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How this Athletic Apparel Industry proposal began? We began by approaching the Nike Corporation for access to a sample of factories.
The agreement we sought with Nike was to look at a coordinated university researchers' proposal began with an All Academy Showcase session on "Nike and Time" the Academy of Management Toronto Meetings, August, 2000 (See Appendix D for participants). At that Time Amanda Tucker and I discussed the research possibility outlined above. There is precedent for this proposal. Phil Knight, the CEO of Nike Corporation in a series of bold moves, invited university research of "global manufacturing and responsible business practices such as independent monitoring and health issues" in item number 6 of his speech in 1998:
"6. We will fund university research in open forums to explore issues related to global manufacturing and responsible business practices such as independent monitoring and health issues. We will begin by funding four programs in United States universities in the 1998-99 academic year, and we'll have our first public forum in October of this year in Hong Kong" (Phil Knight's speech to the National Press Club on May 12th, 1998).
We sent the proposal to Nike in October, 2000.
In February, 2001, we began responding to Amanda Tucker's (November, 2000) demands that we draft an industry wide proposal rather than just pursue Nike for permission. Ms. Tucker also indicated that permission would need to come from factory owners, the subcontractors to the Apparel Industry.
How this proposal resolves one of Athletic Apparel Industry Problems: We would therefore like to propose a joint task force between members of various academies, including, but not limited to International Academy of Business Disciplines, The Association for Accountancy and Business Affairs, Academy of Management, Administrative Sciences Association of Canada, International Association for Business and Society, Society for Business Ethics, and the American Accounting Association.
Our aim is to encourage submissions by the study group to sessions at their respective annual meetings (subject to the criteria of their normal review processes).
At this time one association, the International Academy of Business Disciplines is deciding what to contribute to the costs of the proposal and would like to co-sponsor the study.
Other associations are talking about the proposal to their boards or have at least indicated they encourage the scholarship and invite submissions. We also also seeking funds from foundations and our own universities. In this way International Academy of Business Disciplines (and other sources as they become available) can fund academic study efforts and encourage wider participation and dissemination of finding to several other academic associations.
Since our submission of the Nike proposal, we have expanded it to include Reebok, Adidas, and New Balance. The athletic footwear industry made more than $15.5 billion in domestic sales in FY 2000. Nike led the market, with almost $9 billion in revenues, which includes apparel sales. Reebok and Adidas finished second and third. New Balance Trails behind them.