the CEO
- team managers and employees make decision regarding specification and production while department managers focuses primarily on policy-related issues; employees are entirely responsible to both of these managers
- Matrix Structure allows Nike to make decisions, be innovative, and react more quickly
- “At NIKE, Inc., we believe that a talented, diverse and inclusive employee base helps drive the creativity that is central to our brands”
- Diversity drives recruitment of the most dynamic people
- Diversity enriches the creativity and innovation that shapes the brand
- Diversity grows our competitive advantage
- Diversity heightens the stature and belief in the brand within our culturally diverse consumer base
- 2006 NIKE, Inc. appointed its first VP of Diversity
- Councils that promote cultural understanding
Burning of scrap shoe rubber
Structural
- hired a staff of 97 people to randomly inspect several hundred of their factories each year
- After studying the results of the audits, this system has been found to be not as effective as authorities expected - auditors biased
- Nike has new waste management system - not effective, only recycle foam rubber still discarded at a dump site
- company invested in teleconferencing technology to cut down air travel
- advocating for climate energy legislation to reward reductions in carbon emissions