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Social and Ethical Responsibilities

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Social and Ethical Responsibilities
Jaime Nightingale

Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Apple and Nike
Corporate Responsibility Acts In the corporate world, companies must act responsibly in ways that go beyond the general goal of making money. Social and Ethical responsibility has grown from years before and has became a priority to growing companies in America. Meaning that the company must follow general rules such as consider broad impacts of their decisions and who they’re going to offend and that the corporation must have the enlightened self interest to improve society. In light of these kinds of social responsibilities, Nike released its first Corporate Social responsibility report in 2004. Nike was late joining the social responsibility act, but Steve Jobs (owner of Apple), had already established his social and ethical responsibilities. A lot of people think that these responsibilities are only important when it comes to the way the company markets their product and if they’re offending anybody, but not only does the marketing count, but labor practices make a huge difference. The way that a company treats their employees and industrial workers is very important too. Nike & Apple: Social and Ethical Responsibility In the 90’s Nike was practically being looked at under a microscope for their labor practices, and received heavy criticism for it. The major debate all occurred from the way that Nike was treating its workers. People were outraged at the way Nike was treating their workers, the company was now known for forcing children to slave away in hazardous conditions for much below minimum wage. Factory workers were forced to work exceptionally long hours to fill quotas and had to follow very strict rules. Nike was paying their workers in Vietnam $1.60 a day when the average living cost for one day is $3. Aside from their low pay, a majority of workers were found with skin and breathing problems that were being forced to work in areas of the company where toxic fumes

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