Academics Studying Nike Web Document 

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

Faciality Theory

by David M. Boje

updated September 16, 2000

Below I focus more on activist and Nike, point counterpoint storytelling. This is a postmodern analysis of "faciality" theory and praxis. There are cracks in the "faciality" of the Nike Public Image. These cracks have to do with labor practices being critiqued by labor, academic, student and journalist activists.

Is There Nike GreenWashing? PR Watch, a publication of the Center for Media & Democracy Vol. 5, No. 1 / First Quarter 1998 says the following (press here for article):

• Nike Double Speak - "Philip Knight says he is doing well at a difficult job, going so far as to claim he is providing an opportunity to the workers for a better future. What better future is Knight providing? Well, it will take a woman in Vietnam sewing Nike sneakers over three decades to earn what Knight "earns" in one hour. In the upside-down world of corporate doublespeak, the Nike worker in Vietnam is on the "path to a better future," while Knight and other wealthy CEO's are the ones facing "tough times." (Source PR Watch, press here)
• Nike and Democracy- "Wherever democracy and the issue of human rights have little sway is usually where you'll find Nike."

Adbusters on Nike (press here) to see Nike adbusters ad. Adbusters home page. See also, Sweatwash: The Apparel Industry's Efforts to Co-opt Labor Rights By Julie Light December 1998 (press here).

There is good news here too. Nike continues to implement changes to improve its labor and environmental  practices.  Let us assume that if Nike knew  inhuman and questionable labor practices touted by numerous media and activist web sites were going on their contract overseas factories, they would accept as responsible corporate citizens  to correct the situation. The Activists (some scholars and journalists too) present evidence that would suggest there may actually be things going on Nike Inc. would not approve or condone, if they knew about it. From Nike's perspective it has done the right thing , such as on October 3, 1996 by setting up a Labor Practices Department (LPD) Now with 1,000 employees who fly around the world verifying that Nike's Code of Conduct is being adhered to. Headed by Dusty Kidd, the LPD also puts out press releases that attempt to deconstruct Activist studies and interpretations. But, since the release of the Ernst & Young Social and Environmental Audit report, Nike has [verbally] changed many of its practices (press here). Here I argue Nike has gone from Denial and GreenWash to Flagship Implementation in its labor and environmental practices, including application for ISO14001:
 

• Response 1 (1962 to 1990--Denial-Head in Sand  "Not our problem" blame the subcontractors. "We don't make sneakers, we design and market them. These are just not our factories." 
• Response 2 (1990-1991)--Green Gloss (Green Wash) - Public relations Campaigns "Just Do it" by making sweatshops part of an Asian country's economic development and what any multinational corporation does to compete in the global economy.
• Response 3 (1992-1993)--Strategic awareness - Just Do It is Minimal Compliance with fleeting Internal managerial recognition of need for environmental and social change in labor practices. Nike invents its code of conduct just as U.S. Congress is holding hearings about sneaker manufacturing practices in Indonesia. Nike campaigns that it is good enough for now given the cultural differences between Beaverton and Jakarta.
• Response 4 (1994-1996)--Strategic Acquisition - Proactive --Voluntary environmental and social audit -- such as hiring Ernst & Young accounting firm to verify subcontractor compliance with code of conduct. There is no data that audits were being implemented. Saying they were being done was enough. 
• Response 5 (1997-1998)--Flagship Implementation - Understands Sustainability and Accountability with 1997 release of internal Ernst & Young audit report of Vietnam factory (Tae Kwang Vina). By 1998, Phil Knight publicly changes Nike's core mission to  include green goals (such as ISO 14000 certification for all subs) and social goals (such as OSHA and micro loans), and even retires "Just Do It" image in favor of the new "I Can" Nike identity. 
• Response 6 (1999-2000)--the New I CAN! replaces "Just Do IT" which has become tainted by accelerated activist culture jamming and campus protests that echo the 1960s, and an image of hyper-competitiveness in its sports marketing (at Olympics and in contracts to sports stars and universities) that is no longer fashionable to most consumers of the "I Can" generation.

