Academics Studying Nike Web Document 

http://business.nmsu.edu/~dboje/nike.html 

PURPOSE of Academics Studying Nike

• The purpose of the Academics Studying Nike  web site is to provide resources to other Academics Studying Nike. The key issue for Academics Studying Nike is critique the research methods, research design, interpretations, and conclusions.  We hope this will aid you to sort the hype from the findings. Most studies seek to verify changes in Nike storytelling and in its labor and eco practices in response to the stories told and critiqued by academics, activists, students, and the press. They also look at whether Nike is living up to its ethical claims. And there is a growing list of academic studies, as you will find below.  For example there are academic studies using detailed methods such as Landrum, Carty, Chan, and Hancock that come to conclusions that are critical of Nike. And there are studies by academics being promoted by Nike for research methods which I think most would find questionable. An example is the Kahle et. al (2000) study based on a pre-announced Nike factory tour of one factory in Vietnam. There study replicates claims and methods used by former Ambassador Andrew Young. We can do better! Our task is to list the good, bad, and the ugly academic studies so you can sort them and draw your own conclusions.
• You can help - if you find an Academic Study of Nike please let me know (David Boje dboje@nmsu.edu ). 
•  Contrast Nike Pages with Critics' Pages. See the intertextuality, how texts respond to one another.
• INVITATION - As incoming Research Methods Division (RMD) Chair-elect of the Academy of Management I invite you to submit Research Method proposals that critique and evaluate the research methods of the Academics Studying Nike (including my own work). See homepage for details or email dboje@nmsu.edu . 

Starting Assumptions for Academics Studying Nike
1. Nike is not the only transnational corporation alleged to engage in sweatshop and toxic environmental practices. See for example, Wal-Mart, McDonalds and Disney they face similar issues in Asia, for example (press here). However, Nike maintains an active presence of denial and rebuttal and leaves a PR trail wherever it goes.

2. In addition, Nike is not an island. For example, when looking at Nike Inc., it is also important to be critical of the subcontracting firms who manage the factories and the workers, those who are daily responsible for the abuses on the shop floor (For an overview of relation of Nike and subcontractors see article series by Jeff Manning in The Oregonian press here). As Anita Chan (cf 1999, November)  reminds me "these Taiwanese and Korean manufacturers and managers are big players in their own rights." Carty's (1999) dissertation gives an excellent 3-tier analysis of Nike subcontracting. A point often missed is that in Asia, the sub-contractors sub to other factories, some with labor and ecological practices several standard deviations towards toxic and unsafe conditions. You do not find these listed on the factory tours sponsored by Nike. As more academics study Nike, they are also studying transorganizational relationships among hundreds of subcontracting firms. And we might add that Nike is not engaged in practices that different from other sneaker makers. Yet, it is Nike that leaves a trail of good and bad articles in the press. Therefore there is more data to analyze. We need to understand how this tiered and multi-layer subcontracting works. If we only verify and monitor the MODEL factories, then we miss the shell game. The shell game is canceling a sub who is discovered, opening two more that go unseen. There is money to made in keeping subs secret.

3. Richard Young (12/6/99) narrates one side of the story: "Nike has me to believe that we are still in the middle ages, where monarchies exist. Nike is a kingdom perched on the backs of peasants, in this case being Asian workers (and El Salvador and other locals), who are exploited through sub-poverty wages and sub par working conditions. The American Dream rules with Philip Knight as a puppet king. His education, birthright, and fortune allow him to kick back at his throne, while his subjects press on in these sweatshops, that his castles may flourish. He taxes his people through these low wages. A $150 million dollar redirection in a $750 million ad budget would go a long way to surpassing the poverty wage line. "The sun never sets in the Nike empire." (Curious too is the fact that when Phil Knight began Nike he was an academic teaching Accounting. He must understand how little it would take to move out of the poverty wage bracket)

"Knight should abdicate to festivalism and Ahimsa. An Ahimsa agenda would be improved labor practices, hopefully before a peasant revolt. Need to be non-violent before us peasants get violent. Shall Knight be executed as was King Henry VIII? Peasants make the world go round." (Ahimsa means non-violence.)

4. Nike has its own side to the story to tell, as do various academic researchers, journalists and activists. Nike's side of the story (press here) is that it was the first Athletic apparel firm to have a Code of Conduct, agree to monitoring, implement OSHA standards, and apply for ISO14001 certification in its overseas plants. Yet, if you read Ballinger's (1997) introduction in Behind the Swoosh: The Struggle of Indonesians Making Nike Shoes  (Ballinger & Olsson Sweden: Global Publications Foundation) - you find that Nike's code came as a response to a Congressional investigation into the sneaker industry practices in Indonesia. Nike has a very  big voice and shouts its story loudly on your Television and across the press and print media. My earlier writing is a little voice, one that sought to expose inconsistencies in faciality and conduct, but more recently I am seeking dialogue and noting the positive steps Nike is taking to find consistency between its code and conduct. See for example, Is Nike Roadrunner or Wile E. Coyote? A Postmodern Organization Analysis of Double Logic or see University of Michigan's Nike FAQ. Yet Nike does have spirit (press here). Most recently is the TIME and NIKE session at the Toronto 2000 Academy of Management Meetings. In an All Academy session several academics listed below dialogued with Amanda Tucker of Nike's Labor Practices Department. 

5. Finally, to tell both sides of the story is to point out that Nike is improving its labor and eco practices. It is not the worst of the lot of transnational producers in Asia. Nike is trying to herd its Asian subcontractors into less embarrassing labor and eco practices. I hope that my writing and this web site will be a part of academic activism as well as a way to continue to encourage Nike to walk its talk.  I take the position that Academics studying Nike's and other transnational corporate labor and eco practices helps. But to get the story straight requires better research methodology and critiques of current and past approaches.

6. Audiences hate it when I do not offer practical management suggestions (press here) for 10 irreverent Solutions to Nike's problems. 

 David Boje