A change began when CEO Phil Knight made a speech in 1998; “The Nike product has become synonymous with slave wages, forced overtime, and arbitrary abuse”. Knight said “I really don’t think the American consumer wants to buy products made under abusive conditions (Phillips & Lim, 2008).
Nike then took some immediate actions and invested in improving the working conditions in its factories. They hired Maria Eitel to lead on the future of Nike’s corporate Social responsibility and created a new strategy.
Nike’s new corporate strategy is ‘to effect positive, systematic changes in working conditions within the footwear, apparel and sportswear industries’.
Within their strategy, they also say that ‘we believe that sustainable innovation that benefits the athlete, the company and the planet will play a key role in the future of our business’.
(Nike inc, FY12/13, Sustainable Business Performance Summary).

There are four levels of responsibility within Corporate Social Responsibility Pyramid.
I will now look at Nike’s CSR policy to understand the impact it has on employees and the environment and to understand if Nike inc. are achieving the four levels of responsibility.

The first level of the CSR pyramid is the economic responsibility. A businesses key objective is to make a profit, if a business is profitable, they can give back to society by providing jobs to employees and producing goods and services wanted by consumers. The goal of the company at this level of the CSR