As a story researcher, what I see is the Activists, Media, and more and more Academics attempting to unravel and deconstruct Nike's speeches, reports, sponsored-studies, codes, and press releases. And, this while Nike's LPD attempts to deconstruct and dismantle the stories and interpretations of the Activists. This is the intertextual weave, an indirect dialogue between Nike and its critics. And here and there there are hopeful positive changes made by Nike in response to Academic work to unravel labor and environmental rhetoric and practices.

Nike Faciality - There is also the question of public image or what I call faciality. Here Nike has a happy smiling faciality. The face of Nike comes through in its press releases, slogans, speeches, reports and web pages. The above face looks terrific. But the faciality painted by the Activists puts a few cracks and blemishes in the perfect image of Nike.

Responses 1, 2 & 3 no longer work for Nike PR.  Activist groups seek to reframe the face of Nike and Nike seeks to reimage the face of the activists; each seeks to point out blemishes, marks, and inconsistencies. It is a strange dialogue.

In a postmodern sense it is impossible for either Nike or Activist to be consistent across time and across events as they present their public faces. Few of us ever achieve the congruence between thoughts and actions that Gandhi did. See photo of protest in front of NikeTown in Seattle (press here).

I think Nike and the Activists both aspire to that Gandhi consistency of thought, word, and action' between espoused theory and theory in use. Nike with 450 factories and 500,000 workers around the world has a difficulty task to maintain a consistent identity.

I write from the position of a postmodern ethicist attempting to sort fact from fantasy. Look for times when Nike moves from Responses 1, 2 & 3 to implementing patterns 4 & 5 in its labor and environmental practices.

How can we as scholars sort through the contesting and morphing storylines, the changing web pages, the drama, as Activist discredits Nike, then Nike discredits Activists, then both discredit the other? It is what Bakhtin and Kristeva call "carnivalesque." Nike is carnival, the theatrics and polyphonic narration of Guy Debord's spectacle. A spectacle that masks its festive potential and the darker side of its practices.  For example, Ryter, 1994:

• In the thriving, festive heart of Nike Town, the Product is divorced from production, and the Shoe-itself exists always-already created. Yet in the most distant outlying reaches of Nike Town, the Product is in fact produced by the nimble and docile bodies of female workers trained either and only to stitch or to glue, who don't have the liberty to leave their work-compounds without specific management authorization, who earn lower than subsistence wages, who are chronically malnourished, who would have to work nearly one thousand lifetimes to earn Michael Jordan's annual product endorsement fee, and who are not infrequently raped and murdered by paramilitary death squads if they attempt to organize to improve their wages and working conditions (press here).
• Nike has its side of the story, and it is a side that is in high fashion around the globe. Nike is acting to purify its tarnished faciality by changing its slogan from "Just Do It", an egocentric worship of the self to "I Can" a less win at all costs ethic. Consumers are not as reverential to sports celebrity endorsements. Michael Jordan retires - will Tiger Wood fill his sneakers? Nike seeks to reclaim its pure-white faciality with noble acts of OSHA, ISO, P.L.A.Y (participation in the Lives of America's Youth) Reuse-A-Shoe, and spectacular Shareholder Events. Nike, I think, seeks to distill its essence by getting rid of the bad news reports and moving its Shareholder meetings away from the Oregon demonstrators. Nike seeks to purify its corporate symbol and many icons. To purify its symbols, Nike is making the changes to address problems it once more vehemently denied. The Nike goddess of Victory wants to her mantle of success. This Nike goddess has been on a long journey, perhaps finding a new mission in the world.  From "Just Do It" to "I Can" make a difference in live on this planet.  Beyond "Just Do Profit" to personifying "Nike Can" actively contribute to planetary prosperity, to human and eco rights.  Nike may be moving away from egocentric "Just Do It" and "I Can" to "We Can" engage in socially and ecologically responsible planetary capitalism.

I am also writing articles and giving academic presentations to encourage Nike to pay living wages to its Asian workers, develop less toxic work conditions, and embody its Code of Conduct. The conditions are the subject of a major Ernst & Young accounting study. (See also, Nike and GreenWash Accounting Practices press here). It is the responsibility of academics in a free society to encourage corporations to conduct themselves in a socially and ecologically ethical responsible manner.  I am encouraged to see Nike making positive changes in implementing Responses 4 & 5. I am also encouraged to see other academics do critical studies of Nike storytelling.